An investigative reporter's account of Phyllis Iannotta's life which he pieced together after her brutal murder in New York's Hell's Kitchen.

Tired of fending off street thugs and worried about the day they can no longer take care of themselves, three elderly widows, Josie, Mabel and Mil, concoct the perfect plan for ensuring their safety, which will also guarantee them free room and board for life. As grocery bag-covered bodies begin turning up in Southern California, police and the media are stumped. Detectives assigned to the case, Paige Turner and Mark Wisneski, wonder what weird new serial killer is on the loose. The victims are mostly drug addicts and small-time crooks, but why the grocery bags? The bodies pile up until the widows invite Turner and Wisneski to tea, where they tell all. What they reveal shocks the world and could lead to the widows' master plan seriously backfiring. Life on the streets and in prison will never be the same.

A shopping bag lady disappears and murder is suspected. A boy and a girl who saw a figure threatening the victim in an alley fear the murderer may be someone they know.

Within the formulas of crime fiction, this collection ranges from writers Daphne du Maurier and Margery Allingham, whose names are synonymous with conventional subgenres of crime fiction, through Patricia Highsmith, and Shirley Jackson, who deliberately set conventions aside or who moved those conventions into other realms. Most important, perhaps, Jackson, Highsmith and E. X. Ferrars depict civilizations that are not essentially orderly, that are not founded upon a commonly understood concept of justice--where one must make her own order.

Inspector Gallagher is not surprised to learn that Sister Mary Helen is once again in the middle of a homicide case and gets increasingly frustrated when her investigation seems to go better than his.

For the first time in one place, Roger M. Sobin has compiled a list of nominees and award winners of virtually every mystery award ever presented. He has also included many of the “best of” lists by more than fifty of the most important contributors to the genre.; Mr. Sobin spent more than two decades gathering the data and lists in this volume, much of that time he used to recheck the accuracy of the material he had collected. Several of the “best of” lists appear here for the first time in book form. Several others have been unavailable for a number of years.; Of special note, are Anthony Boucher’s “Best Picks for the Year.” Boucher, one of the major mystery reviewers of all time, reviewed for The San Francisco Chronicle, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and The New York Times. From these resources Mr. Sobin created “Boucher’s Best” and “Important Lists to Consider,” lists that provide insight into important writing in the field from 1942 through Boucher’s death in 1968.? This is a great resource for all mystery readers and collectors.; ; Winner of the 2008 Macavity Awards for Best Mystery Nonfiction.