Recommendations based on "Torso A True Crime Graphic Novel"

Dive into this “truly compelling” (Good Morning America) New York Times bestseller that explores how technology and best intentions collide in the heat of war—from the creator and host of the podcast Revisionist History. In The Bomber Mafia, Malcolm Gladwell weaves together the stories of a Dutch genius and his homemade computer, a band of brothers in central Alabama, a British psychopath, and pyromaniacal chemists at Harvard to examine one of the greatest moral challenges in modern American history.Most military thinkers in the years leading up to World War II saw the airplane as an afterthought. But a small band of idealistic strategists, the “Bomber Mafia,” asked: What if precision bombing could cripple the enemy and make war far less lethal?In contrast, the bombing of Tokyo on the deadliest night of the war was the brainchild of General Curtis LeMay, whose brutal pragmatism and scorched-earth tactics in Japan cost thousands of civilian lives, but may have spared even more by averting a planned US invasion. In The Bomber Mafia, Gladwell asks, “Was it worth it?”Things might have gone differently had LeMay’s predecessor, General Haywood Hansell, remained in charge. Hansell believed in precision bombing, but when he and Curtis LeMay squared off for a leadership handover in the jungles of Guam, LeMay emerged victorious, leading to the darkest night of World War II. The Bomber Mafia is a riveting tale of persistence, innovation, and the incalculable wages of war.

Jon Krakauer’s literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits. In UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN, he shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief within our own borders. At the core of his book is an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon Fundamentalist brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a revelation from God commanding them to kill their blameless victims. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this“divinely inspired” crime, Krakauer constructs a multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion,savage violence, polygamy, and unyielding faith. Along the way, he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America’s fastest-growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.Krakauer takes readers inside isolated communities in the American West, Canada, andMexico, where some forty-thousand Mormon Fundamentalists believe the mainstream Mormon Church went unforgivably astray when it renounced polygamy. Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the leaders of these outlaw sects are zealots who answer only to God. Marrying prodigiously and with virtual impunity (the leader of the largest fundamentalist church took seventy-five “plural wives,” several of whom were wed to him when they were fourteen or fifteen and he was in his eighties), fundamentalist prophets exercise absolute control over the lives of their followers, and preach that any day now the world will be swept clean in a hurricane of fire, sparing only their most obedient adherents.Weaving the story of the Lafferty brothers and their fanatical brethren with a clear-eyed look at Mormonism’s violent past, Krakauer examines the underbelly of the most successful homegrown faith in the United States, and finds a distinctly American brand of religious extremism. The result is vintage Krakauer, an utterly compelling work of nonfiction that illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behavior.

Forensic Anthropology: Current Methods and Practice―winner of a 2015 Textbook Excellence Award (Texty) from The Text and Academic Authors Association―approaches forensic anthropology through an innovative style using current practices and real case studies drawn from the varied experiences, backgrounds, and practices of working forensic anthropologists. This text guides the reader through all aspects of human remains recovery and forensic anthropological analysis, presenting principles at a level that is appropriate for those new to the field, while at the same time incorporating evolutionary, biomechanical, and other theoretical foundations for the features and phenomena encountered in forensic anthropological casework.Attention is focused primarily on the most recent and scientifically valid applications commonly employed by working forensic anthropologists. Readers will therefore learn about innovative techniques in the discipline, and aspiring practitioners will be prepared by understanding the necessary background needed to work in the field today. Instructors and students will find Forensic Anthropology: Current Methods and Practice comprehensive, practical, and relevant to the modern discipline of forensic anthropology. Winner of a 2015 Most Promising New Textbook Award from the Text and Academic Authors Association Focuses on modern methods, recent advances in research and technology, and current challenges in the science of forensic anthropology Addresses issues of international relevance such as the role of forensic anthropology in mass disaster response and human rights investigations Includes chapter summaries, topicoriented case studies, keywords, and reflective questions to increase active student learning

Draws on more than three hundred interviews--with survivors, victims' families, investigators, and convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh--to examine the full story of the Oklahoma City bombing.

The murders of four innocent college students attending the University of Idaho left us with so many questions. Now, after over 300 interviews, James Patterson and prize-winning journalist Vicky Ward finally have some answers.We know what it was like to live in Moscow, Idaho, on November 13, 2022, the day of the cold-blooded killings.We know what the local police and FBI did right. And what they did wrong.We’ve learned so much about the four heartbroken families—the Mogens, Goncalves, Kernodles, and Chapins.And we have the backstory for Bryan Kohberger, brilliant grad student, loner, apparent incel—now indicted and facing trial.Now you are the jury.The evidence is in.

From the author of the critically-acclaimed true crime account, A Killer By Design (the inspiration behind Hulu's original docuseries, Mastermind), a groundbreaking look into the crucial role played by expert witnesses in the most high-profile criminal cases, based on Dr. Ann Burgess' personal experiences within the criminal justice system. Written through Burgess' singular lens of compassion and lived experience, Expert Witness pulls back the curtain on some of the biggest cases in the last thirty years--from Bill Cosby to the Menendez brothers to Larry Nassar--to reveal the deeply human stories behind the trials that have captivated a nation. The book explores the role of expert witnesses in high stakes court cases, offering first-hand accounts and never-before-seen interviews with attorneys, victims, and offenders. Expert Witness places readers inside the mind of the nation's most prominent courtroom expert, following Burgess as she takes on one seismic case after the next. Throughout the narrative, each case deepens the reader's understanding of the art and science of expert testimony, taking readers from the women's movement of the 1970s to the #MeToo movement of today--one of the largest social reckonings in recent history. At its core, Expert Witness is a story of empowerment. It's a story of compassion and the ever-increasing need for individuals to stand up and speak truth to power or to popular opinion. And it's ultimately a story of how revolutionary one voice can be.

From a skeleton, a skull, a mere fragment of burnt thighbone, prominent forensic anthropologist Dr. William Maples can deduce the age, gender, and ethnicity of a murder victim, the manner in which the person was dispatched, and, ultimately, the identity of the killer. In Dead Men Do Tell Tales, Dr. Maples revisits his strangest, most interesting, and most horrific investigations, from the baffling cases of conquistador Francisco Pizarro and Vietnam MIAs to the mysterious deaths of President Zachary Taylor and the family of Czar Nicholas II.

The truth is in here! The ultimate guide to the supernatural phenomena featured on The X-Files. Some of the most compelling fiction ever presented on television—and on the movie screen—The X-Files remains a groundbreaking phenomenon. But even more extraordinary and chilling is the truth behind the stories. The X-Files Book of the Unexplained is a fully illustrated, in-depth guide to the real-life mysteries of the paranormal that inspired the episodes—featuring more than seven hundred pages of behind-the-scenes photographs, interviews with the X-Files cast and creative team, and astonishing revelations from the world's leading paranormal investigators and scientists. A massive and fascinating compendium of the truly strange, it covers every aspect of the unexplained—UFO sightings and alien encounters, government cover-ups, psychic crime solving, spontaneous combustion, feral humans, freaks of nature, ghosts and hauntings, and much, much more—examining the legends, conspiracies, urban mythologies, weird histories, and astonishing backgrounds behind the tales that chilled and thrilled us. The truth is stranger than fiction.

This is an account of industrialized killing from a participant's point of view. The author, political scientist Timothy Pachirat, was employed undercover for five months in a Great Plains slaughterhouse where 2,500 cattle were killed per day—one every twelve seconds. Working in the cooler as a liver hanger, in the chutes as a cattle driver, and on the kill floor as a food-safety quality-control worker, Pachirat experienced firsthand the realities of the work of killing in modern society. He uses those experiences to explore not only the slaughter industry but also how, as a society, we facilitate violent labor and hide away that which is too repugnant to contemplate.Through his vivid narrative and ethnographic approach, Pachirat brings to life massive, routine killing from the perspective of those who take part in it. He shows how surveillance and sequestration operate within the slaughterhouse and in its interactions with the community at large. He also considers how society is organized to distance and hide uncomfortable realities from view. With much to say about issues ranging from the sociology of violence and modern food production to animal rights and welfare, Every Twelve Seconds is an important and disturbing work.

When he was arrested in July 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer had a severed head in the fridge, two more in the freezer and two skulls and a skeleton in a filing cabinet. Examining what caused Dahmer to kill and kill again, Masters investigates the darker side of the human psyche.