Edgar Award Finalist

The true story of a string of brutal crimes committed in the name of religious fanaticism and racial hatred in 1970s San Francisco.

“Repellent but riveting.” —Kirkus Reviews

While a majority of research can agree on five canonical victims of Jack the Ripper, it’s impossible to say just how many were slain by his hand. Two experts on the case look back on unsolved murders of the era which hold strong resemblance to the gruesome Ripper slayings.

“When it comes to the meticulous details of a murder, the minute-by-minute examination of a crime and its policing, Messrs. Begg and Bennett are the very best in the true-crime genre.”—Judith Flanders, Wall Street Journal

The Crowes’ neighbors in San Diego’s North County were shocked by the savagery of the crime—a young girl murdered, stabbed repeatedly, in her own bed. The lack of any evidence of forced entry led the Escondido police to believe someone in the family was responsible for 12-year-old Stephanie Crowe’s slaying. The investigation quickly zeroed in on the victim’s older brother, Michael, and two teenage friends. Through efficient, by-the-book police work, the boys were broken down and ultimately confessed. The only problem was the detectives had gotten everything wrong.

In this haunting, true-crime saga, two wealthy British heiresses, Claire and Dora Williamson, arrive at a Pacific Northwest sanitarium in 1911 to undergo the "fasting treatment" of self-proclaimed expert Dr. Linda Burfield Hazzard. However, what was supposed to be a holiday quickly descends into a nightmare at the place locals called Starvation Heights, where the sisters become emaciated victims of Hazzard's brutal treatments and murderous greed.