The shocking, true story of Pennsylvania mass murderer Michael Ballard who received the death sentence for his crimes—includes eight pages of dramatic photos.Out of controlJune 26, 2010. A Pennsylvania State Trooper, heading home from work, witnesses a car speeding and crashing into trees. Stopping to help, he finds that the driver, Michael Ballard, is alive—and drenched in blood. When asked what happened, the man answers: “I just killed everybody.”Out of his mindNot far from the accident, police make a gruesome discovery in the home of Michael’s ex-girlfriend, Denise Mehri. Four bodies are found, stabbed repeatedly with a knife: Denise on the kitchen floor; her grandfather, in his wheelchair; her neighbor, who tried to help; and her father, in a room with a blood-smeared obscenity painted on the wall. How could anyone do something so sinister?Out of time . . .Michael had already been convicted of murder when he was only eighteen. Despite several misconducts during his time in prison, he was found suitable for parole shortly after his minimum sentence lapsed. But this time, his deadly rampage would not be so easily pardoned. From authors Colin McEvoy and Lynn Olanoff, this is the shocking true story about four innocent people who fell prey to one man’sFatal jealousy.

“Generous, expansive, alarming, fantastical, perverse, humane, beautiful and ugly, provisional and incomplete: here finally is a portrait that reflects the messy contours of 20th-century classical music.” (Literary Review)Sound Within Sound presents an alternative history of 20th-century composers—nearly all of them women or composers of color—by a leading international music critic. Profiling a dozen pioneering 20th-century composers—including American modernist Ruth Crawford Seeger (mother of Pete and Peggy Seeger), French electronic artist E?liane Radigue, Soviet visionary Galina Ustvolskaya, and Ethiopian pianist Emahoy Tsegue?-Maryam Gue?brou—acclaimed journalist and BBC broadcaster Kate Molleson reexamines the canon while bringing to life largely forgotten sonic revolutionaries whose dramatic lives and bursts of creativity played out against a backdrop of seismic geopolitical and social change.These composers, working at a remove from London, Paris, Vienna, and New York, were sidelined and ignored for systemic, structural reasons. This is a landmark alternative history of 20th-century composers; a radical, new, and truly global work of revisionist history. It is a campaigning book that challenges the status quo while introducing you to a world of groundbreaking music.The music history traditionally taught is one dominated by white men, and even then, only a select few enter the zeitgeist. This conventional history perpetuates the myth of “great works” created by “genius” artists. Men who enjoyed institutional privilege during their lifetimes and have since been enshrined by an industry of publishers and record labels.But just because we haven’t heard of spectacular female composers doesn’t mean they weren’t creating essential music.

A husband’s anguish, a son’s suspicion, a killer’s secret. The true crime account of Jeffrey Gorton, the Michigan murderer who lived under the radar.   In 1991, flight attendant Nancy Ludwig checked in to an airport hotel near Detroit. The next morning she was found gagged, raped, and tortured—her throat slit with such rage that she was nearly decapitated. Her husband Arthur never gave up hope that the future would bring enough evidence to close the case. But it was the past that held the clue.   In 1985, fifty-five-year old Margarette Eby, a music professor, met the same grisly death at her cottage in Flint, Michigan. The case went cold—until six years later when the victim’s son Mark came upon the story of Nancy Ludwig’s slaying. With nothing to go on but intuition, he called authorities, certain that the same fiend committed both crimes.   A cunning sting operation yielded irrefutable DNA evidence, and authorities were led to the home of respected navy veteran Jeffrey Gorton living quietly with his wife and two children. But his cold-blooded secrets were only beginning to come to light, leaving fears that there were more victims yet to be found in a killing spree that had finally come to an end. Blood Justice shows veteran reporter and author Tom Henderson at the top of his game.  ***Please note: This ebook edition does not contain the photos found in the print edition.***

The true crime story of the Gilded Age revenge killing that shocked New York City and the world—from a New York Times–bestselling author.“A terrifically entertaining work of popular history: swiftly paced, richly evocative, engrossing from the first page.” —Wall Street JournalIn 1901 Evelyn Nesbit, a sixteen-year-old chorus girl in the musical Florodora, dined alone with the architect Stanford White in his town house on 24th Street in New York City. White was forty-seven, the foremost architect of his day, and a celebrity responsible for designing numerous landmark buildings in Manhattan. That evening, after drinking champagne, Nesbit lost consciousness and awoke to find herself naked in bed with White, who had raped her.Evelyn spoke of it to no one until, sever years later, she confided in Harry Thaw, the millionaire playboy who would become her husband. Thaw, thirsting for revenge, shot and killed White in 1906 before hundreds of theatergoers during a performance at Madison Square Garden. The trial was a sensation that gripped the nation. Most Americans agreed that Thaw was justified in killing White, but the city’s district attorney expected to send him to the electric chair. Evelyn Nesbit’s testimony was so explicit and shocking that President Theodore Roosevelt himself called on the newspapers not to print it. The Girl on the Velvet Swing is a tale of glamour, excess, and danger—an immersive, fascinating look at the murder that made the Gilded Age and the trial that shocked the world.“Baatz has resurrected a forgotten saga of lust, lucre and lunacy that would seem improbable if it were merely fiction. . . . This true-life theater is packed with action [and] surprises.” ?David Holahan, USA Today“Simon Baatz has written a wickedly enjoyable book that enthralled me from start to finish. This multifaceted tale, rendered with an expert’s touch, encompasses the aspirations and vices of an entire era.” ?Laurence Bergreen, author of Capone