According to all the sexist clichés, women are nurturers, not murderers. But women do kill … and when they do, the results are devastating.
A masterpiece of pure trashy tabloid fun, California’s Deadliest Women is the definitive guide to the murderesses of the Golden State, a horrifying compendium of women driven to kill by jealousy, greed, desperation, or their own inner demons.
California’s Deadliest Women presents 28 mini-tragedies — sardonic, tightly written profiles of some of the most ghastly crimes ever committed in California. Each lethal vignette presents a murderer’s early life, thecircumstances that drove her to murder, her detection, her punishment, and the aftermath of her terrible deeds, plus quirky, disturbing caricatures of the killers by artist Olaf Jens.
The murderers in California’s Deadliest Women aren’t passive instruments of male masterminds, like the women of the Manson Family. These are women who got their hands bloody, personally killing their victims, who often were their own husbands, lovers or children.
From Brynn Hartman, who killed her husband, comedian Phil Hartman, to chemist Larissa Shuster, who dissolved her husband in acid, to dominatirix Omaima Aree Nelson, who cooked and ate her husband, the killers profiled in California’s Deadliest Women show that the fairer sex can be as evil — and as deadly — as any man.
The stories in California’s Deadliest Women are shocking and lurid, but also filled with compassion for victim and murderer alike. There are no heroes in this book and no happy endings. The crimes are so bizarre, so puzzling, so corrupt, so disgusting, so gory, so inhumane and so despicable that they are unforgettable … and perversely fascinating and entertaining.
Audience: True crime readers, California history readers, and lovers of the bizarre.
About the Author: David Kulczyk (pronounced Coal-check) is a Sacramento-based crime historian. His
previous books include California Justice (2008), Death in California (2009) and California Fruits, Flakes and Nuts (2013), all available from Craven Street Books.
$14.95 ($18.95 Canada) • Trade Paperback •
6" x 9" • 140 pages
ISBN 978-1-61035-280-2
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$18.95 $11.37 |
With long forgotten stories and evocative photographs, the book showcases the once-familiar sites that have faded into dim memories and hazy legends.
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$18.95 $11.37 |
Kim Steinhardt and Gary Griggs The Pacific coast is the most iconic region of California and one of the most fascinating and rapidly changing places in the world. Densely populated, urbanized, and industrialized—and also home to complex, fragile ecosystems—the coast is the place where humanity and nature coexist in a precarious balance that is never perfectly stable. The Edge is a dramatic snapshot of the California coast’s past, present, and probable future in a time of climate change and expanding human activity. Written by two marine experts who grew up on the coast, The Edge is both an appreciation of the coast’s natural and cultural uniqueness and a warning of the changes that threaten that uniqueness. As ocean levels rise, coastal communities are starting to erode, and entire neighborhoods have been lost to the sea. Coastal ecosystems and wildlife that were already stressed by human settlement now face new dangers. Fisheries, oil drilling, recreation, housing and environmental advocates compete to define the future of the region. A masterful and sweeping synthesis of environmental and social science, The Edge presents a comprehensive portrait of the history, people, communities, industries, ecology, and wildlife of the coast.
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$17.95 $10.77 |
The biography of Charles de Foucauld, a French nobleman who put off the trappings of nobility and a career in the military to take on the ascetic life of a desert priest. An amazing story of self discipline, courage and self sacrifice. Foucauld transformed himself from a high living nobleman to a desert priest who found his life work in the deep Sahara.
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$16.95 $10.17 |
This is W. H. Hudson's classic narrative of rural life in Wiltshire, England, in the late 1800s. Originally published in 1910, this remarkable book transports the reader to the vast downs of the Salisbury Plain--the domain of the shepherd, who lived a life that had changed little for centuries, yet was now confronting the inexorable approach of the modern world. This work vividly captures life at that particular time and place, and is primarily centered around telling the tale of a particular shepherd, Caleb Bawcombe, and relating his many anecdotes. Seemingly every subject related to a shepherd?s work and life, from his beloved sheep dog, to his often strained relationship to the local landowner, is discussed.
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$18.95 $11.37 |
Volume III: Stories include Firebaugh, Selma, Hanford, Fresno, Dunlap, Coalinga, Madera, Kingsburg, Fowler, Oakhurst, Mariposa
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$24.95 $14.97 |
Subtitle: Valley Veterans Remember World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War. The San Joaquin Valley?s rich history of courage, military service, duty and honor is preserved for future generations in Janice Stevens? new book Stories of Service, Volume II: Valley Veterans Remember World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War (Craven Street Books, November 2011). In this fascinating sequel to Stevens? original Stories of Service, ordinary soldiers, sailors, airmen and civilians from the Valley tell in their own words their experiences during a half century of armed conflict. The one hundred personal memoirs in Stories of Service, Volume II record Valley veterans? trials, tragedies and triumphs from Pearl Harbor to the Mekong Delta. These are stories of harrowing combat, separation from loved ones, survival in POW camps, boredom, fear, bravery, victory and returning home ? plus all the bizarre, incongruous and humorous events of wartime and military service.