Known for meticulously researched and brilliantly detailed accounts of horrific true crime legends, Harold Schechter takes readers inside the very heart and mind of true evil. As an infant, Earle Leonard Nelson possessed the power to unsettle his elders. As a child he was unnaturally obsessed with the Bible; before he reached puberty, he had an insatiable, aberrant sex drive. By his teens, even Earle's own family had reason to fear him. But no one in the bone-chilling winter of 1926 could have predicted his degeneracy would erupt into a sixteen-month frenzy of savage rape, barbaric murder, and unimaginable defilement - deeds that would become hallmarks of one of the most notorious fiends of the Twentieth century, whose blood-lust would not be equaled until the likes of Henry Lee Lucas, John Wayne Gacy, and Jeffrey Dahmer.

About the Author
Harold Schechter is a professor of American literature and culture. Renowned for his true-crime writing, he is the author of the nonfiction books Fatal, Fiend, Bestial, Deviant, Deranged, Depraved, and, with David Everitt, The A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. He is also the author of Nevermore and The Hum Bug, the acclaimed historical novels featuring Edgar Allan Poe. He lives in New York State.

Reviews
The Boston Book Review America's foremost pop historian of serial murder.
The Boston Book Review Yet another essential addition to Schechter's canon of serial murder history...deserves to be read and pored over by the hard-crime enthusiast as well as devotees of social history.
Journal Star (Peoria, IL) [A] deftly written, unflinching account....A fascinating police procedural....Schechter's macabre stories unfold like finely-tuned crime novels...well-documented nightmares for anyone who dares to look.



Book Information
ISBN 9780671732189
Author Harold Schechter
Format Paperback
Page Count 352
Imprint Gallery
Publisher Simon & Schuster
Weight(grams) 351g
Dimensions(mm) 235mm * 156mm * 25mm