Everyone loves a good villain! From the back pages of history, vivid, entertaining portraits of little-known scoundrels whose misdeeds range from the simply inept to the truly horrifying.Even if you're an avid history buff, you've probably never heard of this disreputable cast of characters: A drunken, ne'er-do-well cop who abandoned his post at Ford's Theatre, giving assassin John Wilkes Booth unchallenged access to President Lincoln; a notorious Kansas quack who made millions by implanting billy goat testicles in gullible male patients; and America's worst female serial killer ever. These are three of the memorable but little-known rogues profiled in this eye-opening and entertaining book.Dividing his profiles into three categories--villains, scoundrels, and rogues--author and former National Geographic editor Paul Martin serves up concise, colorful biographies of thirty of America's most outrageous characters. Whether readers choose to be horrified by the story of Ed Gein, Alfred Hitchcock's hideous inspiration for Psycho, or marvel at the clever duplicity of the con artist who originated the phony bookie operation portrayed in The Sting, there's something here for everyone.Brimming with audacious, unforgettable characters often overlooked by standard history books, this page-turner is a must for anyone with an interest in the varieties of human misbehavior.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
VILLAINS:
Merchant of Misery—James DeWolf
The Cutthroat Captain of Cave-In-Rock—Samuel Mason
Architect of a Tragedy—John Chivington
The Late, Unlamented Little Pete—Fong Ching
The Killer They Called Hell’s Belle—Belle Sorensen Gunness
Partners in Perfidy—Isaac Harris and Max Blanck
Chicago’s Florist-Mobster—Dean O’Banion
A Huckster’s Rise and Fall—John Brinkley
Hitchcock’s Hideous Inspiration—Ed Gein
SCOUNDRELS:
Salem’s Rabid Witch-Hunter—William Stoughton
Uncle Daniel the “Speckerlator”—Daniel Drew
Unleashing the James-Younger Gang—James Lane
Lincoln’s Missing Bodyguard—John Parker
Squirrel Tooth Alice—Libby Thompson
The Lawman Who Went Bad—Burt Alvord
The Very Mellow Yellow Kid—Joseph Weil
You Bet Your Life—Alvin Thomas
Keeper of the Immaculate Sperm—Charles Davenport
The Silken Voice of Treachery—Mildred Gillars
ROGUES:
Who’s that Rapping On My Floor?—Maggie and Kate Fox
The Witch of Wall Street—Hetty Green
King of the Cannibal Islands—David O’Keefe
Master Salesman of a Dubious Legend—Herbert Bridgman
The Consummate Gold Digger—Peggy Hopkins Joyce
The Mad, Sad Poet of Greenwich Village—Maxwell Bodenheim
The Bifurcated Congressman—Samuel Dickstein
The Frugal Counterfeiter—Emerich Juettner
Imperfect Pitch—Don Lapre
