Episodes

  • Michael Benson - Filthy Murders : In the Era of Jack the Ripper

    Michael Benson - Filthy Murders : In the Era of Jack the Ripper
    Feb 14 2024
    A tremendous history lesson and essential reading for everyone in the Rochester area. You'll recognize the locations and find interest in how those places looked 140 years ago. Book tells the story of five murders, all taking place in the City of Rochester, N.Y., during the latter decades of the nineteenth century. The first story, which takes up the first half of the book, is about the home invasion murder of a young wife and mother. Her body is found in the cellar, a flour sack tied tightly around her neck and her skirts hiked up. At first, of course, the husband was arrested, amid rumors that he and his wife, along with another couple, were swingers. But he was released in favor of a preferable suspect, a damaged young tramp who'd been floating around the Hayward Avenue neighborhood looking for food. In another story, the resort town of Charlotte (that's Cha'LOT to Rochesterians) where the rich went to play along the crystal clear waters of Lake Ontario. At night it was where the pick pockets and the thugs went to fleece drunks who still had money in their pockets. After our victim checks into a hotel for the night complaining he'd been mugged, he dies overnight from brain swelling. Who bonked him on the head. The answer seems to come the next day when a man is going around trying to sell the victim's watch. In another story, brother kills brother. Book spans the last years of the gallows in Monroe County, and the first of the new-fangled electric chair.

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    9 mins
  • Neil R. Storey - Bram Stoker

    Neil R. Storey - Bram Stoker
    Oct 4 2023

    Bram Stoker: Author of Dracula is an affectionate and revealing biography of the man who created the vampire novel that would define the genre and lead to a new age in Gothic horror literature.


    Based on decades of painstaking research in libraries, museums, and university archives and privileged access to private collections on both sides of the Atlantic, the private letters of Bram and the reminiscences of those who knew him not only shed new light on Stoker's ancestry, his life, loves and friendships they also reveal more about the places and people who inspired him and how he researched and wrote his books. Bram wrote numerous articles, short stories and poetry for newspapers and magazines, he had a total of eleven novels and two collections of short stories published in his lifetime, but he would only become known for one of them – Dracula. Tragically, he did not live long enough to see it as a huge success.


    In his heyday as Acting Manager for Sir Henry Irving at the Lyceum Theatre in the West End of London, Bram was a well-known figure in a golden age of British theater. He was a big-framed, ebullient, genial, gentleman, with red hair and beard, who never lost his soft Irish brogue, was blessed with wit, and a host of entertaining stories fit for every occasion. Described as having the paw of Hercules and the smile of Machiavelli, above all he knew what it meant to be a loyal friend.


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    47 mins
  • Michael L. Hawley - Dr. Francis Tumblety & The Railway Ripper

    Michael L. Hawley - Dr. Francis Tumblety & The Railway Ripper
    Sep 20 2023
    Undetected by the FBI for three decades until the turn of the twenty-first century, a handful of elusive, transient long-haul trucker serial killers had been murdering hundreds of sex workers and hitchhikers along major US highways. This was not the first time innocent victims were attacked along major US interstate thoroughfares. Nearly lost to history was a similar pattern of carnage that occurred in the late nineteenth century. No less than thirty-nine unsolved murders and nearly forty brutal assaults of women were committed in the United States, but instead of along major highways, these heinous crimes were committed along the railways. At the time, the attacks were termed ‘mysterious,’ since they seemed to be motiveless—meaning there was no evidence of the usual rape or robbery. In cases where an assailant or suspicious person was spotted, his physical description was the same: tall, middle-aged, and wearing a specific gray overcoat. Shockingly, one of Scotland Yard’s prime Jack the Ripper suspects cannot be eliminated as having committed each of these Stateside crimes. That suspect was the tall, transient hater of women, Dr. Francis Tumblety.

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    53 mins
  • Angela Buckley - The Real Sherlock Holmes

    Angela Buckley - The Real Sherlock Holmes
    Dec 29 2022
    On 6 December 1886, Arthur Foster leaves the Queen's Theatre, Manchester with a pocket full of gold and a lady bedecked with diamonds on his arm. He hails a hansom cab unaware that a detective has been trailing him as he crisscrossed the streets of the city. As the cab pulls away, the detective slips inside and arrests the infamous 'Birmingham Forger.' The detective is Jerome Caminada, legendary policeman and real-life Victorian super-sleuth. A master of disguise with a keen eye for detail and ingenious methods of detection, Caminada is at the top of his game, tracking notorious criminals through the seedy streets of Manchester's underworld. Relentless in his pursuit, he stalks pickpockets and poisoners, unscrupulous con artists and cold blooded murderers. His groundbreaking detective work leads to the unravelling of classic crime cases such as the Hackney Carriage Murder in 1889, secret government missions and a deadly confrontation with his arch-rival, a ruthless and violent thief. Caminada's compelling story bears all the hallmarks of Arthur Conan Doyle and establishes this indefatigable investigator as one of the most formidable detectives of the Victorian era and The Real Sherlock Holmes.As seen in The Sunday Telegraph, The Sunday Express, The Times, La Stampa and Lancashire Life.Also featured in Discover Your History Magazine.

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    46 mins
  • Leslie Klinger - Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

    Leslie Klinger - Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
    Dec 23 2022

    There’s no question that The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is one of the most influential texts of all time. The now-iconic tale, which has confounded and thrilled readers for more than a century, was described by one scholar as the only detective-crime story in which the solution is more terrifying than the problem. And even as its plot gets continually reinterpreted and reimagined in literature, film, and theater, the main themes persist, as do the titular characters, now so familiar as to have become a part of the English language.


    This new edition gives the classic tale of depraved murder and unrelenting horror its most complete and illuminating presentation yet. Heavily illustrated with over a hundred and fifty full color images from the history of this cultural touchstone—including reproductions of rare books, film stills, theatrical posters, and the true-life people associated with the adventure—and extensively annotated by Edgar Award winning editor and noted Victorian literature expert Leslie S. Klinger, this thorough and authoritative approach is both an invaluable resource for scholars and a sumptuous treat for fans of the text.


    Introduced by a compelling and erudite essay from bestselling novelist and short story writer Joe Hill, this complete illustrated and annotated edition of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the ultimate tribute to an enduring classic, combining revelatory and surprising information and in-depth historical context with beautiful illustrations and photographs. It is sure to please anyone interested in the Victorian era, mystery fiction, and horror tales.


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    52 mins
  • Simon Daryl Wood - Deconstructing Jack

    Simon Daryl Wood - Deconstructing Jack
    Dec 23 2022

    Jack the Ripper did not exist.


    This second, expanded, edition of Simon Daryl Wood's award-winning book continues to reveal the endless stream of lies, invention, political misinformation, self-publicity and opportunism which has kept this Victorian bogeyman alive in the darkest reaches of our 21st Century imaginations. It introduces characters many readers may not have encountered before, takes a closer look at some of Ripperology's sacred texts, and provides additional facts, allowing for a better understanding of the people, places and events surrounding the Whitechapel murders of 1888.


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    57 mins
  • Robert J. Harris - Sherlock Holmes

    Robert J. Harris - Sherlock Holmes
    Dec 23 2022

    London, 1942.


    A killer going by the name of “Crimson Jack” is stalking the wartime streets of London, murdering women on the exact dates of the infamous Jack the Ripper killings of 1888. Has the Ripper somehow returned from the grave? Is the self-styled Crimson Jack a descendant of the original Jack—or merely a madman obsessed with those notorious killings?


    In desperation Scotland Yard turn to Sherlock Holmes, the world's greatest detective. Surely he is the one man who can sift fact from legend to track down Crimson Jack before he completes his tally of death. As Holmes and the faithful Watson tread the blacked out streets of London, death waits just around the corner.


    Inspired by the classic film series from Universal Pictures starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, which took Sherlock Holmes to the 1940s, this is a brand-new adventure from a talented author who brilliantly evokes one of mystery fiction’s most popular characters.


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    45 mins
  • Richard T. Ryan - The Poisoned Pawn: A Sherlock Holmes Adventure

    Richard T. Ryan - The Poisoned Pawn: A Sherlock Holmes Adventure
    Dec 21 2022

    A quiet morning at Baker Street is thrown into turmoil by the arrival of Inspector Lestrade who informs Holmes a man's body has been discovered in the Tower Bridge which was then under construction. That grisly event proves to be the opening salvo in a terrifying game of wits between Holmes and an unknown adversary.


    Determined to make Sherlock Holmes suffer, the ruthless foe launches a campaign of terror against the Great Detective. However, instead of striking at Holmes directly, this nemesis targets those in the Great Detective's limited circle of friends and acquaintances.


    Stymied, Holmes must first ascertain why he has been targeted because he cannot retaliate until he discovers who is behind this persecution.


    With moves and countermoves, gambits declined and accepted, the struggle soon evolves into a human chess game between Holmes and a grandmaster of evil - where each move might have untold consequences on the lives and reputations of those on both sides.


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    51 mins