The Last Days of Cleveland: And More True Tales of Crime and Disaster from Cleveland's Past Paperback - 2010

From the publisher

"Heroes and rogues fill the pages of this book. The stories will hold your attention and chill you to the bone." -- Crime Shadow News

Cleveland's master of historical crime and disaster returns with 15 more true tales in this sixth volume of his popular series, including ...

• West Park sisters Helen, 11, and Marguerite, 10, who died after eating Rough-on-Rats brand poison in their grandmother's basement-- victims of a genetic "suicide mania," or driven to death by the cruelest caretaker since Hansel and Gretel's stepmom?

• Joseph "Specs" Russell, who vaulted to fame in the summer of 1927 by staging as many as 52 stick-ups and making fools of Cleveland lawmen with his "impossible" escapes from their dragnets;

• Jeanette McAdams--just unlucky, or the Lucretia Borgia of Ashtabula County? After the suspiciously similar deaths of her five siblings, neighbors began to take note of the crowded family graveyard;

• Salty and ageless George Wallace, who served the city as a fireman for 62 years, 30 of them as chief, and endured to become the oldest fire chief in the world--with a mastery of incessant profanity that could be heard for four city blocks and made mule skinners blush;

And more true stories of courage, fear, deception, and villainy--including a disaster caused by the author himself!

Sometimes gruesome, often surprising, John Stark Bellamy's tales are meticulously researched and delivered in a literate and entertaining style.