“True crime aficionados are fascinated by the havoc their fellow humans are capable of wreaking,” says author Janis Thornton who takes us beyond high profile crime into lesser known but equally fascinating tales. “For them, learning details of the victims’ worst nightmares is not only tantalizing; in a perverse way, it’s almost comforting because it happened to someone else. In a sense, true crime offers readers a “there but for the grace of God” revelation that allows them to vicariously experience unimaginable horrors behind a safety buffer of time and space.”
Using these buffers, “No Place Like Murder” Thornton examines the underbelly of Hoosier history through the retelling of twenty sensational murders that ripped apart numerous small, Indiana communities between 1950 and 1869. But because volumes have been written chronicling the likes of high-profile Hoosier serial killers Belle Gunness (includig “America’s Femme Fatale” by Jane Simon Ammeson) and H.H. Holmes, Thornton’s tales focus on 20 lesser known, but no less merciless, homegrown killers.
“No Place Like Murder” paints portraits of murderous women like Frankie Miller, who shot and killed her fiancé after he stood her up for another woman. Readers also will meet the plucky Isabelle Messmer, who ran away from her quiet farm-town life, and after nearly taking down two tough Pittsburgh policemen, she was dubbed “Gun Girl,” earning headlines across the country. And one of the more sensational crimes highlighted in the book is the shotgun slaughter of five members of the Agrue family on their Southern Indiana farm at the hand of Virginious “Dink” Carter, husband of one of the Agrue daughters.
According to the Publishers Weekly review of “No Place Like Murder,” true crime fans will be well satisfied. •
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Janis Thornton is Tipton, Indiana’s home-grown author of true crime, mystery and history.
Her true crime books include: and “Too Good a Girl,” the story of Thornton’s high school classmate, Olene Emberton, whose tragic, unsolved death in 1965 shocked their community. Now, more than 50 years later, Janis wrote Olene’s story to ensure it is never forgotten.
Her mysteries include: “Dead Air and Double Dare” and “Dust Bunnies and Dead Bodies”, both in the “Elmwood Confidential” series; and “Love, Lies, and Azure Eyes,” a suspenseful, paranormal romantic mystery.
Her history books are: “The 1965 Palm Sunday Tornadoes in Indiana,” which takes a look back at Indiana’s worst weather disaster, and pictorial-history books about the communities of Elwood, Frankfort and Tipton, all in Indiana.
Shelf Life 