A chapter rundown:

    1. The longest chapter in the book, Rufus Cantrell, King of the Ghouls, relates the nearly unbelievable story of a professional grave robber and his gang, who appear to have emptied the contents of nearly every tomb in central Indiana and sold the bodies to Indianapolis medical schools. Whenever the supply of fresh cadavers was low, Cantrell and his men were not averse to drumming up a little business on their own
    2. "Monsters and Ghosts," not surprisingly, includes accounts of Hoosier monsters and ghosts. I don't think many (if any) of these stories are well-known.
    3."Tales From the Tombs" is a compendium of humorously-written true stories on unsavory topics ranging from bizarre deaths to epitaphs to skeletons turning up where they are least expected. Then there are the numerous people who narrowly missed premature burial; were they unusually unlucky or unusually lucky? You be the judge!
    4."Buried Treasure" in Indiana? Yes, mostly hidden by eccentrics and found by accident years later.
    5."Grave Robbers Galore": Readers will notice that Forgotten Tales of Indiana is loaded to the rafters with stories about body snatchers. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the state was full of medical schools in competition for anatomical subjects. Resurrectionists were called upon to fulfill the need. This chapter collects many humorous and horrifying stories about Indiana grave robbers which I found while doing research, including the spectacularly gruesome tale The Grave Robbers Comeuppance, or: The Corpses Revenge.
    6."Life Is Like That Sometimes." Ain't it, though? This chapter is full of odd little stories from real life, such as the one about the killer who was convicted by evidence found in a dream. Or the one about Isaac Perry, constructor of his own tomb. Or the one about Marvelous Griffith, mathematical savant. Or the one about the Draconian smoking ban enacted by Indiana a hundred years ago.
    You can purchase either book at Amazon.com. You also may have them specially ordered at your local Mom and Pop bookstore.