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Chapter synopses are as follows:

       “Kentucky’s First Great Murder” describes the events in the 1825 assassination of Col. Solomon Sharp by Jeroboam Beauchamp in Frankfort. Beauchamp had it in for Sharp when he heard rumors that the colonel had insulted his wife. The case proved to be of great national interest and has inspired various writers, including Edgar Allan Poe, who wrote a play loosely based on the crime.

       “Richard Shuck Confesses All, and Then Some.” Shuck, a native of Owen County, was hanged in 1877 for committing one of the most lunkheaded, incompetently performed murders imaginable. While in jail, he alluded to an underground crime ring that operated in several counties; he named names, too, resulting in chaos and lynchings aplenty.

       “A Mob Teaches Mr. Klein the Error of His Ways.” How were rapists regarded in Kentucky in the late nineteenth century? Read this chapter and find out, and be glad you aren’t Mr. Klein.

       “Col. Buford Begs to Differ with Judge Elliott”—in the form of a double-barreled shotgun, that is. An infamous assassination from 1879 with an aftermath that made dear old Kentucky the laughingstock of the nation.

       “An Argument for the Involuntary Commitment of the Criminally Insane.” William Padgett, a Meade County farmer, proved neighbors correct who thought him insane when he mistook his wife for a witch and remonstrated with her with an ax.

       “Cold Case File, 1866.” Elderly Mary Bottom of Boyle County was murdered by four marauders as her granddaughter watched; one of her attackers got his comeuppance thirteen years later.

       “A Question of Sanity.” Robert Anderson of Louisville, abuser and murderer of his wife, became in 1880 one of the first men to be executed privately in Kentucky.

       “The Hanging of John Vonderheide.” In 1881, young Vonderheide, burglar, smart aleck and murderer, became the first white man in Kentucky to be executed for killing a black.

       “‘A Little Fun:’ The Ashland Tragedy.” Undoubtedly one of the most infamous Kentucky crimes of the nineteenth century, this Christmastime 1881 murder of three Boyd County teenagers resulted in a lynching, two executions, and a militia firing into an excited crowd. A real criminal epic.

    “Moses Caton, Family Man.” A tale of fearsome spousal abuse, murder and disembodied cow heads from Union County.

    “Knox County Atrocity.” How Brice Mills and Parmelia Warren massacred nearly every member of the Poe family, plus two of their servants—and got away with it.

    “A Possible Poisoner, and a Definite One.” Examines the cases of two women, Lucretia Mundy and Julia Higbee, both accused of poisoning their loved ones. In the book I noted: “The former woman was possibly innocent, and her case is humorous in a dark, cosmic sense; the latter woman was almost certainly guilty, and her case is entirely tragic.”

    “The Smart Murders, or: Choose Your Friends Wisely.” The tale of Harry Smart and his prostitute wife Laura, who murdered their friends Meisner Green and his prostitute girlfriend Belle Ward on an island near Louisville in 1888.

    “The Showers-Moore Tragedy.” William Showers’s young wife Lena was found shot to death in her hotel room quarters in Elizabethtown in 1889. Suspicion quickly formed against William, who eventually was acquitted despite considerable circumstantial evidence against him. A real puzzle.

    “On the Benefits of Keeping One’s Temper.” Madison County historian French Tipton struck his enemy in the face without provocation on the streets of Richmond one day in September 1900, and soon wished he hadn’t.

    “Two for the Chair.” Chronicles the exploits of James Buckner of Marion County and General May of Clay County, two of the first men to “ride the lightning” in Kentucky’s newfangled electric chair.

    “Murder on a College Campus.”  The sad tale of Opal Sturgell, who was shot to death by her jealous ex-boyfriend, George Elmo Wells, on the Berea College campus in 1937. Wells made tracks afterwards and has never been seen since.

    “The Head on the Mound.” The bloated, headless corpse of a woman; a disembodied head resting atop a mound; a bloody corn knife; a ghost car. All of these elements combined to give Madison Countians bad dreams in 1936.