[THE DEAD SOUL] grabs you by the lapels and doesn't let go." -JOHN LUTZ, New York Times bestselling author From the desk of one of the most acclaimed and prolific true crime authors comes a mystery thriller certain to captivate his fans. M. William Phelps's THE DEAD SOUL takes you on a suspenseful journey through Boston's illicit past, where Detective Jake "Sundance" Cooper fights to redeem his crumbling career. At the same time, a sadistic … [Read more...]
M. William Phelps Explains: A Serial Killer’s Fictional Counterpart
'And all of it is about him [Happy Face Killer]. His insecurities. His fantasies. His anger. His narcissism. His inadequacy. His incompetence. His failures as a man.' Over the course of 12 years, I received over nine thousand pages of letters from a violent psychopath. Keith Hunter Jesperson became known as the "Happy Face Killer" after doodling (with no intention of it becoming his nickname) a smiley face on a letter he wrote to a newspaper. … [Read more...]
🎃THIS HALLOWEEN🎃 Get THE DEAD SOUL, M. William Phelps’s Crime Thriller📖The Author Discusses “The ‘Dead Souls’ that Inspire Me”👻
M. William Phelps is the New York Times best-selling author of 45 books and winner of the Excellence in (Investigative) Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. THE DEAD SOUL is his first novel. It's an engrossing, image-forward investigative thriller. It started with seeing this young girl on a class field trip to the Boston (Massachusetts) Tea Party Ship and Museum. I saw her and several classmates walking along the bow … [Read more...]
Meet Award-winning Investigative Journalist and Author M. William Phelps
William Phelps is the creator, host, writer, and executive producer of the #1 Apple podcast hit franchise PAPER GHOSTS and the New York Times best-selling author of 42 nonfiction books. He won the Excellence in (Investigative) Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. He has written for numerous publications, including AARP's "The Arrow," Providence Journal, Connecticut Magazine, and Hartford Courant. Phelps consulted on the … [Read more...]
Stranger Than Fiction: 10 Unbelievable True Crime Stories
Big Bird finding a dead woman in his house; a cannibal police officer; a horse suspected of murder; a mysterious crate with horrifying contents; a teenager who murdered his baby sister; one criminal's shocking motive for killing three people; a lady feeding dead men to hogs; an international assassination suspect is murdered in North Carolina for a completely unrelated reason; a family search that ended in harrassment, stalking, and death … [Read more...]
Bestselling Author M. William Phelps Provides Another True Crime Hit With TARGETED
In Colbert, Georgia, on June 5, 2000, local amateur bodybuilder, 38-year-old Doug Benton, disappears. Two weeks later, Benton is found shot and ‘stabbed,’ his body encased in cement inside a cattle trough, dumped on a remote stretch of farmland. Local law enforcement—with help from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation—launch what is later alleged to be a ‘targeted’ investigation, focused on one of their own—local deputy sheriff, 36-year-old Tracy … [Read more...]
M. William Phelps: In An Age of True Crime Excess
MY NEW BOOK, TARGETED, IS ABOUT A former Oglethorpe County Georgia sheriff’s deputy who claims to have been framed for a particularly brutal—for a female killer—murder. By whom, you ask? A few of her former fellow law enforcement officers—which has become somewhat of an ornamental and allegorical theme running through our (seemingly) “violent” and (seemingly) “corrupt” American law enforcement community today. We are living in an age of … [Read more...]
Bestselling True Crime Author M. William Phelps: There Are Always More Bodies
I am convinced that part of the “high” a serial killer gets from his murderous path of violence after he is arrested and facing the iron fist of justice is taking pleasure in the fact that he alone knows there are additional bodies (his victims) somewhere out in the world. What’s more, there is no doubt he will use those bodies as a bartering chip in dealing with law enforcement and/or the legal system when the time comes. Or, maybe the … [Read more...]
M. William Phelps: ON MURDERERS’ ROW SITS A PATHETIC, DESPERATE LIAR
There’s a certain familiarity with the sociopath one encounters after writing 30-plus books about one-off murderers and serial killers. Interviewing scores of these people, one tends to develop an almost inherent, instinctive sense for how they go about manufacturing and inventing lies, carefully orchestrating each one, and then inserting those lies into public discourse. Patricia “Pat” Olsen—the subject of “Murder in Massachusetts,” the … [Read more...]
