Gregg Olsen - Abandoned Prayers

Dear Reader:

The book you are about to read is the latest bestseller from the St. Martins True Crime Library, the imprint the New York Times calls the leader in true crime! Each month, we offer you a fascinating account of the latest, most sensational crime that has captured the national attention. St. Martins is the publisher of perennial bestselling true crime author Jack Olsen, whose SALT OF THE EARTH is the true story of how one woman fought and triumphed over life-shattering violence; Joseph Wambaugh called it powerful and absorbing. Fannie Weinstein and Melinda Wilson tell the story of a beautiful honors student who was lured into the dark world of sex for hire in THE COED CALL GIRL MURDER. St. Martins is also proud to publish two-time Edgar Award-winning author Carlton Stowers, whose TO THE LAST BREATH recounts a two-year-old girls mysterious death, and the dogged investigation that led loved ones to the most unlikely murderer: her own father. The book you now hold, ABANDONED PRAYERS, by acclaimed writer Gregg Olsen, takes you on an odyssey from a mans humble beginnings through a bizarre crosscountry journey to a conviction for murder.

St. Martins True Crime Library gives you the stories behind the headlines. Our authors take you right to the scene of the crime and into the minds of the most notorious murderers to show you what really makes them tick. St. Martins True Crime Library paperbacks are better than the most terrifying thriller, because its all true! The next time you want a crackling good read, make sure its got the St. Martins True Crime Library logo on the spineyoull be up all night!

Charles E. Spicer, Jr.

Executive Editor, St. Martins True Crime Library

A tough new voice rises in the ranks of true crime writers. Even the reigning giants of the genre are taking notice and offering praise.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

ACCLAIM FOR THE TRUE CRIME CLASSICS OF
GREGG OLSEN

ABANDONED PRAYERS

An absorbing, sobering, disturbing book.

Omaha World-Herald

BITTER ALMONDS

Absolutely fascinating... One of the most devious female minds in crime history. Stella Nickell has won her dubious spot in the annals of crimethanks to Gregg Olsens research and reporting.

Ann Rule

[A] truly remarkable book. The trailer-park babes of Bitter Almonds leap off the page, fingernails sharpened and aimed for your eyes... meticulous reporting and engrossing, vivid detail plunges the reader into a world of schemes and dreams. This is one of the best true crime books of the 90s.

Jack Olsen, author of Son: A Psychopath and His
Victims and I: The Creation of a Serial Killer

A real page-turner... a compelling and fascinating tale of family psychopathology taken to the extreme.

Jonathan Kellerman

Masterfully written... a tale of intricate suspense.

Rod Colvin, author of Evil Harvest

THE CONFESSIONS OF AN AMERICAN BLACK WIDOW

More interesting than the crime itself is Olsens portrait of Nelson as a brash, trashy, manipulative sexpot... watching Nelson as she almost gets away with murder will fascinate long after the last page.

Publishers Weekly

This time Gregg Olsen has given us a very sexy book that is as disturbing as it is seductive. One reads it compulsively and wonders afterwards, Why did I like this so much?, as if one had not so much read it as had a very destructive affair with it. A dangerous and informative book, as irresistible as its painfully, wonderfully vicious heroineor villain, whichever she is. This book might make some moralists more humble.

Darcy OBrien, bestselling author of Two of a Kind:
The Hillside Stranglers and Murder in Little Egypt

Gregg Olsens standing as one of Americas finest crime journalists will rise even higher with The Confessions of an American Black Widow. Here are all the ingredients of a great crime storymurder, infidelity, greed, nymphomania. But the main element is Olsens skill at describing and explicating human misbehavior. A must read!

Jack Olsen, bestselling author of Doc and Predator

What a combination! God, Mammon, carnality, all rendered vividly under Olsens assured touch.

Stephen Michand, bestselling author of
The Only Living Witness and Murderers Among Us

Gregg Olsen introduces the reader to a character so mesmerizing, so frightening and so evil that one has to keep reminding himself that this amazing fast-paced story is true.

Carlton Stowers, bestselling author of Careless Whispers

This brilliant true crime story deserves acclaim and thunderous applause.

Elizabeth Loftus, co-author, The Myth of Repressed Memory
and 1998 President of American Psychological Society

That rare book that is at once a page-turner and an important chronicle of true crime. An enlightening and devastating read.

Steve A. Eggar, PhD., author of Killers Among Us:
An Examination of Serial Murder and Its Investigation

This is probably Greggs best work yet. Sharon Lynn is the kind of womanand this is the kind of bookthat people will talk about. Gregg Olsen shows us just how chilling it is to realize what might be going on in the house next door.

Clark Howard, bestselling author of Loves Blood

IF LOVING YOU IS WRONG

Gregg Olsens If Loving You is Wrong is a wonderfully researched book that makes the tabloid stories about Mary Kay Letourneau and her forbidden love sound like comicbook stuff. Everyone who wants to understand the back-story of the child-woman and her overwhelming passion for a man-child must read If Loving You is Wrong. Olsens book is both gossipy and sympathetic, searing and brilliant. If Mary Kay is the Humbert Humbert of the female sexand she isthis book is her Lolita. A must-read for both true crime aficionados and students of abnormal psychology! I read until 3 a.m.!

Ann Rule

ALSO BY GREGG OLSEN

Bitter Almonds

Mockingbird

Starvation Heights

The Confessions of an American Black Widow

If Loving You is Wrong

Howard Petrella

A New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, GREGG OLSEN has written several nonfiction books, novels, a novella, and contributed a short story to a collection edited by Lee Child. He is the author of Abandoned Prayers, Bitter Almonds, and A Killing in Amish Country, among others. You can sign up for author updates here.

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