Description
From the secrets and techniques of Joliet Penitentiary to the ferocious gunfights between the Ku Klux Klan and the Shelton Gang, Troy Taylor takes the measure of the dishonest sweat and innocent blood poured into the prairies of Northern Illinois. Meet the “fallen angels” of Decatur’s purple-mild district, the Springfield counterfeiters who bungled stealing Lincoln’s bones and the Aurora guy who propped up his porch with the heads of his wife and brother-in-regulation. And for those who dare, pay attention to the chilling confession of a person who left a dancer’s corpse to the mercy of the railroad tracks: “So, I pat them at the cheek, name them sweet names, and kill them.”