Sunday, 1 January 2017

Deadly Lessons (True Crime) by Ken Englade


Paperback:  Twenty-three-year-old Pam Smart used sex, lies and money to coax her young lover into killing her husband.

Newlyweds Pam and Gregg Smart seemed like the ideal American couple.  He was a bright, up-and-coming insurance executive who had many friends and loved golfing.  She was the beautiful former cheerleader and daughter of an airline pilot who was envied by everyone who knew her.

But on 1 May 1990, their apparently perfect life was shattered when Gregg was murdered in the couple's New Hampshire townhouse - a single shot to his head.  Three months later, his grieving widow was arrested and charged with the brutal crime.

In the dramatic trial that followed, a dark portrait of Pam Smart emerged - one of a cold manipulator who called herself 'the Maiden of Metal' and seduced virgin Bill Flynn with a striptease to Van Halen music and erotic scenes from the film Nine and a Half Weeks - until her hooks were so deep into him he was willing to do anything for her.

Including murder.

Deadly Lessons (1993) is the true story of a seductress, a student and a cold-blooded murder.  Master of true crime, Ken Englade, paints a portrait of a trial that gripped the nation in its scintillating tale of sex and murder.  At its center is a woman who never quite grew up, and the reason why she had her husband murdered is the most stunning twist.

About the author:  Kenneth F Englade is a New Mexico-based author and investigative reporter who has published nine books dealing with high profile trials.  His latest book, Meltdown in Haditha: The Killing of 24 Iraqi Civilians by US Marines and the Failure of Military Justice, was published in 2015 by McFarland & Co.  He also published five historical novels dealing with the pre-Civil War West.  His books have been published in Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

He is a veteran journalist who has worked on newspapers and for fourteen years with United Press International, including three years in Asia where he covered the Vietnam War and the fall of Saigon. Beyond Reason, his book about a University of Virginia coed and her German boyfriend who conspired to kill the woman’s parents was a finalist for the Edgar Allan Poe Award.  From 2000-2006, he was a public information officer for the Air Force and the Missile Defense Agency.  In 2010, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the Louisiana State University School of Mass Communications in recognition of his career achievements.

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