Abandoned Prayers

"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 crime-thanks to Gregg Olsen's 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 Confessions of an American Black Widow "More interesting than the crime itself is Olsen's 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 heroine-or villain, whichever she is. This book might make some moralists more humble." -Darcy O'Brien, bestselling author of Two of a cf0Kind: The Hillside Stranglers and Murder in Little Egypt "Gregg Olsen's standing as one of America's finest crime journalists will rise even higher with The Confessions of an American Black Widow. Here are all the ingredients of a great crime story-murder, infidelity, greed, nymphomania. But the main element is Olsen's 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 Olsen's 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 Gregg's best work yet. Sharon Lynn is the kind of woman-and this is the kind of book-that 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 Love's Blood If Loving You is Wrong "Gregg Olsen's 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 comic book 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 . Olsen's books is both gossipy and sympathetic, searing and brilliant. If Mary Kay is the Humbert Humbert of the female sex-and she is-this 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, author of Bitter Harvest and A Rage to Kill