Creepy California: Strange and Gothic Tales from the Golden State

People living with corpses. A drunk who thought he was responsible for the San Francisco earthquake. The doctor who believed California would be one giant insane asylum within a few decades. A man who attempted murder by rattlesnake bite to dispatch his wife.

The cavalcade of murderers, thieves, criminals, and unfortunates that populates Creepy California is endlessly sinister and surprising, unveiling the worst of humanity in very entertaining fashion. From suicide attempts that included hammering a railroad spike into one’s skull to the woman who had her lover’s corpse reburied so the man’s wife would grieve over an empty grave, these stories come in every shade of outrageous you can imagine.

Creepy California is a fascinating, if occasionally unpleasant, read, given some of the horrors contained within. Some of the stories are so short they can only hint at a weirder, darker tale, while others — including several court cases — are explored in exacting detail, leaving no stone unturned and no bodies unburied, no matter how gruesome or ridiculous.

A step or two beyond the usual “Weird State” histories, Creepy California is as macabre as it gets.