From the secrets 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 red-light district, the Springfield counterfeiters who bungled stealing Lincoln's bones and the Aurora man who propped up his porch with the heads of his wife and brother-in-law. And if you dare, eavesdrop on the chilling confession of a man who left a dancer's corpse to the mercy of the railroad tracks: "So, I pat them on the cheek, call them sweet names—and kill them."