"The body would have been nearly impossible to identify. There was so little of it left, for one thing."

Thus begins the sordid tale of the "Scissors Grinder," one of 40 heart-pounding true crime stories that will have you looking over your shoulder. Or keeping your bedside light on at night.

With this and other blood-curdling accounts, veteran crime writer Barb Pacholik offers up another installment in her best-selling series of true crime books set in Saskatchewan. This time she pursues cadaver dogs, unearths charred remains, explores the horrifying "killing room," and delves into cold cases--those unsolved crimes, some whose perpetrators still lurk out there.

Reconstructed from court transcripts, these all-too-true stories expose the greed, desperation, and inhumanity living just down the street and around the corner.