Before Michigan became a state, there were witch trials, scalp collectors, dirty sports, and a massacre of epic proportions. The lumber era that followed made Michigan as much of a wild, wild west as Deadwood. And Prohibition allowed a group of Detroit thugs to run roughshod over even the likes of Al Capone.

There's more:

- A father who shoots his daughter and friends for being hippies, just as an eerily similar tale hits the silver screen

- A widow whose love of dressing up leaves a trail of poisoned relatives across the Lower Peninsula

- A lawless Upper Peninsula town that not only hangs two criminals without trial, but forces women to lie with the corpses

- A murder that spread its victim's body parts along I-75 from Detroit to Pellston

In Blood on the Mitten, crimes of passion, crimes of necessity and cold, calculated evil take on flesh, bones and blood. These 57 illustrated, read-out loud tales from across time also look at the historical context of murder, in Michigan and beyond.