Michael Norman

A fleeting figure dressed in a white party dress roams the streets of southwest Chicago. A long-dead Iowa college student treads the staircase in an old building. A ghostly, plaid-shirted workman plays peek-a-boo with a ticket seller in a Minnesota theater. A phantom wolf prowls Ohio's Jackson and Pike Counties.For decades, journalist Michael Norman has been tracking down spine-tingling tales that seem to arise from authentic incidents in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, and Wisconsin. In Haunted Heartland he offers more than eighty entertaining, eerie stories. Are they true in the world that we know, or only in a dark vale of twilight?

Third generation Utah residents Rolly and Abigail Rogers come from a long line of dedicated pot hunters who scour the desert southwest in search of valuable antiquities. When the couple fails to return from a weekend "skeleton picnic" along the desolate Arizona Strip, local Sheriff Charley Sutter turns to Bureau of Land Management Law Enforcement Ranger J.D. Books for help. Searching for clues, Books discovers the couple's house has been burglarized and a valuable collection of ancient Anasazi and Fremont Indian antiquities stolen. Then the Rogers' truck and trailer are found at an abandoned campsite near a recently excavated Anasazi ruin. Footprints and other evidence suggest the couple may have been overpowered by a group of assailants. Books and Sutter's attractive young deputy Beth Tanner investigate. Could the disappearance of the Rogers be the responsibility of a shadowy group of armed Indian police? Soon Books' own survival skills are tested. The hunter becomes the hunted, and only one person gets to go home alive.

Grab a cozy blanket, light a few flickering candles, and enjoy the unnerving tales of Haunted Wisconsin. Gathered from personal interviews with credible eyewitnesses, on-site explorations, historical archives, newspaper reports, and other sources, these scores of reports date from Wisconsin's early settlement days to recent inexplicable events. You'll read about Wisconsin's most famous haunted house, Summerwind; three Milwaukee men who encountered the beautiful ghost of National Avenue; a phantom basketball player; a spectral horse that signaled death in the pioneer era of the Wisconsin Dells; a poltergeist in St. Croix County who attracted a crowd of more than three hundred spectators; the Ridgeway Ghost who haunts the driftless valleys of southwestern Wisconsin; a swinging railroad lantern held by unseen hands; the Ghost Island of the Chippewa Flowage; and many others. Are ghosts real? That's for you to decide! Now available in a Third Edition with updates and several new accounts, Haunted Wisconsin remains a favorite collection of unexplained midwestern tales, enjoyed by readers of all ages.

Southern Utah's Kanab is a community divided by the politics of land management. The conflict pits environmentalist David Greenbriar and his Escalante Environmental Wilderness Alliance (EEWA) against the Citizens for a Free West, led by powerful rancher Neil Eddins. But when the bullet-ridden body of Greenbriar is found in a barn near Kanab, Kane County Sheriff Charley Sutter turns to Bureau of Land Management Ranger J.D. Books to solve the murder. Books learns the victim's widow has been having an affair with another EEWA member, Lance Clayburn. Evidence links Clayburn to the killing. Then a possible witness disappears into the wilderness. Books is scrambling to find a connection between the Las Vegas business that owns the valuable mineral rights in the area and the murder. And then a contract killer appears in Kanab....Michael Norman lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with his wife Diane. On Deadly Ground is his third novel, following Silent Witness and The Commission.www.michaelnormanauthor.com

Tears in the Darkness is an altogether new look at World War II that exposes the myths of war and shows the extent of suffering and loss on both sides. For the first four months of 1942, U.S., Filipino, and Japanese soldiers fought what was America's first major land battle of World War II, the battle for the tiny Philippine peninsula of Bataan. It ended with the surrender of 76,000 Filipinos and Americans, the single largest defeat in American military history. The defeat, though, was only the beginning, as Michael and Elizabeth M. Norman make dramatically clear in this powerfully original book. From then until the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, the prisoners of war suffered an ordeal of unparalleled cruelty and savagery: forty-one months of captivity, starvation rations, dehydration, hard labor, deadly disease, and torture--far from the machinations of General Douglas MacArthur. The Normans bring to the story remarkable feats of reportage and literary empathy. Their protagonist, Ben Steele, is a figure out of Hemingway: a young cowboy turned sketch artist from Montana who joined the army to see the world. Juxtaposed against Steele's story and the sobering tale of the Death March and its aftermath is the story of a number of Japanese soldiers.

Everyone loves a good ghost story. Phantoms of the Paramount, Shadows on Third Avenue, The Legend of Ann Lake, The Boy in the Red Cap. Veteran ghost hunter Michael Norman has uncovered almost three dozen stories of legitimate Minnesota eeriness to thrill readers. Norman, author of five nationally popular collections of ghost tales, interviewed local storytellers and combed newspapers to document legends involving supernatural and strange occurrences. Following old and fresh leads, he gathered stories from all over the state. Ghost stories have existed as long as humans have been telling tales. Perhaps they rise from our curiosity about what happens to us and our loved ones after death, perhaps they explain phenomena that we do not understand, or maybe, just maybe, the dead do walk the earth. Norman does not attempt to prove or disprove the existence of ghosts but instead allow readers to make up their own minds. his tales feature people's strange and paranormal experiences in quite ordinary places, including homes, theatres, B&Bs, and restaurants.Many of the engaging and hair-raising accounts involve strange and frightening incidents of the last fifty years; some tales document very recent unexplainable or spectral events. The book includes a list of sites open to the public and documents the hauntings' locations -- from Taylors Falls and Pipestone to Northfield and Nobles County -- for Minnesotan who may want to "pass through" the sites. Beware: these stories do not have conclusive endings, since they remain mysteries to this day. but perhaps that's best. An ending would just take the fun out of it.

"Haunted Homeland" is a comprehensive collection of true ghostly tales, not penned by fictioneers such as Poe and King, but passed on by word of mouth and preserved by memory as windows to our nation's haunted past.From a haunted castle in the wilds of Alaska to phantom clergymen in the southwest and mysterious bouncing lights on the east coast, this latest volume covers the places, the people, and the things that belong to the earthbound realm of the fantastic.Norman has gathered together spectral events of all kinds: apparitions of the famous like Mary Surratt, Mary Todd Lincoln, and Mad Anthony Wayne, haunted crime scenes in Chicago and along the Indiana byways, as well as banshees, poltergeists, and even a ghost named George who has become an accepted resident in a North Carolina home.These anecdotes are not the stuff of imaginary nightmares, but of tales of personal encounters with the haunted parts of America.

Continuing the success of the nationally acclaimed Haunted America, Historic Haunted America is a further investigation into North American ghost legends. This chilling collection documents yesterday's and today's most terrifying hauntings in the United States and Canada in more than seventy-five shocking stories

"It's a road map to the Other Side. Take a left at the cemetery. Go down Highway 666 until you hit a dead end. And you're there. Haunted America."--"Milwaukee Journal""Haunted Heritage" recounts Michael Norman's and Beth Scott's unearthly explorations of supernatural folklore that has been passed on by word of mouth and preserved by memory. Based on eyewitness testimony newly rediscovered ancient archives, overheard tales, and actual paranormal visitations, the authors have compiled an astounding collection of American ghost stories. Its chilling tales will not be easily forgotten.