Michael Newton is an American writer and one of the most prolific working authors in the United States, with more than three hundred fifty books published under his own name and various pseudonyms since 1977. He is best known for his true crime reference works, especially The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (Facts on File, 2000, second edition 2006), but his bibliography spans true crime, criminology, encyclopedic reference, mass-market fiction across westerns and thrillers, the Mack Bolan and Don Pendleton's Executioner action series, and writing-craft titles. A California native, he now lives in Nashville, Indiana.
The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers is the standard reference on the subject, organized alphabetically with case studies of hundreds of killers from antiquity to the present, along with essays on the psychology of serial murder, investigative technique, and the history of profiling. Newton is unusually rigorous for the genre, holding contributors to the National Institute of Justice definition rather than tabloid usage, citing his sources, and openly critiquing other true-crime writers who got their facts (or victims' names) wrong. The second edition added new and updated entries on the BTK Strangler, Harold Shipman, the Green River Killer Gary Leon Ridgway, the D.C. Sniper case of John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, the Ciudad Juarez femicides, and fresh analysis of Jack the Ripper and the Zodiac Killer. His Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology was named to the American Library Association's 2006 list of Outstanding Reference Sources.
His true crime nonfiction includes Hunting Humans: An Encyclopedia of Modern Serial Killers, Serial Slaughter: What's Behind America's Murder Epidemic, The Encyclopedia of Robberies, Heists, and Capers, The Encyclopedia of Kidnappings, The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes, The FBI Encyclopedia, The Encyclopedia of American Law Enforcement, The Mafia at Apalachin, 1957, and dozens of others. His fiction includes the western novels Hanging Judge (a 2010 Spur Award finalist), Manhunt (winner of the 2010 Peacemaker Award from the Western Fictioneers), Avenging Angels (Spur and Peacemaker finalist), and Blood Trails (2011 Spur Award nominee for Best Western Novel), along with the Mack Bolan and Executioner action-adventure books written under house pseudonyms.
