Stone Walls & Steeples - True Crime in New England - Massachusetts

Welcome — and thank you for finding your way here. Stone Walls & Steeples is a true crime series set in New England, covering cases from 1965 to 1995 — a stretch of decades when the region was changing fast and the darkness that ran alongside that change often went unnoticed. These are not stories about killers. They are stories about the people who were lost — men, women, and children whose lives mattered long before anything went wrong, and whose stories deserve to be told with honesty and care. I write under the pen name Phineas Strange. I'm a New Englander myself, and many of these places are ones I've driven past, walked through, or grown up near. That proximity isn't a credential — it's a responsibility. I've tried to honor it in every chapter. The first three volumes — Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut — will be available late May through early June 2026, with three more New England volumes to follow later in the year. If these stories stay with you — the way they've stayed with me — I'd be grateful to hear from you.

— Phineas Strange

About Stone Walls & Steeples - True Crime in New England - Massachusetts

COMING SOON! LATE MAY 2026 Twenty true crime cases. One state. Stories that New England would rather forget. Stone Walls & Steeples: True Crime New England, Volume One — Massachusetts is a narrative true crime book collecting twenty documented murder cases from across the Commonwealth, drawn from the years 1965 to 1995. From quiet suburban neighborhoods on the South Shore to the mill cities of the Merrimack Valley — from Cape Cod to the Pioneer Valley — these are real unsolved murders, cold cases, and shocking crimes that defined a generation in Massachusetts. Some were solved. Some remain open to this day. Cases include: The Garden in the Dunes: Four young women disappear from Cape Cod. Their bodies are found buried in the Provincetown dunes. The Angel of Death on Ward C: Patients at a Veterans Affairs hospital are dying at an alarming rate. A nurse is watching. No One Would Tell: A teenage girl in Beverly tells her friends she is afraid of her boyfriend. She is found in a lake eleven days later. Through the Woods: Three members of a family are murdered in their Townsend farmhouse. The case goes cold for years. My Silence Has Been My Salvation: A thirteen-year-old altar boy is found dead in Springfield. A priest is never charged. Plus fourteen more cases drawn from across Massachusetts — from Boston to the Berkshires. This is not a book about killers. It is a book about victims — real men, women, and children with histories, personalities, and families who loved them. Written in the tradition of narrative nonfiction true crime, every case is grounded in documented fact and told with the respect the victims deserve. If you enjoy true crime books about real murders, regional crime history, and cold case investigations — this series was written for you. Stone Walls & Steeples is a six-volume true crime series covering

Phineas Strange

Phineas Strange and Michael McDonald are both pen names for the same New England author. Phineas Strange has a lifelong fascination with the unexplained, the true, and the weird. He writes A Curious Compendium of Strange Events, which explores documented supernatural phenomena with the eye of a skeptic and the heart of a true believer, and Stone Walls & Steeples, a true crime series that brings forgotten New England victims back into the light — one region, one era, one state at a time. Michael McDonald and Karen McDonald write post-apocalyptic fiction set within the October Fall World — four standalone series, twelve books in total. The author grew up in the Midwest, met his New England born wife while she was in college and they transplanted to New England. They also lived overseas for twelve years — which explains a lot.

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