True Crime: Missouri tells 11 stories of deadly doings in the "Show-Me" state. Author David J. Krajicek also considers whether there is something in the state's bloodlines that makes Missourians a particularly foul breed. One new resident of the state said a neighbor suggested that Missourians like to handle conflicts themselves. His advice: "You shoot, you shovel, and you shut up."    Among the featured crimes in the book: Lee Shelton's barroom murder of Billy Lyons in St. Louis, which inspired the popular song "Stagger Lee." - The vigilante killing of the "town bully" of Skidmore, Ken McElroy. Did the tiny town, which has shriveled to nearly ghost-town status, curse itself by keeping a secret about the slaying? - The heartless kidnapping and murder of millionaire Robert Greenlease's son in Kansas City by a couple of St. Joseph barflies. - The Kirkwood City Council massacre. - The "throwaway" serial killings of perhaps two dozen young prostitutes in Kansas City by a garbage collector named Lorenzo J. Gilyard. - The forgotten story of "Cockeyed" Cook, a lost soul from Joplin who massacred an entire family and dumped them down a mineshaft. - The "American Gothic" killers, farmer Ray Copeland and his wife, Faye. They murdered their farm hands near Chillicothe in a bizarre plot to make money, and then made the mistake of planting their human crop too shallow. "Krajicek is moved by the incongruity of commonplace surroundings and evil deeds...Some themes run through the crimes he has studied. Among them is a recurrence of immorality and buffoonery in the same felonious package...Friends have come to call Krajicek 'Mr. Murder.' He never considers this an insult."--Ken Newton, St. Joseph (Mo.) News-Press David J. Krajicek's work in brief: "Hardboiled lyricism," says literature Professor Lynne D. Schneider of Alabama State University. "Lively," says EntertainmentWeekly . "Passionate," says Ken Auletta of The New Yorker . "Powerful," says the American Journalism Review . "David Krajicek's crime writing has branded him Mr. Murder, so it's apt he looks the heavy with his bearded mug,bouncer glare and imposing size. This tabloid poet and rebel hailsfrom a long line of barkeeps and meatpackers. He is a standout writer of terse,staccato prose and vivid details."--Leo Adam Biga, The Omaha Reader "Krajicek is the Catskills' own hard-boiled true-crime writer...Sordid tales of bad behavior, villainous deeds and villainous men."-- Julia Reischel, The Watershed Post David J. Krajicek has been telling crime stories for more than 30 years. He writes "The Justice Story," a true crime feature, for the Sunday New York Daily News. A native Nebraskan, he also has worked as a newspaperman in Iowa and Nebraska and as a journalism professor at Columbia University. Krajicek's other books include Mass Killers: Inside the Minds of Men Who Murder (Arcturus), Massachusetts Disasters (Globe Pequot), Murder,American Style (News Ink Books) , Scooped (Columbia) and the e-book Death by Rock 'n' Roll (Crimescape/RosettaBooks) . He lives in New York andon the Gulf Coast.