Nick Goodwin

A woman disappears on her way to work. A man is convicted of her murder. But this case is different. Though the police believe they have the right man, key components of the prosecution case are missing. There is no body of the victim, no witnesses to the crime, no confession and no physical evidence: no DNA, CCTV or murder weapon.

On July 10, 1981, David Mellor was just a baseball-crazed kid, a star high school pitcher preparing to go to college and dreaming of one day taking the mound in Fenway Park for his beloved Boston Red Sox. His dream was derailed as he crossed the parking lot of a McDonald’s, where a car sent him flying through the air and into a wall. In the wake of the accident, even as he reached the major leagues as a groundskeeper, David was tortured by the aftermath of his injuries. One Base at a Time recounts in vivid detail his subsequent 29-year struggle with PTSD.

Dale Maharidge’s father, like many World War II veterans, never talked about “the good war”. There was just one clue to his dad’s experience as a US Marine - a portrait with a close friend that hung permanently in their home. In The Dead Drink First, Dale, now a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, recounts his 18-year quest to find and repatriate the missing remains of his dad’s buddy, Herman Walter Mulligan, 73 years after he was killed in action.