Jerry Mitchell Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Jerry Mitchell is an award winning author and investigative reporter best known for his debut novel Race Against Time. The author became popular when he led his readers on a quest to reopen some of the most infamous killings that happened during the Civil War era.

The work was critical in bringing to justice the killers that assassinated Medgar Evers, the “Mississippi Burning” case, and the bombing of the Birmingham based 16th Street Church.

In the work, Jerry takes his readers on his journey to unearth secret documents, find long-lost witnesses and suspects, and eventually collect enough evidence that enabled him to take on the Ku Klux Klan. The work was also an inspiration to many others who would go on to reopen what had once been cold cases, long forgotten.

Starting in 1989, law enforcement in Mississippi reopened killings from the civil rights era. Their actions have led to more than two dozen convictions and counting. Through his stories, Jerry Mitchell exposes corruption and injustices and prompts reforms, investigations into state agencies and the firings of officials and boards.

His work also resulted in the conviction of what had been the oldest serial killer case in American history, more than five decades after his first murder.

Mitchell worked as a Mississippi reporter for more than three decades before he joined the “Clarion Ledger.” Over the years, he won more than 30 awards that included a Sidney Hillman Prize, a MacArthur genius grant, the John Chancellor Award from Columbia University, and the George Polk Award.

Jerry is also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and has had membership in the Investigative Reporters & Editors organization for a long time. His work has been profiled in The New York Times, USA Today, and Nightline among several others.

He has also provided expert analysis on PBS Newshour and CNN among several other channels. After his work got a lot of interest, he founded the non-profit organization the “Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting.” The organization’s stated aim is to raise up a new generation of investigative reporters.
As one of the most talented men in the world, Jerry Mitchell is a successful screenwriter and he sold the “Emmett Till” story that he co wrote with Micheal Roden to Amblin.

In addition to writing his novels, Mitchell is an inspirational speaker who has given speeches in all manner of places. In June 2005, she was the commencement speaker at Queens College, where she spoke to more than 10,000 graduates.

He has also spoken at the Montgomery, Alabama National Civil Rights Memorial Center. It was one of the biggest events he ever spoke at that had attendance in the thousands.

He regularly shares his stories of redemption and justice and has spoken at the US Holocaust Museum, the Kennedy Center and universities and colleges across the United States.

Jerry Mitchell’s work in investigations go as far back as 1964 where nearly two dozen Klansmen had killed three civil rights activists in cold blood. These murders would then be referred to as the “Mississippi Burning” case.

While the identities of the sheriff’s deputy and the killers were known by many people, no one would be charged for the killing in a cold case that would go unsolved for years.

It would take more than four decades before the mastermind of the killing was brought to book and finally got the justice he deserved for taking three innocent lives. If there ever was anyone that helped to foster justic,e it was Jerry Mitchel, the investigative reporter.

In this work, Mitchell takes his readers on a pulse racing and twisty road that led to some very old cold cases being reopened 41 years after the fact. Mitchell’s research would help bring to book the men, who had committed some of the most heinous killers from the Civil Rights era.

From his work, four leading Klansmen would be convicted, decades after they were sitting pretty, believing they had gotten away with the crime.

“Gone” by Jerry Mitchell opens to the story of the disappearance of two young women even as another drowns. All three women are linked to Mississippi native Felix Vail, who had been the last man to be seen with all three women.

One was Annette Craver Vail, his wife, who went missing in October 1984, Sharon Hensley, his girlfriend, who went missing in 1973, and his wife Mary Horton Vail, who drowned in 1962.

He had initially been arrested in Lake Charles in Los Angeles and questioned over his wife’s disappearance. But he had never been charged in any of the cases. Before they went missing, two of the women who went missing had been spotted in a Los Angeles suburb, where they had been with Felix Vail who was visiting his sister.

The award winning author and investigative reporter would not let things lie and went after Vail. In the work, he asks a very important question that it seems law enforcement did not ask.

“Just what are the odds that one man would have his girlfriend that was basically a common law wife disappear, another wife disappear and another drown.” Being the exceptional investigator that he is, he tracks the movements of Felix Vail across the country.
He soon stumbled on evidence that indicated foul play in the death of Mary who was Felix Vail’s first wife that drowned in Lake Charles, Los Angeles.

“Backstage Pass” by Jerry Mitchell takes its readers to the hottest show in town where they get a front row seat.

It provides a behind-the-scenes look into some great performances by some of the sexiest acts on Broadway. Gorgeous women strut their stuff on the biggest stage as the Great White Way is lit up by burlesque naughtiness. They tantalize, they titillate and tease even as they deliver electric performances.

By the end of each performance, they have more than a smile. However, the big payoff is when they raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for causes such as the fight against AIDS.

The work takes a behind-the-scenes look at Broadway Bares, a famous event that sets New York alight each summer. It is an event that was initiated by Jerry Mitchell, the award-winning choreographer and director.

For the first time ever, this work explores the inside of the making of the keepsake album as it brings together the scorching on stage photographs, scintillating backstage shots, and sizzling posters of Broadway Bares.