Over 1100 numbered entries for publications that relate to about five hundred murder cases, each of which is represented by one or more publications. The description of each entry includes a transcription of the title-page (abbreviated when unduly long), and the publisher, date, pagination, illustration, and binding of the first edition. Later editions and variants, not numbered separately, are noted. The level of bibliographic detail is a happy medium between the miserly descriptions of Howes' U.S.iana and the daunting complexity of Bowers-type collational formulae.
The material is arranged alphabetically under the name of the defendant except where the perpetrator is unknown or where special circumstances dictate another label (the Haymarket Massacre and the assassination of Lincoln, for example). Following the first entry for each case is an annotation that sets forth the significant facts or points of the case.
A comprehensive index lists murderers, suspects, victims, and vessels for crimes at sea under U.S. jurisdiction. Authors are included where identified, and place names in instances where the crime is known by its location (e.g., the Manheim Tragedy, after a Pennsylvania town in which a pair of chimney sweepers murdered two women in 1858). A particularly useful adjunct is the inclusion in the index of the locations of cases by state and county.