Best of
Crime
1979
On the Trail of the Serpent: The Life and Crimes of Charles Sobhraj
Richard Neville - 1979
Born in Vietnam to a Vietnamese mother and Indian father, Sobhraj grew up with a fluid sense of identity, moving to France before being imprisoned and stripped of his multiple nationalities. Driven to floating from country to country, continent to continent, he became the consummate con artist, stealing passports, smuggling drugs and guns across Asia, busting out of prisons and robbing wealthy associates. But as his situation grew more perilous he turned to murder, preying on Western tourists dropping out across the 1970s hippie route, leaving a trail of dead bodies and gruesome crime scenes in his wake. First published in 1979, but updated here to include new material, On the Trail of the Serpent draws its readers into the story of Sobhraj’s life as told exclusively to journalists Richard Neville and Julie Clarke. Blurring the boundaries between true crime and novelisation, this remains the definitive book about Sobhraj – a riveting tale of sex, drugs, adventure and murder.
Serpentine
Thomas Thompson - 1979
Sweeping back and forth over half the globe -- from the boulevards of Paris to the slopes of Mount Everest to the underbellies of Bangkok and Hong Kong -- Sobhraj left in his wake a trail of baffling mystery and inexplicable horror. He also led the police of a dozen nations on a chase that ended at least twelve and possibly twenty-four corpses later with a mere seven-year prison sentence in Delhi. Besides offering a riveting narrative of serial murder and a years-long manhunt, this singular volume examines the lives not only of the intelligent, charismatic, conscienceless, and thoroughly dangerous Sobhraj but also of the unsuspecting victims that he drugged, robbed, sometimes tortured, and without a qualm often killed. A chilling tale of deadly coincidences set in exotic, glamorous locales, Serpentine offers a reading experience as frightening as it is unforgettable.
The Executioner's Song
Norman Mailer - 1979
To do so, he had to fight a system that seemed paradoxically intent on keeping him alive long after it had sentenced him to death.Norman Mailer tells Gilmore's story--and those of the men and women caught up in his procession toward the firing squad--with implacable authority, steely compassion, and a restraint that evokes the parched landscapes and stern theology of Gilmore's Utah. The Executioner's Song is a trip down the wrong side of the tracks to the deepest sources of American loneliness and violence. It is a towering achievement--impossible to put down, impossible to forget.Winner of the 1980 Pulitzer Prize
The Falcon and the Snowman: A True Story of Friendship & Espionage
Robert Lindsey - 1979
Book by Lindsey, Robert
By Reason of Insanity
Shane Stevens - 1979
Subjected to unmerciful physical and mental torture from an early age, Bishop kills his mother at the age of 10 and is placed in an institution for the criminally insane. He grows to manhood knowing the outside world only through a television screen. At 25, he succeeds in a brilliant escape and change of identity and begins to move across the country, murdering women in particularly gruesome ways. Pursued by reporters, police, and the mob, Bishop manages to elude them all, and the search for him becomes the greatest manhunt in U.S. history. Stevens takes the reader on a harrowing descent into the mind of a mass murderer in this eerily realistic serial-killer novel. The chilling denouement will hold readers spellbound until the shattering, unforgettable conclusion.
Ed McBain: Seven 87th Precinct Novels
Ed McBain - 1979
This gathering of seven of the best 87th Precinct tales by Ed McBain (aka Evan Hunter) was originally priced at £5.95, and when it first appeared was actually available at £4.95 if bought before Oct 31 1979. The seven novels: Cop Hater, Give The Boys A Great Big Hand, Doll, Eighty Million Eyes, Hail Hail the Gang's All Here!, Sadie When She Died, and Let's Hear It For The Deaf Man.
Zebra: The True Account of the 179 Days of Terror in San Francisco
Clark Howard - 1979
Beyond Reasonable Doubt?
David A. Yallop - 1979
Five months later, a neighbour, Arthur Allan Thomas, was arrested, charged and found guilty of their murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. A retrial in 1972 ended with another guilty verdict.David Yallop, author of To Encourage the Others and The Day the Laughter Stopped, two already celebrated books which dealt with miscarriages of justice, spent over a year in New Zealand investigating the case and became convinced of Thomas' innocence. in an open letter to New Zealand's Prime Minister, he demanded Thomas' release on the grounds that he 'has not been found guilty beyond reasonable doubt. He has in fact been found innocent beyond reasonable doubt.' In 1978, as a direct result of Yallop's intercession and the publication of this book, Thomas was granted a royal pardon and, in 1980, awarded nearly 1 million dollars in compensation for the nine years he had served behind bards.Beyond Reasonable Doubt? is both a riveting work of high drama and a compelling insight into the machinery of criminal justice. A Number One bestseller in hgardcover and the subject of a widely-acclaimed film, it is a lasting testimony to David Yallop's reputation as the world's greatest investigative author.