Best of
Crime

1990

Bella Mafia


Lynda La Plante - 1990
    When a series of murders tear the family apart, its women group get together to gain revenge on those responsible for the carnage.Don Roberto Luciano turns informer for the biggest Mafia trial in history, but his family pays a terrible price. The head of his family, his three sons, his two grandsons and his nephew are all killed leaving the five widows to reclaim their inheritance from a dangerous Mafioso.

Goodfellas: Screenplay


Nicholas Pileggi - 1990
    Young Henry dreams that one day he too might be a professional 'wiseguy' - a 'goodfella'. His wishes come true with remarkable speed once he teams up with renowned hoodlum Jimmy Conway and his alarmingly psychotic pal Tommy DeVito. Henry embarks on an everyday life of crime which takes him from rags to gaudy riches, in and out of the federal penitentiary and under the unwelcome spotlight of the FBI. As the 1970s turn sour Henry finds himself at the sharp end of the cocaine trade, increasingly adrift from his extended mobster 'family' and forced to make a tough decision about his future . . .The film that re-established Martin Scorsese's eminence among American directors after years of professional difficulties, GoodFellas is a tour de force which lays bare the crude and venal motives which drive a happy band of thieves and murderers.

Trial


Clifford Irving - 1990
     A twisting, relentless thriller, Trial follows Texas lawyer Warren Blackburn as he defends two accused murderers in two separate cases. One of his clients is a former beauty queen and brazen owner of a topless nightclub, who shot her multimillionaire doctor lover - she claims - in self-defense; the other is a homeless illegal alien accused of killing a man for his wallet. Without warning, the two cases merge and become one, and Warren's entire life and career are threatened. William Safire in The New York Times called this "the novel of the year."

The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers


Michael Newton - 1990
    From Jack the Ripper to Ted Bundy, the encyclopedia gives readers an overview of what is undoubtedly the most macabre and fascinating branch of crime and modern criminology.

Death by the Riverside


J.M. Redmann - 1990
    The trail leads to the Hundred Oaks Plantation, a transvestite named Eddie, a beautiful doctor named Cordelia, and memories Micky thought she had buried twenty years ago.Hard-hitting prose in the style of Sam Spade and Mike Hammer with a lesbian twist.The First Micky Knight Mystery

Venom


Colin Falconer - 1990
    I will survive and come back to haunt you. All of you ... A beautiful French girl and her Indian lover locked in the white heat of illicit passion. The result is Michel. Thrown out onto the dangerous streets, he grows to ferocious manhood in the alleys of Saigon.He survives to wreak the most extreme vengeance for every beating, every betrayal. Possessed of a raw sexuality and the flair of a master criminal, driven by a pitiless hidden violence, he leaves a trail of blood that stretches from the backstreets of Bombay even to the boulevards of Paris. But when the judge's gavel cracks across a Delhi courtroom and the world waits for justice, his destiny will hang on one last ironic twist of fate ... "Exotic, exciting, darkly suspenseful - a splendid novel." - Campbell Armstrong.

Death Sentence: The Inside Story of the John List Murders


Joe Sharkey - 1990
    Until 1971, life was good for mild-mannered accountant John List. He was vice president of a Jersey City bank and had moved his mother, wife, and three teenage children into a nineteen-room home in Westfield, New Jersey. But all that changed when he lost his job. Raised by his Lutheran father to believe success meant being a good provider, List saw himself as an utter failure. Straining under financial burdens, the stress of hiding his unemployment, as well as the fear that the free-spirited 1970s would corrupt the souls of his children, List came to a shattering conclusion.   “It was my belief that if you kill yourself, you won’t go to heaven,” List told Connie Chung in a television interview. “So eventually I got to the point where I felt that I could kill them. Hopefully they would go to heaven, and then maybe I would have a chance to later confess my sins to God and get forgiveness.”   List methodically shot his entire family in their home, managing to conceal the deaths for weeks with a carefully orchestrated plan of deception. Then he vanished and started over as Robert P. Clark. Chronicling List’s life before and after the grisly crime, Death Sentence exposes the truth about the accountant-turned-killer, including his revealing letter to his pastor, his years as a fugitive with a new name—and a new wife—his eventual arrest, and the details of his high-profile trial.  Revised and updated, this ebook also includes photos.

Longshot


Dick Francis - 1990
    A starving writer turns to work that will at least pay the bills, but he soon discovers the perils of rural England. His agent had warned that his impulses would kill him, but he didn't listen--not by a longshot.

Murder of Innocence: The Tragic Life and Final Rampage of Laurie Dann


Joel Kaplan - 1990
    Driven by fear and hate, she was going to make something terrible happen. Before the end of the day, Dann had blazed a murderous trail of poison, fire, and bullets through the unsuspecting town of Winnetka, Illinois, and other North Shore suburbs. She murdered an eight-year-old boy and critically wounded 5 other children inside an elementary school. It finally took a massed force of armed police to end the killing. The shocking story of innocence destroyed by a rich young babysitter inexplicably gone mad made headlines all across the nation and inspired at least two psychotic killers to follow her example. What lead her to do it? Could she have been stopped? The case raised a host of agonizing questions that have remained unanswered—until now. In this book, three Chicago Tribune reporters who covered the Laurie Dann tragedy have pulled together all the available police evidence, unearthed valuable psychiatric information, and interviewed at length scores of people who knew Dann, many of whom had never before spoken to the media about this case. Despite clear and ominous warning signs, a young woman of beauty and privilege was allowed to deteriorate and go slowly berserk—and no one stopped her. Her parents, her doctors, and the police officers who knew her pathological behavior all failed her at critical times. By its passivity and silence, a community comfortable and quiet on the surface, yet reluctant to admit its underlying flaws, became an unwitting accomplice to the final rampage of Laurie Dann. MURDER OF INNOCENCE is a searing portrayal of a family—and a society—unable to cope, and of a young woman who wanted all too desperately only to be loved.

Postmortem


Patricia Daniels Cornwell - 1990
    Four brutalized victims of a brilliant monster - a "Mr. Nobody", moving undetected through a paralyzed city, leaving behind a gruesome trail of carnage . . . but few clues. With skilled hands, an unerring eye, and the latest advances in forensic research, an unrelenting female medical examiner - Kay Scarpetta - is determined to unmask a maniac. But someone is trying to sabotage Kay's investigation from the inside. And worse yet, someone wants her dead . . .

Homeboy


Seth Morgan - 1990
    After a high-priced hooker is killed and one of the world's biggest diamonds is stolen, Joe Speaker, a strip-joint barker and dope addict, stumbles onto the missing jewel, is hunted down and put away for the murder. In prison, he finds that his troubles are just beginning.

The Westies: Inside New York's Irish Mob


T.J. English - 1990
    A gang of Irish-Americans, the Westies patrolled Manhattan's West Side throughout the '60s, '70s, and '80s. They ruled the tough blue-collar neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, where bodies were known to literally fall from the sky.

A Death in White Bear Lake: The True Chronicle of an All-American Town


Barry Siegel - 1990
    The autopsy report ruled peritonitis was the cause, but the startling photos of the boy suggested murder.How could the Jurgens kill a small child and get away with it? Determined to find answers, detectives Ron Meehan and Greg Kindle tracked down old witnesses and rebuilt the case brick by brick until they exposed the demons that drove an adopted parent to torture and eventually murder a helpless child. Just as compelling, they investigated why so many people watched and did absolutely nothing. A vivid portrait of an all-American town that harbored a killer, A Death in White Bear Lake is also the absorbing story of two detectives who refused to give up until they had the killer cold.

The Fourth Cadfael Omnibus


Ellis Peters - 1990
    But among the throng, some strange customers indeed begin to puzzle Brother Cadfael, and as events unfold it becomes clear that the murder is a much less remote affair than it first seemed.An Excellent Mystery: In 1141 England is still torn by the civil strife caused by the struggle for the throne between King Stephen and the Empress Maud. Among the victims of the carnage is the Abbey of Hyde Meade, totally destroyed; its brothers scattered far and wide. But as the brothers of the cloister attempt to rebuild their lives, old wounds are reopened, pain relived and harsh deeds committed. Only Brother Cadfael can ultimately distinguish between victim, innocent - and guilty party.The Raven in the Foregate: Christmas, 1141. Abbot Radulfus returns from London, bringing with him a priest for the vacant living of Holy Cross (known as the Foregate) - a man of presence, scholarship and discipline, but neither humility nor the common touch. When he is found drowned in the mill-pond, suspicion is cast in many directions... and only the dedicated perseverance of Brother Cadfael can unravel the threads that lead to the murderer.

Night and Fear: A Centenary Collection of Stories


Cornell Woolrich - 1990
    America's most popular pulps--Dime Detective, Black Mask, and Detective Fiction Weekly--published hundreds of his stories. Classic films like Hitchcock's Rear Window, Truffaut's The Bride Wore Black and Mississippi Mermaid, Tournier's Black Alibi, and Siodmak's Phantom Lady, as well as dozens of other movies, were based on his work. Novels like Deadline at Dawn, Rendezvous in Black, and Night Has a Thousand Eyes have won him the epithet "father of noir." Every one of the countless many who have read and loved the work of Cornell Woolrich will welcome and applaud this publication of a new collection of tales--the first in nearly two decades--by the greatest writer of suspense fiction in the twentieth century. Woolrich lived a life of such deep despair and utter terror that he could do little except put those fears onto the printed page. In the masterfully wrought suspense of this volume's twenty stories, readers can enjoy works written at the height of Woolrich's powers, as well as many never before published in book form before now.

A Conspiracy of Crowns: The True Story of the Duke of Windsor and the Murder of Sir Harry Oakes


Alfred de Marigny - 1990
    Its portrayal of the Duke of Windsor as a Nazi sympathizer--who would stop at nothing to hide it--is sure to make headlines. Black-and-white photographs.

Button Bright


Michael Kurland - 1990
    But Button was only dimly aware of the sounds. Her consciousness had shrunk down to focus on the body that was blocking her hole— —and the warm, thick liquid that was dripping onto her hand.” Button is an 11 year old, bubbly and intelligent girl who is haunted in her dreams by a tapping sound… Living with her mother and father in Cottsborough, Vermont, Button had been trained to hide and not ever answer to her secret name, ‘Rachel’. One day, two men arrive at Button’s family home searching for her by this secret name. Refusing to give Button up, things turn violent and the men shoot her father dead. Through a narrow crack in the floor boards, Button bears witness to the murder. Eluding the two men who tried to catch her, Button uses her wits to navigate herself from Vermont to Boston and then to New York. Button has a plan to find her uncle Dromkin. When her search seems hopeless, Button is taken in by a resident of her uncle’s apartment building, Phil, who claims he can help. But when they find Dromkin sprawled on the floor with his throat cut, Button is convinced she is somehow the cause of these family murders... Will Phil be able to keep her identity hidden long enough for her to find out the truth? Praise for Michael Kurland: "A perfect tale of childhood terror." - Tom Kasey Michael Kurland grew up in New York City, attended Columbia University, spent four years in the Army, much of it in Europe, and now lives in California with his partner, novelist Linda Robertson, a dog, a cat, and an occasional visiting family of raccoons. He has been a teacher of obscure subjects to disinterested children, the editor of a magazine even more idiosyncratic than himself, a seeker of absent persons, a magical explainer, and guest lecturer at numerous unrelated events. Kurland has written a dozen or so science fiction novels, a brace of mysteries, and several books that fit into that tenuous genre known as “mainstream.” He has been nominated for an Edgar (twice) and for the American Book Award. His books have been translated into eleven other languages. His other novel with Venture Press is Psi Hunt.

In a Child's Name: The Legacy of a Mother's Murder


Peter Maas - 1990
    The custody battle over the couple's infant son makes this true story all the more tragic. 16 pages of photographs.

Drug Lord: The Life and Death of a Mexican Kingpin


Terrence E. Poppa - 1990
    Controlling crime along 250 miles of the Rio Grande, he was responsible for creating a narcotics hub in northern Mexico that smuggled 60 tons of cocaine a year into the United States. This book chronicles Pablo Acosta's bloody rise and his spectacular fall at the hands of the same system that had protected him until he made the mistake of talking to a U.S. reporter--the author--about the arrangement. Also included are details about Pablo Acosta's successor, Amado Carrillo Fuentes.

Dove Amongst the Hawks


Paul Doherty - 1990
    Was it suicide or murder? The Pope wanted to prove Henry VI was worthy of beatification, while the King, Edward IV, claimed he had died witless and incapable. But the closer Luke came to the truth, the more his life fell into danger.

Into the Blue


Robert Goddard - 1990
    That is, until a guest at the villa disappears on a walking tour, and Harry is the number one suspect. While a Greek detective tries to trap him, and the British tabloids pillory him at home, Harry’s conscience is his worst enemy of all. What happened to young, beautiful Heather Mallender? Who took her—and why didn’t Harry realize that something was amiss? Suddenly, a man steeped in failure has found a purpose, retracing the strange, twisting route that led to Heather’s vanishing. But the more he learns, the less he knows. Until Harry finds himself at the heart of a dangerous puzzle whose pieces are scattered everywhere: in the realm of British politics, in the beds of adulterous lovers, in the past, the present, and most of all, amid the secrets of a killer....

Edge of Darkness


Troy Kennedy Martin - 1990
    One of the most ambitious and popular BBC drama series ever, Edge of Darkness received six BAFTA awards after it was first broadcast in 1985, and writer Troy Kennedy Martin's achievement in creating a "green" vision of things to come makes this an important text for the 1990s.Ron Craven, a Yorkshire policeman, makes a private investigation into the circumstances of his daughter's mysterious death, and is drawn into an international nuclear network, whose deadly secret he feels compelled to expose in the interests of the human race.This book contains all six episodes, with a detailed and challenging introduction by the author on the factual background to the series.

Twin Peaks


Angelo Badalamenti - 1990
    The matching folio to the popular TV show features lyrics by director David Lynch and music by Angelo Badalamenti, plus many great photos from the series!

The A.B.C. Murders / The Mirror Crack'd / Cat Among the Pigeons / The Clocks


Agatha Christie - 1990
    Next to die is Miss Bernard in Bexhill, then Mr. Clarke in Churston. More disturbing than the alphabetic sequence of the killings or the ABC Railway guide that the killer leaves at the scene of each crime are the taunting notes Hercule Poirot receives each time the killer is about to strike again. It is one of Poirot's most challenging cases yet.Also published as The Alphabet Murders.The Mirror Crack'd (Miss Marple, Bk 8)Marina Gregg, an actress whose best years are behind her, hosts a dinner party and, when one of her guests is poisoned, most suspect a homicidal hostess.Cat Among the Pigeons (Hercule Poirot, Bk 33)Welcome to Meadowbank, an exclusive school for privileged young ladies. A fine lot. A dangerous one, too. Two teachers have already bitten the dust. It's obvious to Hercule Poirot that someone is out to scratch Meadowbank's respectable veneer.The Clocks (Hercule Poirot, Bk 34)As instructed, stenographer Sheila Webb let herself into the house at 19 Wilbraham Crescent. It was then that she made a grisly discovery: the body of a dead man sprawled across the living room floor. What intrigued Poirot about the case was the time factor. Although in a state of shock, Sheila clearly remembered having heard a cuckoo clock strike three o'clock. Yet, the four other clocks in the living room all showed the time as 4.13. Even more strangely, only one of these clocks belonged to the owner of the house...

Three Novels: A Dark-Adapted Eye; A Fatal Inversion; The House of Stairs


Barbara Vine - 1990
    

Blue Thunder: How the Mafia Owned and Finally Murdered Cigarette Boat King Donald Aronow


Thomas Burdick - 1990
    Here, told with the urgency of ndwsbreaking copy, is the true story of his life and death--a story of fast boats, fast women, drug running, and a host of America's famous. 8 pages of black-and-white photographs.

Pool Cues, Beer Bottles, and Baseball Bats: Animala (TM)S Guide to Improvised Weapons for Self-Defense


Marc MacYoung - 1990
    Learn to pick up damn near anything and use it to survive.

Conflict of Lions


Terence Strong - 1990
    In the hiatus following the Falklands War, a group of hardened SAS troops is sent as a safeguard against rumblings of political discontent against the moderate elected government. It is intended to provide the ideal location for the men to rest after the violent burst of full-blooded warfare in the South Atlantic. And so it does – that is, until a tourist is found dead on the beach. In the remote territory up country, the forces of violence and terror are gathering and it is certain that innocent blood will be spilled. That is when the legendary SAS captain returns. To the only woman he has ever loved. And to a brooding land of fear and unrest, swept by a rising tide of revolutionary fervour and bloodlust.

Plastic Forks


Ted McKeever - 1990
    Experiments that are done with an almost apparent blindness, that in the context of the book becomes 'accepted'.Doctors flounder about the institution in a mindless daze, as they go about their profession. These 'researchers' think they are in control of their experiments. The fact is, through no intention of their own, they set into motion something they cannot, nor do they seem intended, on controlling.

Hatchard's Crime Companion: 100 Top Crime Novels of All Time Selected By The Crime Writers' Association


Susan Moody - 1990
    

Chilling True Tales of Old Preston


Keith A. Johnson - 1990
    

Who Really Killed Chief Paulina?: An Oregon Documentary


Dorsey Griffin - 1990
    But have you ever wondered who the man actually was and what motivated him? In this carefully researched Oregon history book, you have a chance to find out the truth about Chief Paulina and what happened to him, and why he is considered by today's standards to have led an extremely short life. The life and death of Chief Paulina remained a quiet 125-year-old Oregon mystery until it was finally solved by a tenacious researcher who studied all the literature on a story that had more than a few loopholes and missing links. Dorsey Griffin presents, in his 1985 book, what is known about "The meanest, most murderous and one of the cleverest Indians in Oregon Settlement days." Chief Paulina of the Walpapi tribe of snakes was "...the scourge of the 1860s, responsible for more wanton killing, more savage depredations, torture, theft, rapine and burnings than any Indian known." Who Really Killed Chief Paulina solves the mystery of who did actually kill him, why he was killed and much more.

The Mammoth Book of True Crime 2


Colin Wilson - 1990
    With new chapters on serial killers, computer crime, cannibals, and conspiracy theories, the revised edition of this popular book presents hours of enthralling reading for the true-crime fans.

Breaking The Mob


Frank Friel - 1990
    Friel describes Scarfo's rise to power, his bloody feud with his arch rival, and the rise and fall of Scarfo's "Young Executioners," who used the streets of Philadelphia as their murder playground. Friel also tells of his efforts to save an innocent man convicted of two mob murders from the electric air.

Keeper


Michael Garrett - 1990
    Her rescuer, 20-year-old Wayne Crocker, carries her back to his trailer where ice-broken telephone lines prevent him from calling for help. Wayne's fantasies of holding a beautiful woman in his arms now become reality. Captivated by her beauty, he yearns to keep and care for her. He saved her life; maybe now she will be his. However, Nancy revives nude and in the company of her rescuer--a stranger. But in her half-conscious state, and with no memory of the accident, she mistakenly presumes he's a sex-crazed kidnapper. Unable to convince Nancy otherwise, Wayne ties her up and keeps her in his trailer, fearing that her story, when told to the police, will land him in prison. Nancy's plunge into Kelley Creek twists Wayne's life of quiet desperation into a nightmare of desire and longing.

The Polk Conspiracy: Murder and Cover-Up in the Case of CBS News Correspondent George Polk


Kati Marton - 1990
    The Nazi occupation and World War II had left it weakened, and the Greek Civil War—already raging for two years—had torn it apart. One of the earliest clashes of the Cold War, Greece’s civil dispute pitted the American-backed royalist government against the Soviet-funded Greek Communist Party. Reporting at the front lines for CBS News, George Polk drew the ire of both sides with his uncompromising and incisive coverage. In mid-May, days after going missing, Polk was found dead, shot execution style with his hands and feet bound. What transpired next was a mad scramble of finger pointing and international outrage. To appease its American backers, the Greek government quickly secured the dubious confession of a Communist journalist—though the bulk of the evidence pointed to the royalists. An influential moment in the early days of the Cold War and a powerful force in the formation of the Truman Doctrine, the Polk conspiracy was emblematic of the ideological conflict that would embroil the globe for the next forty years.

Club Twelve


Amanda Kyle Williams - 1990
    The gripping espionage novel you've waited for. Brimming with authentic detail and far-flung locales and non-stop action...The year is 1978. Madison McGuire, deep-cover agent for the National Operations Intelligence Service and a legend amid the intelligence community, has been called in from the field. Her lover is dead, gunned down on a London street, and Madison, paralyzed with grief, understands too well that she was the intended target.Andrew McFaye, director of the NOIS, is Madison's mentor and friend. He and the CIA director convince the Secretary of State that Madison must return to the field to identify the multi-national group of terrorists known as Club Twelve. Amid that lethal group is a highly placed American, and the daughter of that American is lesbian Terry Woodall, Madison's next contact..In pursuit of Club Twelve through the capitals of Europe, Madison is suddenly caught in a scheme designed to badly damage America. With the stakes raised to entirely new levels, pursued by agents of her own country, Madison calls on old allies - and new lover Terry - to extricate herself and her country from an insidious plot.Edited by Katherine V. Forrest

The Klan Unmasked


Stetson Kennedy - 1990
    Fast-paced and suspenseful, the book is a gripping mix of eyewitness reports of Klan activities, accounts of Kennedy’s clandestine information-gathering, and his efforts to report his findings to the media and to any law enforcement agencies that would listen. As a result, for a time in the 1940s, Washington news commentator Drew Pearson was reading Klan meeting minutes on national radio, and radio’s Superman had America’s kids sharing the most current Klan passwords as fast as the Dragon could think up new ones.