Best of
True-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

Zebra: The True Account of the 179 Days of Terror in San Francisco


Clark Howard - 1979
    

Badge of the Assassin


Robert K. Tanenbaum - 1979
    TanenbaumBADGE OF THE ASSASSINThey were just doing their jobs -- serving and protecting -- when the unimaginable happened: Officers Waverly Jones and Joseph Piagentini became moving targets, ambushed from behind at a Manhattan housing project. Jones lay dead in a pool of his own blood, and Piagentini lived long enough to beg for his life -- before he was riddled with twenty-two bullet holes by members of a deadly hit squad hell-bent on taking out the men and women of law enforcement.Masterfully building suspense on every page, Robert K. Tanenbaum reconstructs the vicious murders of Jones and Piagentini and the manhunt for the suspects, and brings to life his courtroom prosecution of the killers -- revealing the triumphs and failures of America's legal system.

Ambush: The Real Story Of Bonnie And Clyde


Ted Hinton - 1979
    

Blood Will Tell: The Murder Trials of T. Cullen Davis


Gary Cartwright - 1979
    This is a riveting true story of money and murder.The story of a torrid August night in Forth Worth, Texas, when a man in black entered a $6 million mansion, put a bullet through the chest of sexy, blond Priscilla Davis, and murdered her lover and her daughter.The story of the arrest of Priscilla's estranged husband, Cullen, a multimillionaire oilman.The story of a flamboyant lawyer, a country judge, and a lurid murder trial.The story of brothers feuding over a billion-dollar corporation, of drugs and orgies, of a high-stakes divorce and the underground life of the Texas rich.

Homeboys: Gangs, Drugs, and the Prison in the Barrios of Los Angeles


Joan Moore - 1979
    Moore is Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. She is the author of "Mexican Americans" and co-author (with Leo Grebler) of "The Mexican American People."

Missing Person: The True Story of a Police Case Resolved by the Clairvoyant Powers of Dorothy Allison


Robert V. Cox - 1979
    

The Mysteries of Life & Death: An Illustrated Investigation Into the Incredible World of Death


Keith Simpson - 1979
    

Whatever Happened to Denise Sullivan?


Stephen P. Lacy - 1979
    Her body was never found.