A must-read for fans of Donnie Brasco. For over 20 years Joe Carter has worked for the police as an undercover cop. He travelled the globe on different passports. He fraternised with thieves, international drugs and arms dealers. He worked alongside the most dangerous criminals. Always fearing that this life would come crashing down around him at any point. His story is a gripping account of the secret, solitary work of an undercover officer and the many ‘sticky’ situations he found himself in, as well as the moving confession of the difficulty in reconciling his two identities with his family life. It’s a story of his beginnings from a being a young east end apprentice to the mean streets he walks today – it reveals the many highs and the painful lows of going undercover. This book explores the resilience needed to lead a double life, the thrilling challenge of working with the biggest criminals in Britain, and maintaining a sense of justice through the many adventures he encounters.

    It was a gun – a sawn-off shotgun.’Featured on ITV's Lorraine with Michael Sheen and Rachel Williams. Darren was funny and attractive, and 21-year-old Rachel fell head-over-heels for him; it wasn’t long before they moved in together, and she fell pregnant with his child. But his inner demons soon surfaced... Weakened and alone, Rachel was beaten and tormented by him for 18 years, until one day, Darren turned up at her place of work with a shotgun and left her for dead. But her ordeal wasn’t over… Devastating yet inspiring, Rachel’s story of hope tells of how you can always find the light, even in the very darkest of times.‘Incredibly poignant and powerful.’ – Victoria Derbyshire ‘Transformative. Life changing.’ – Michael Sheen

    Told with humour and insight, it looks back across the decades at the life of this close knit, notorious East End family. Maureen Flanagan, a then 20 year old hairdresser started visiting the Kray family home in Vallance Road each week to give the twins’ mother, Violet, her weekly shampoo and set. Over the cups of tea and the rollers and hairpins, Violet began to confide in ‘Flan’ about her life, her incredible pride in her twins, the celebrities who visited her at their humble East End home - and her troubled relationship with her husband.

    Paul Gerry created the greatest fortune in America - and came close to destroying his own family in the process. Of his four sons who reached manhood, only one survived relatively unscathed. One killed himself, one became a drug-addicted recluse and the third had to bear the stigma all his life of being disinherited in childhood.The unhappiness continued into the next generation, with the name Getty, as one journalist put it, 'becoming synonymous for family dysfunction'. Getty's once favourite grandson John Paul Getty III was kidnapped by the Italian mafia who cut off his ear to raise a ransom and, after a lifetime of drink and drugs, became a paraplegic. His granddaughter Aileen has AIDS. And the Getty family itself has been torn apart by litigation over their poisoned inheritance.But did the disaster have to happen? John Pearson, who has specialized in biographies of families as varied as the Churchills, the British Royal Family, the Devonshires and the Krays, sets out to find the answer. The result, first published in 1995, is a fascinating saga of an extraordinary dynasty.He traces much of the trouble to the bizarre character of the avaricious, sex-obsessed billionaire, J. Paul Getty himself - and demonstrates how much of his behaviour has been repeated in succeeding generations. He describes the famous kidnapping of his grandson in graphic detail, revealing how the old man's attitude added considerably to the boy's sufferings. And he shows how the family has coped with the latest modern scourges: drugs and AIDS.For Painfully Rich is not a hopeless story. While some of the family have been damaged by the Getty legacy, others have saved themselves from disaster, most notably the cricket-loving philanthropist, J. Paul Getty Jr. Pearson's moving story of his recovery from drugs and deep personal tragedy shows that there is hope for future generations of this stricken family - and demonstrates that money can be used to buy survival and even happiness.

    He had a unique insight into the workings of a criminal organization whose reputation in the underworld remains to this day. But he was not just an observer and his role in the Kray story ultimately led to him serving 15 years in prison. Inside the Firm tells, with searing honesty, his violent history with the Krays, and the horrors of his subsequent imprisonment in top security institutions. In exorcising his ghosts, he reveals an account that is more impartial and more terrifying than Ronnie and Reggie ever could have written. From the murder of Jack "The Hat" McVitie—and the mystery of his undiscovered body—to the role of the Kray legacy in Britain’s prisons today, here is the last confession of a gangster determined to turn his back on his brutal past.

    From miraculous pregnancies to dirty protests, and from violent attacks on prisoners to heartbreaking acts of self-harm, she has witnessed it all. In this memoir, Amanda reveals the stories, the patients and the cases that have shaped a career helping those most of us would rather forget.

    Held responsible for the gangland killings of Ginger Marks and Frank ?The Mad AxemanOCO Mitchell, he was the punisher to those who broke the underworldOCOs strict code of conduct.ForemanOCOs dramatic kidnap and arrest for BritainOCOs biggest cash robbery made headlines around the world, yet this daring raid was just the peak of a safe-blowing, bank-robbing career that spanned decades. His story is a fascinating, yet chilling account of life as a freelance enforcer for the Kray twins, and as LondonOCOs most feared gangster.Bloodshed aside, FreddieOCOs often humorous stories reveal a caring man who believes that violence is a last resort and who always treated people with respect. Revealed in these pages are the amazing details of the heists, the double crossings, the shoot-outs and the betrayals that accompanied life as a career criminal when the streets were controlled by fear. Exposed are the audacious plans behind the centuryOCOs most famous crimes, the damning evidence of police corruption and the eye-opening events that gave Freddie this most revered reputation.OCOThe most blood-curdling gangster memoir youOCOll ever readOCO ? The News of the World"

    Marcia and her partner Paul, Nikitta’s father, rushed to the scene but there was nothing they could do. Firefighters had already discovered Nikitta’s body in the wreckage of the home she’d lovingly built with her childhood sweetheart. To add to their agony, Nikitta had been eight months’ pregnant. The fully formed yet unborn baby girl she’d already named Kelsey May was gone, too.But it soon became apparent Nikitta’s death was far from an accident. Within hours, the investigation became a murder inquiry and Ryan’s cousin Carl Whant was the prime suspect. Whant had been openly infatuated with Nikitta and boasted that he thought of her every time he had sex.As her world collapsed around her, Marcia could only watch in horror. Shortly after Whant was charged with murder, child destruction, rape and arson, she began charting her feelings in a searingly honest diary, the contents of which are published for the first time in this book.Marcia painstakingly recalls the agony of holding her granddaughter for the first time in a police mortuary, but being unable to see her dead daughter because of the shocking state in which Whant had left her. She charts the pain of laying them both to rest, knowing she will have to face their killer every day in court when Whant’s case comes to trial. For the first time, she opens up about her turbulent relationship with Ryan and the devastating revelations which almost cause her world to shatter for a second time. But, above all, she speaks of the indescribable hell of learning to live without the most important thing in her life.

    It’s his job to defend the people who have found themselves on the wrong side of the law – Petty thieves, career criminals, drug dealers and murderers…The scary son of a famous footballer, whose violent behaviour has got him in trouble so many times he almost knows the law better than Russell.The thief of a marital aid, who has a rather unusual defence.The 27 year old drug addict accused of stealing a push-bike, a chainsaw, a bag full of washing and a small fridge – all at the same time.And Russell’s first murder case – a young woman accused of murdering her violent boyfriend.This fascinating insight takes us behind the closed doors of the British legal world. With plenty of drama inside – and outside – of the courtroom, you’ll find out how CCTV can make or break a case, how your Facebook page could land you in jail and why on earth they wear those funny wigs!

    Decades later, in the mid 1970's, they would meet again. By then, Connolly was a major figure in the FBI's Boston office and Whitey had become godfather of the Irish Mob. What happened next -- a dirty deal to being down the Italian mob in exchange for protection for Bulger -- would spiral out of control, leading to murders, drug dealing, racketeering indictments, and, ultimately, the biggest informant scandal in the history of the FBI.Compellingly told by two Boston Globe reporters who were on the case from the beginning, Black Mass is at once a riveting crime story, a cautionary tale about the abuse of power, and a penetrating look at Boston and its Irish population.

    Award-winning journalist Mara Leveritt's The Devil's Knot remains the most comprehensive, insightful reporting ever done on the investigation, trials, and convictions of three teenage boys who became known as the West Memphis Three.For weeks in 1993, after the murders of three eight-year-old boys, police in West Memphis, Arkansas seemed stymied. Then suddenly, detectives charged three teenagers, alleged members of a satanic cult, with the killings. Despite the witch-hunt atmosphere of the trials, and a case which included stunning investigative blunders, a confession riddled with errors, and an absence of physical evidence linking any of the accused to the crime, the teenagers were convicted. Jurors sentenced Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley to life in prison and Damien Echols, the accused ringleader, to death. The guilty verdicts were popular in their home state, even upheld on appeal, and all three remained in prison until their unprecedented release in August 2011.With close-up views of its key participants, this award-winning account unravels the many tangled knots of this endlessly shocking case, one which will shape the American legal landscape for years to come.

    Since bursting onto the international trail-running scene by winning the first multistage race he ever entered – the brutal Gobi March – Ryan has gone on to win various other multistage and single-day races around the globe. Written with bestselling author and journalist Steve Smith, Trail Blazer – My Life as an Ultra-distance Trail Runner recounts the life story of this intrepid sportsman, from his experiences as a rudderless party animal to becoming a world-class athlete, and includes details on his training regimes, race strategies and aspirations for future sporting endeavours.Sports enthusiasts will enjoy the adrenaline-inducing trials and tribulations of one of South Africa’s most awe-inspiring athletes, while endurance-sport participants – from beginners to aspirant pros – will benefit from his insights and advice. As Professor Tim Noakes says in the Foreword to this book: ‘However much we might think we know and understand, there are some phenomena which now, and perhaps forever, we will never fully comprehend. We call such happenings “enigmas”. Or even miracles. Ryan Sandes is one such.’

    His father – an ex-army man – and his mother helped him to a good school and a good university. Nicky rarely thought of his birth parents, until a combination of an imploding marriage and a chance meeting with a private detective led him to track his mother down. Nicky Campbell brilliantly recalls their reunion and tentative steps towards a relationship, evoking all the complex and deep-seated emotions that being reunited elicited in each of them. But as they talked it became clear that there was more to Nicky’s background than he expected. . . In this emotionally gripping and refreshingly honest memoir, Nicky Campbell describes the many sides of a family’s dark history, and how it feels to find out where you come from.

    The paint is the blood that splatters on the walls and floors. In the course of nearly five years of recorded interviews Frank Sheeran confessed to Charles Brandt that he handled more than twenty-five hits for the mob, and for his friend Hoffa. Sheeran learned to kill in the U.S. Army, where he saw an astonishing 411 days of active combat duty in Italy during World War II. After returning home he became a hustler and hit man, working for legendary crime boss Russell Bufalino. Eventually he would rise to a position of such prominence that in a RICO suit then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani would name him as one of only two non-Italians on a list of 26 top mob figures. When Bufalino ordered Sheeran to kill Hoffa, he did the deed, knowing that if he had refused he would have been killed himself. Sheeran's important and fascinating story includes new information on other famous murders, and provides rare insight to a chapter in American history. Charles Brandt has written a page-turner that is destined to become a true crime classic.

    Ruling London's underworld for more than a decade, as gang lords they were among the most powerful and feared men in the city. Photographed by David Bailey and even interviewed for television, they became celebrities in their own right and are infamous to this day.Ronnie and Reg's reign of terror ended on 8 March 1969 when they were sentenced to life with the recommendation that they serve at least thirty years. Ronnie ended his days in Broadmoor - his raging insanity only controlled by massive doses of drugs. Reg served almost three decades in some of Britain's toughest jails before being released on compassionate grounds in August 2000. He died of cancer eight months later.Compiled from a series of interviews with Fred Dinenage from behind prison walls, Our Story is the classic account that explodes the myths surrounding the Kray twins. In it, the twins set the record straight. In their own words they tell the full story of their brutal career of crime and their years behind bars. With a new introduction from Fred Dinenage, this compelling, disturbing and highly readable book is the definitive story of two legendary criminals.