Book picks similar to
Lords of the Scaffold: A History of the Executioner by Geoffrey Abbott
history
true-crime
crime
social-history
Sins of the Father: The Untold Story Behind Schapelle Corby's Ill-fated Drug Run
Eamonn Duff - 2011
A reckless father, his dark past, an Adelaide drug trafficker and the Gold Coast beauty school dropout who kept her mouth shut. This is the explosive untold story of Schapelle Corby and how she took the rap for her father's drug syndicate.The result of a three year investigation, Sins of the Father returns to the beginning of Australia's most famous drug case, to a time when nobody had ever heard the name Schapelle Corby. Finally, the missing pieces of the jigsaw fall into place as we are led, step by step, through the important weeks, days, and hours leading up to her dramatic arrest.
No Lights, No Sirens: The Corruption and Redemption of an Inner City Cop
Robert Cea - 2005
Rob Cea starts off as an idealistic young cop, a true believer in the system for which he works tirelessly. He is sadly mistaken. The system he tried so hard to appease ultimately led to his downfall and the ruination of his life.What separates this from other cop–and–robber stories is the brutal authenticity from the cop himself. We will see and hear exactly what is discussed in a patrol car. We will see how the law was栮d is汯utinely bent to make collars stick any way possible. And we will see how Cea slowly spirals to depths of hell.No Lights, No Sirens is simplistic in its scope: A young idealistic boy becomes a man through fire, and then becomes exactly what he has been chasing for so long, a hardened man possessed by demons. With rapid fire and gritty narrative, Cea writes about his fall to the depths, and his salvation. We see the dark side of detective work in New York's most crime–riddled neighbourhoods from a first–hand view never before seen.
Dear Olivia: An Italian Journey of Love and Courage
Mary Contini - 2014
Sharing some of the recipes that they brought over, the tomatoes, the garlic, the sausage, the wine, this is a mouthwatering memoir of family and food. It is also a brilliant evocation of life between the wars, a triumphant story of survival against all the odds, that captures the sights and smells of Italian life and culture, at home and abroad.
Who Killed Epstein? Prince Andrew or Bill Clinton (War On Drugs Book 5)
Shaun Attwood - 2021
Vanished: Cold-Blooded Murder in Steeltown
Jon Wells - 2009
A woman had wanted to leave him. You're not going anywhere, he told her. Later that day, a police officer reports to the house and finds some human tissue and organs in a bag left out for garbage. The person of interest in the case is a steelworker named Sam Pirrera, who lives in the house. But who is the victim? Sam's current estranged wife, Danielle? It is known that they had a stormy relationship; Sam had assaulted her as his coke addiction returned. Forensic detectives find traces of blood in the basement, and then the entire corpse, dismembered, the parts hidden behind a false wall and packed in boxes, each of the parts wrapped and doused in gasoline. The victim's identity is discovered through prints to be a prostitute named Maggie Karer. The dismemberment, defensive mutilation, is so calculated and deliberate, the detectives wonder, are there more victims? But Pirrera's first wife was named Beverly, and a woman named Lesa Davidson shows up at the police station to say she hasn't heard from her daughter-Beverly-in eight years. And Sam's estranged wife, Danielle, who is in fact alive, tells police that Sam had once told her he had killed his first wife and dumped her parts in a vat of molten steel at a steel plant. Detectives now pursue a double murder case, led by veteran homicide detective Peter Abi-Rashed, who had once chased a young Sam Pirrera on the streets of Hamilton's east end many years before. The outcome is shocking - and a mystery remains.
The Dead Don't Boogie (Dominic Queste)
Douglas Skelton - 2016
A quick-witted and vastly entertaining novel that takes Douglas Skelton into the crime fiction big league.” Alex Gray“If you like your humour black and your detective novels hard boiled, The Dead Don’t Boogie is a cut above the rest.” Theresa Talbot“A white-knuckle, wisecracking thriller.” Caro Ramsay A missing teenage girl should be an easy job for Dominic Queste – after all, finding lost souls is what he does best. But sometimes it’s better if those souls stay lost. Jenny Deavers is trouble, especially for an ex-cokehead like Queste. Some truly nasty characters are very keen indeed to get to Jenny, and will stop at nothing... including murder.
As the bodies pile up, Queste has to use all his street smarts both to protect Jenny and to find out just who wants her dead. The trail leads him to a vicious world of brutal gangsters, merciless hitmen, dark family secrets and an insatiable lust for power in the highest echelons of politics.
The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer
Kate Summerscale - 2016
Their father had gone to sea the previous Friday, the boys told their neighbours, and their mother was visiting her family in Liverpool. Over the next ten days Robert and Nattie spent extravagantly, pawning their parents' valuables to fund trips to the theatre and the seaside. But as the sun beat down on the Coombes house, a strange smell began to emanate from the building. When the police were finally called to investigate, the discovery they made sent the press into a frenzy of horror and alarm, and Robert and Nattie were swept up in a criminal trial that echoed the outrageous plots of the 'penny dreadful' novels that Robert loved to read. In The Wicked Boy, Kate Summerscale has uncovered a fascinating true story of murder and morality - it is not just a meticulous examination of a shocking Victorian case, but also a compelling account of its aftermath, and of man's capacity to overcome the past.
Aaron Hernandez's Killing Fields: Exposing Untold Murders, Violence, Cover-Ups, and the NFL's Shocking Code of Silence
Dylan Howard - 2019
For the first time, Aaron Hernandez’s Killing Fields will reveal the real, hitherto unknown motive for the killing of Odin Lloyd—the only crime for which Hernandez was ever convicted and a revelation so shocking it will shake the foundations of the NFL itself. It will also unpick a pattern of violence and brutality stretching back to his time as a teenager at the University of Florida, revealing further shooting victims, evidence of his involvement in the double murder of Daniel Abreu and Safiro Furtado in 2012. Featuring new interviews with Hernandez’s cellmates, serving police investigators, prosecutors, psychologists, attorneys—as well as key witnesses including Hernandez’s drug dealer, a male stripper he hired days before the killing of Lloyd—plus extensive testimony from relatives of Hernandez’s victims, Aaron Hernandez’s Killing Fields is the exhaustive, definitive account of the rise and fall of a man undone by his own appetite for violence, gangsterism, power, drugs, and self-destruction. This is the real Aaron Hernandez story—and perhaps just the beginning of a whole new murder investigation.
Prescription for Murder: The True Story of Mass Murderer Dr. Harold Frederick Shipman
Brian Whittle - 2004
He pleaded Not Guilty. Each of Shipman's alleged victims was middle-aged or elderly and each was his patient and neighbour. The macabre exhumations of some of the bodies devastated the suburban community of Hyde in Greater Manchester, and it is the authors' inside knowledge of the region that provides the context for their investigation of the case.
Bloody Lies: A CSI Scandal in the Heartland
John Ferak - 2014
In fact, the little town had gone more than a century without a single homicide. But on the night of Easter 2006, Wayne and Sharmon Stock were brutally murdered in their home. The murders garnered sensational frontpage headlines and drew immediate statewide attention. Practically everybody around Murdock was filled with fear, panic, and outrage. Who killed Wayne and Sharmon Stock? What was the motive? The Stocks were the essence of Nebraska’s all-American farm family, self-made, God-fearing, and of high moral character. Barely a week into this double murder investigation, two arrests brought a sense of relief to the victims’ family and to local residents. The case appeared to fall neatly into place when a tiny speck of murder victim Wayne Stock’s blood appeared in the alleged getaway car. Then, an obscure clue left at the crime scene took the investigation down a totally different path, stretching into Iowa, Louisiana, New York, Texas, and Wisconsin. By the time this investigation was over, the charges against the original suspects were dismissed and two new individuals emerged from the shadows. Author John Ferak covered the Stock murders from the very beginning, including all of the trial proceedings. When the criminal prosecution finally ended in 2007, he remained puzzled by one nagging question: Why was the blood of victim Wayne Stock in a car that was ultimately proven to have no connection to the murders? Over the next few years, the astonishing “bloody lies” were revealed, culminating in a law enforcement scandal that turned the case on its head and destroyed the career of Nebraska’s celebrated CSI director, David Kofoed.
The Doctor, The Murder, The Mystery
Barbara D'Amato - 1992
John Branion was found guilty of murdering his wife in their posh Chicago home. After exhausting his appeals, he evaded authorities by fleeing to Africa. He was finally captured in 1983—but his case was far from over. It would take another seven years for Dr. Branion to finally win his freedom—and for those who prosecuted him to admit that he could not have committed the murder, and that they knew it all along.Acclaimed mystery writer Barbara D'Amato was drawn to this story two decades after the murder, as Dr. Branion languished in prison, ill and without hope. Her meticulous research repeatedly led her to one startling conclusion: that it was impossible for Donna Branion's murder to have unfolded the way the police alleged. In this award-winning account, D'Amato deftly explores the intriguing facts of this shocking case—from the tragic blunders made by authorities to Branion's arrest, conviction, and years practicing medicine in Africa as a fugitive from justice. The result is a damning indictment of our criminal system—and the vindication of an innocent man.The Doctor, The Murder, The Mystery by Barbara D'Amato won the Anthony and Agatha Awards for Best True Crime. She is also the author of the highly acclaimed Cat Marsala mysteries, including Hard Case and Hard Christmas. She lives in Chicago.The 1992 Anthony Award for Best True Crime and the 1993 Agatha Award for Nonfiction for The Doctor, the Murder, the Mystery
Dirty Dealing: Drug Smuggling on the Mexican Border and the Assassination of a Federal Judge--An American Parable
Gary Cartwright - 1984
You can't know what it does until it happens to you...until everyone is chin-deep in millions of dollars."Dirty Dealing, a true story, chronicles the rise and fall of the house of Chagra. The Chagra brothers of El Paso were pioneers in smuggling drugs across the Mexican border, and were infamous for their fabulous wealth. But in the end Lee Chagra was gunned down, a federal judge was assassinated, Jimmy and Joe Chagra were imprisoned, and Charles Harrelson (Woody Harrelson’s father) was convicted for Wood’s murder. When Federal Judge John "Maximum" Wood was gunned down outside his home in San Antonio, Texas in 1979 (the only assassination of a federal judge in more than 100 years) his death sent waves of shock across the country. The FBI labeled it "the crime of the century." Former President Nixon expressed "outrage," calling for quick arrest and punishment. But the crime’s solution would be anything but quick. Dragging on for years and costing $11.4 million, the investigation turned out to be the largest in recent FBI history, surpassing even that of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Gary Cartwright, senior editor of Texas Monthly and author of several nonfiction bestsellers, details the full history of the events leading up to this crime and the trials that followed in Dirty Dealing. This reprint from Cinco Puntos Press includes a new afterword by the author and black and white photographs of all the players. Complete with shady maneuverings on the part of the federal government and an outcome that Kirkus Reviews has called "straight from Oz," Dirty Dealing is one of the richest and most fascinating of all true crime stories.
L.A. Secret Police. Inside the LAPD Elite Spy Network
Mike Rothmiller - 1992
Secret Police. Inside the LAPD Elite Spy Network is a New York Times and Los Angeles Times Bestseller. This incredible non-fiction book rips the lid off the LAPD and exposes the reader to its dark underbelly of corruption during the reign of Chief Daryl Gates. L.A. cops ruined lives and reputations, inflicted mindless brutality, committed murder and engaged in massive cover-ups. In Los Angeles, police corruption was much more than unmarked envelopes stuffed with cash. It was a total corruption of power. For decades LAPD engaged in massive illegal spying and lied about it. Its spying targets included politicians, movie stars, professional athletes, news reporters and anyone wielding power or those of interest to Daryl Gates. Incredibly, the spying targets included a Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, a Secretary of Defense, a current Governor and the President of the United States. It all happened in Los Angeles. Detective Rothmiller is the modern-day Frank Serpico; he exposed the tentacles of corruption which reached to the highest levels within the LAPD and Washington D.C. It wasn’t long after that an assassin attempted to take his life. It was apparent to many that powerful forces wanted him silenced. Incredibly, in this book Detective Rothmiller names names! See why this book changed the LAPD and is required reading at many universities. As former Assistant United States Attorney Marvin Rudnick said, “Rothmiller was in a position to know. He did very sensitive work.” Every book has an ending. However, the ending of this book will shock you. Within the new epilogue is a multi-page essay written especially for this updated book by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist David Cay Johnston. In it he describes his personal experience as a target of Daryl Gates illegal intelligence operations while he served as a Los Angeles Times reporter. You’ll also read the challenge posed by detective Rothmiller to the LAPD. A challenge LAPD has refused to answer. Since releasing this updated eBook, Detective Rothmiller has been interviewed dozens of times by the national media regarding current NSA domestic spying and the 2013 murderous rampage of former LAPD cop Christopher Dorner. In late 2013 Detective Rothmiller was interviewed for a major television documentary which will expose corruption and major crimes committed at the highest levels. The documentary is scheduled for release in 2016.
A Curious Guide to London
Simon Leyland - 2014
Brimming with tales of London's forgotten past, its strangest traditions and its most eccentric inhabitants, this book celebrates the unique, the unusual and the unknown. Perfect for tourists, day-trippers, commuters and the millions of people who call London home, this alternative guidebook will make you look at the city in a whole new light.
Killer Quotes: Quotes from Serial Killers
Hadness Fontenot - 2015
Some said much while others said little . . . very little.