Dozens of books have been written about her life and the details surrounding her demise, with theories ranging from accidental death to suicide to murder. But all failed to solve the case until now. Crypt 33 - which was the number on the vault in the Los Angeles morgue where Marilyn's body was placed - provides the final word on the life and death of Marilyn Monroe. It clears the CIA of alleged conspiracy in the murder, but indicts previously unnamed underworld killers verified by separate but well-connected independent sources. The book implicates those at the highest level of government, and it names the man who brought the killers into the star's home - a friend who betrayed her. Crypt 33 provides all the sordid and previously unknown details, including a day-by-day account of aspiring actress Norma Jeane Baker's transformation into the screen icon Marilyn Monroe; intimate details of the actress's romance with Frank Sinatra; Marilyn's involvement with Sam Giancana; the fact that teamster ruler Jimmy Hoffa bugged Marilyn's phones hoping to catch incriminating conversations with her lover, Robert Kennedy; and Crypt 33 answers the ultimate question: Who ordered the "hit" on Marilyn? The book documents the actual instruments of death which gave a homicide the appearance of a suicide.

     When her wagon train was 8 miles from Fort Laramie, Wyoming, a Sioux Oglalas war party, in war-paint, suddenly appeared and began to encircle their wagons, pretending to be most friendly and asking for presents. The Indians urged the emigrants on, and offered to accompany them, so that they pushed on in company for a short time, until it was saw that they were approaching a ravine where his party would be at a disadvantage, and he insisted on camping outside of it. The Indians, after some hesitation, agreed, and the travellers began to make preparations for supper, when suddenly the Indians fired a volley at them. Some of those who escaped the attack succeeded in hiding in the brushwood, but Mrs. Kelly and her adopted daughter, Mary, as well as Mrs. Larimer and her children, became the prisoners of the Indians. After the second night of capture, Larimer and her son Frank managed to escape and were later reunited with her husband at Camp Collins, Colorado Territory. Larimer wrote of her harrowing captivity and escape in her 1871 book "The Capture and Escape: Life Among the Sioux." In describing dangers encountered during their escape from the Indians, Larimer noted: "The horrors of our situation were harassing to contemplate. The wolves seemed congregated upon the highlands, and, awaking from their night’s repose, their wailing cries echoed back from the distant hills with terrific clearness. These prowling creatures abound in that country, where some species attain a great size. Even the buffalo, which does not fear them in the herd, knows his danger when overtaken alone; and the solitary bull, secreted from its hunter, succumbs before the united force of a gang of wolves." Sarah Luse Larimer (1836-1913) was born in Pennsylvania, headed west in 1859 with her husband, living for a while in Allen County, Kansas, where she operated a photographic gallery. In 1864, along with her husband and son the family set out for the mines of Idaho Territory, when their plans were disrupted by Oglalas on the warpath. John Bratt in his 1921 book "Trails of Yesterday" writes of Larimer: "At Sherman Station I became well acquainted with Mrs. Larimer and her son, who kept a general store there, bought and sold ties and cord wood, while her husband had a star route mail contract from Point of Rocks north. There was also a Mrs. Kelly living near the station. These two women and Mrs. Larimer's son had been captured by the Sioux Indians near Fort Laramie. Mrs. Larimer and her son, after two weeks' captivity in the lodge of the chief, stole away one night and though the Indians hunted them day and night, they succeeded in eluding them and got back to the fort, after suffering unmentionable cruelties. Mrs. Kelly, not so fortunate, was taken by the Indians up on the Missouri River and kept with the band over six months." In describing the moment of rescue by a passing wagon train, Larimer writes that "as we sat in this shelter, which proved to be the last, a most joyful and welcome sound greeted our ears —one in which there was no mistake—our own language, spoken by some boys who passed, driving cattle."

    From its dawn in the 1660s to its twilight in the 1960s, Cliveden was an emblem of elite misbehaviour and intrigue. Conceived by the Duke of Buckingham as a retreat for his scandalous affair with Anna-Maria, Countess of Shrewsbury, the house later served as the backdrop for the Profumo Affair, which would bring down a government and change the course of British history.In the three hundred years between the Countess and Christine Keeler, the house was occupied by a dynasty of remarkable women: Elizabeth Villiers, an intellectual who brokered the rise and fall of governments; Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, a minor German royal who almost became queen of England; Harriet Duchess of Sutherland, the glittering society hostess turned political campaigner; and Nancy Astor, the consummate controversialist who became the first woman to take a seat in parliament. Under the direction of these women, Cliveden provided a stage for political plots and artistic premieres, hosted grieving monarchs and republican radicals, was idealised as a family home, and maligned as a threat to national security.The Mistresses of Cliveden is by turns a historical epic, a political thriller, a family drama, and an intimate history of the relationships between people and place. Above all, it is a story about sex and power, and the ways in which exceptional women have evaded, exploited, and confronted the expectations of their times.

    He is famous for two masterpieces, Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) and The Day of the Locust (1939). Seventy years later, The Day of the Locust remains the most penetrating novel ever written about Hollywood. EILEEN MCKENNEY—accidental muse, literary heroine—was the inspiration for her sister Ruth’s humorous stories, My Sister Eileen, which led to stage, film, and television adaptations, including Leonard Bernstein’s 1953 musical Wonderful Town.  She grew up in Cleveland and moved to Manhattan at 21 in search of romance and adventure. She and her sister lived in a basement apartment in the Village with a street-level window into which men frequently peered.  Husband and wife were intimate with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Katharine White, S.J. Perelman, Bennett Cerf, and many of the literary, theatrical, and movie notables of their era.  With Lonelyhearts, biographer Marion Meade, whose Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin earned accolades from the Washington Post Book World ("Wonderful") to the San Francisco Chronicle ("Like looking at a photo album while listening to a witty insider reminisce about the images"), restores West and McKenney to their rightful places in the rich cultural tapestry of interwar America.

    With bestselling books such as Light a Penny Candle, Circle of Friends, Tara Road, Evening Class, and A Week in Winter, which was published four months after her death, no one else told stories like Maeve Binchy. Humane, down-to-earth, and funny, her novels captured imaginations on both sides of the Atlantic in a way that most authors only dream of.More than simply a biography, this extraordinary book visits Maeve Binchy in the land of her birth, which is the environment of her novels, and in the company of the author and her fictional characters sets out to discover the emotional contours which define her as a writer and a person.

    In addressing a wide range of women’s choices—from using birth control to taking the morning-after pill, from adopting a child to putting a child up for adoption, from having an abortion to bringing a pregnancy to full term—Choice explores the complexities inherent in every reproductive decision.Including twenty-four honest, heartrending essays from established writers such as Francine Prose, Jacquelyn Mitchard, Pam Houston, Ann Hood, and Sarah Messer and emerging talents such as Kimi Faxon Hemingway, Stephanie Anderson, and Ashley Talley, Choice will allow you to truly understand the meaning of the word “choice”—regardless of what side of the debate you stand on.

    They were the closest of sisters and the best of friends. But when, in a quixotic twist of fate, their uncle Edward Vlll abdicated the throne, the dynamic between Elizabeth and Margaret was dramatically altered. Forever more Margaret would have to curtsey to the sister she called 'Lillibet.' And bow to her wishes. Margaret's struggle to find a place and position inside the royal system—and her fraught relationship with its expectations—was often a source of tension.. This book explores their relationship over the years.

    Tied to Queen Anne by an intimate friendship, Sarah hoped to wield power equal to that of a government minister. When their relationship soured, she blackmailed Anne with letters revealing their intimacy, and accused her of perverting the course of national affairs by keeping lesbian favourites. Her spectacular arguments with the Queen, with the architects and workmen at Blenheim Palace, and with her own family made Sarah famous for her temper. Attacked for traits that might have been applauded in a man, Sarah was also capable of inspiring intense love and loyalty, deeply committed to her principles and to living what she believed to be a virtuous life.Sarah was a compulsive and compelling writer, narrating the major events of her day, with herself often at center stage. This biography brings her own voice, passionate and intelligent, back to life, and casts a critical eye over images of the Duchess handed down through art, history, and literature. Here is an unforgettable portrait of a woman who cared intensely about how we would remember her.

    Boss of the Richardson Gang and rival of the Krays, to cross him would result in brutal repercussions. Famously arrested on the day England won the World Cup in 1966, his trial heard he allegedly used iron bars, bolt cutters and electric shocks on his enemies.The Last Gangster is Richardson’s frank account of his largely untold life story, finished just before his death in September 2012. He shares the truth behind the rumours and tells of his feuds with the Krays for supremacy, undercover missions involving politicians, many lost years banged up in prison and reveals shocking secrets about royalty, phone hacking, bent coppers and the infamous black box.Straight up, shocking and downright gripping, this is the ultimate exposé on this legendary gangster and his extraordinary life.

    Within days a Royal Navy Task Force is assembled and British forces dispatched. This is the story of D Squadron, 22 SAS, commanded by Cedric Delves. The Squadron will be in at the start, at the repossession of South Georgia; and they will be there at the end, still going forward. Theirs will be the first Union Jack raised over Government House in Stanley, signifying the end of the war.This is more than a tale of derring-do, although the events and their relentless tempo defy belief. Angry seas, inhospitable glaciers, hurricane force winds, an Argentine submarine, helicopter crashes, raids behind enemy lines –– all these and more are in the mix. 'Across an Angry Sea' is a chronicle of daring. The Squadron prevails, but the cost is high. They lose a third of their fighting strength. This is a portrait of a tight knit SAS band of brothers at war. It doesn’t always go right. But the Squadron learns fast. They win through and at all times fight hard, with determination, skill and steadiness, never losing sight of their humanity.

    But through the fog of glamour and gossip, how well do we really know the world’s most famous monarch? Drawing on numerous interviews and never-before-revealed documents, acclaimed biographer Sally Bedell Smith pulls back the curtain to show in intimate detail the public and private lives of Queen Elizabeth II, who has led her country and Commonwealth through the wars and upheavals of the last sixty years with unparalleled composure, intelligence, and grace. In Elizabeth the Queen, we meet the young girl who suddenly becomes “heiress presumptive” when her uncle abdicates the throne. We meet the thirteen-year-old Lilibet as she falls in love with a young navy cadet named Philip and becomes determined to marry him, even though her parents prefer wealthier English aristocrats. We see the teenage Lilibet repairing army trucks during World War II and standing with Winston Churchill on the balcony of Buckingham Palace on V-E Day. We see the young Queen struggling to balance the demands of her job with her role as the mother of two young children. Sally Bedell Smith brings us inside the palace doors and into the Queen’s daily routines—the “red boxes” of documents she reviews each day, the weekly meetings she has had with twelve prime ministers, her physically demanding tours abroad, and the constant scrutiny of the press—as well as her personal relationships: with Prince Philip, her husband of sixty-four years and the love of her life; her children and their often-disastrous marriages; her grandchildren and friends.

    

    Filled with vivid personalities, gossipy anecdotes, grand houses, and a wealth of period details--plus photographs, illustrations, quotes, and the finer points of Victorian and Edwardian etiquette--To Marry An English Lord is social history at its liveliest and most accessible.

    MacCarthy casts a fresh eye on Byron's childhood in Scotland, his embattled relations with his mother and his series of relationships with adolescent boys.

    It is the first journey in what will be a remarkable life among remarkable people: Betty’s first job out of college is as Joan Crawford’s nanny, caring for the Crawford children at the height of the star’s career. Hollywood is about to play an even larger role in Betty’s life when she meets a young ambitious actor named Lee Marvin. After a whirlwind courtship and a trip to Las Vegas, Betty and Lee are married. In this unique memoir, both hilarious and touching, we follow Betty as she creates a family with Lee, and is by his side as he works with Marlon Brando, John Wayne and a host of other stars. She is the penultimate hostess and Hollywood Housewife. Nobody knew what was really going on at home - until, unable to take Lee’s womanizing, drinking and abuse, Betty leaves him and strikes out on her own. What follows are adventures that could only be Betty Marvin’s; from the building of her career as an artist. To a love affair with an Italian King, to dire straits as investment con artists leave Betty suddenly homeless. After years of the Hollywood life, Betty is left with only her car, her dog and her typewriter. Forced to employ all of her skills to survive, she comes out on top. This is the story of a woman who finds the real riches that come with learning the value of a joyful life.