Book picks similar to
Jill Dando: Her Life and Death by Brian Cathcart


true-crime
biography
biography-autobiography
to_read

This Crazy Thing Called Love: The Golden World and Fatal Marriage of Ann and Billy Woodward


Susan Braudy - 1992
    While she was cleared by a grand jury, which believed her story that she had mistaken Billy for a prowler who had been recently breaking into neighboring houses, New York society was convinced that she had deliberately murdered Billy and that her formidable mother-in-law, Elsie Woodward, had covered up the crime to prevent further scandal to the socially prominent family. The incident became fiction in Truman Capote's malicious 1975 Esquire story, leading to Ann's suicide, and later was the subject of Dominick Dunne's The Two Mrs. Grenvilles. Now, after years of research, Braudy reveals the truth behind the legend. Tracing Ann's life from her difficult Kansas childhood through her early years as a model and aspiring actress to her stormy marriage to Billy Woodward and the sad years of her social exile after his death, Braudy shows how Ann, a victim of cruel gossip and class snobbery, could not have deliberately killed Billy.

The Hell I Carry: An Autobiography


Lucas Derion - 2019
    We are then forced to re-live the moments we have spent decades burying beneath amicable smiles and a false sense of security. This is my story; one shrouded in as much truth as my mind can tolerate. My story may mean nothing to you, but I believe, that if these words were to fall into the right hands, then they could have the potential to change someone’s life, someone’s mind. At a young age I learned what it meant to carry the scorching secrets of a fiery hell. For years I allowed the flames to consume my mind as I proceeded to live a life devoted to destruction and chaos. I blamed my mother. I blamed the men that raped me. I blamed the woman that refused to love me back. But when the smoke cleared, the mirror on the wall only painted a single reflection, that of myself. So, when the big bad wolf no longer blows, yet the house still falls, who will I have to blame then? Only me.

I'm (No Longer) a Mormon: A Confessional


Regina Samuelson - 2012
    This is not as easy as one would imagine: She was born in the church, educated at BYU, married in the temple, and is raising more Mormons. She faced a serious conundrum: keep quiet (and avoid losing everything dear to her), or tell the world what being raised LDS does to a person's psyche, especially when they realize that everything they were taught and everything they hoped to believe is a lie. To expose the difficulty faced by Mormons who leave the Church and to seek support for their plight, Regina offers a first-person confessional memoir recounting her many atrocious experiences, managing to weave in enough humor to keep you turning pages, and enough brutal honesty to bring you to an understanding of what it is to be a Mormon, and to try to leave it behind...

My Life in the Mafia


Vincent Charles Teresa - 1973
    

Boy Missing: The Search for Kyron Horman


Rebecca Morris - 2020
    Where is Kyron Horman? Why hasn't the woman who police suspect is responsible for his disappearance-Kyron's stepmother-been charged? On the last day he was seen, June 4, 2010, the boy with the toothy smile, crew cut, and glasses posed in front of his science project on frogs. Kyron grinned for a photo taken by his stepmother. She said he walked to his second-grade classroom and turned to wave at her. Then he vanished. That Kyron disappeared from his grade school got the attention of parents around the world. The twists of the case -adultery, sexting, murder-for-hire-keep the story in the spotlight. On the tenth anniversary of Kyron's disappearance, New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Morris tells for the first time the story of the investigation and the toll the boy's disappearance took on his family and law enforcement. Based on years of research and interviews with people close to the case, including Kyron's mother, Desiree Young. the book is the story of the boy's disappearance, the suspicion that quickly fell on one member of a messy blended family, and how Desiree Young turned grief into advocacy. "Boy Missing" examines what recourse families have as they wait for a loved one to be found. It challenges a common assumption in no-body cases: that prosecutors must wait until there is a confession or remains are found. No-body cases can be prosecuted successfully. Jeff Guinn, author of "Manson" and "The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple," calls "Boy Missing " "an important book and one readers will never forget." Rebecca Morris is the author of "If I Can't Have You: Susan Powell, Her Mysterious Disappearance, and the Murder of Her Children," "Ted and Ann: They Mystery of a Missing Child and Her Neighbor Ted Bundy," and other books. A veteran journalist, she appears frequently on network and cable TV as a crime expert.

Chris & Nancy: The True Story of the Benoit Murder-Suicide & Pro Wrestling's Cocktail of Death


Irvin Muchnick - 2009
    It laid bare the devastating prevalence of steroids and its effects on users. In order to tackle the whole story, dig up the facts, and connect the dots, Irvin Muchnick gives the most sensational scandal in pro wrestling history the full true-crime treatment in Chris and Nancy. Muchnick – the author of Wrestling Babylon and a co-author of Benoit: Wrestling with the Horror That Destroyed a Family and Crippled a Sport – has parsed public records and interviewed dozens of witnesses, inside and outside wrestling, to put together the first thorough and authoritative events of the gruesome June 2007 weekend in Fayette County, Georgia, during which World Wrestling Entertainment superstar Chris Benoit murdered his wife Nancy and their seven-year-old son Daniel, before proceeding to kill himself. But this book goes beyond the crime itself to answer some of the most important questions behind it. The biography of Benoit, a wrestler’s wrestler, makes it clear that his tragedy was a microcosm of the culture of drugs and death behind the scenes of one of North America’s most popular brand of sports entertainment. The author probes the story of the massive supplies of steroids and human growth hormone found in his home – all prescribed by a “doctor to the stars” who got indicted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and all dismissed by a WWE “wellness policy” that promoted everything except its talent’s wellness. The Benoit case led to unprecedented scrutiny of wrestling’s overall health and safety standards, by Congressional investigators and others, and this book is the primary source of what they found and what they should continue to look for. The ebook edition includes a new introduction that looks at recent events in sports, and further contextualizes the story of Chris Benoit and the figures surrounding his career.

Young Offender


Michael Maisey - 2019
    . . a story of redemption' Tony ParsonsMichael Maisey was excited the day he was locked up in the notorious Feltham Young Offenders Institute. He was going to be a legend to all his mates. The sixteen year old was in for attempted murder. He was innocent of this particular crime but amongst the violent and dangerous young men on his wing he was about to learn exactly how far he’d go to survive.In Young Offender we see what turned a good kid into a wanted criminal. Abused by his uncle, bullied at school, at the age of twelve he found the safety he craved in the ranks of a local gang in West London. He graduated from shoplifting to armed robbery and for five years Michael was in and out of Feltham, on a downward spiral of crime and drug and alcohol addiction. At rock bottom, he began attending AA meetings. But the road to recovery would mean changing himself in the deepest possible ways. Could Michael finally learn what it meant to be a good man?Honest and inspiring, this is a powerful story of redemption. Today Michael is a successful businessman and a loving father who spends time helping others find their way.

The Cave: An Internet Entrepreneur’s Spiritual Journey


Alok Kejriwal - 2020
    

My Dear Old Glasgow Years


Walter Bernardini - 2019
    Life was no bed of roses. The Bernardinis stayed in a room and kitchen, where young Walter slept in the bed recess in the front room. His Mum and Dad, meanwhile, had a 'hole-in-the-wall' bed in the kitchen. There was no bath, only one downstairs toilet shared by two other families. Glaswegians in those days may not have had much money, but they made up for the lack of material possessions with a real live of life. There was never a dull moment, at home, on the streets or at school. In this compelling book, the author fondly reminisces about first footing, wedding scrambles, winchin' in the close, nights at the pictures, the trams, trips with the Scouts, wartime evacuation and much more. It is a scintillating slice of social history, full of warmth and humour. For the sake of his career, Walter Bernardini eventually left Scotland, taking his wife and family with him. Yet he has never forgotten the city of his birth, the place that shaped him, the place he still thinks of as home. These were truly his dear old Glasgow years'.

Blood & Marriage: Chris Watts: With these hands


Kathleen McKenna Hewtson - 2021
    

Because of You


Rebekah Gibbs - 2009
    And it is every mother’s worst nightmare.Ex-Casualty actress, Rebekah was just 34 years old and 7 months pregnant when she found a lump in her breast. After twice being examined by doctors and having been told that it was nothing to worry about, Rebekah pushed it from her mind and concentrated on the birth of her beautiful daughter, Gigi. But one night, whilst nursing her baby, Rebekah realised she could still feel the lump. And it was bigger.Finally, her worst fears were confirmed: just 10 weeks after giving birth, Rebekah was told that she had a fast-growing grade-three cancer and it had spread to her lymph glands. It was the beginning of a journey to hell and back and Rebekah embarked on the fight of her life.This isn’t just a book about the horror of cancer.It is about facing illness with humour and courageIt’s a celebration of the special, unbreakable bond between mothers and daughters. It’s about survival.

Alaska Challenge: A Journey Through Uncharted Wilderness Leading to a New Life in a New Land


Ruth Albee - 2020
    

A Narrowboat at Large (The 'At Large' series Book 1)


Jo May - 2015
    Financially we were afloat and we lived in a perfectly decent house until my wife came up with the zany idea of living on a boat. I'd just got home from work, via the pub, when Jan asked me to watch a video while she prepared our frugal meal. I watched a pair of old fogies trundling along a canal in the rain on a narrowboat. You can imagine my reply when she asked if I fancied emulating the sodden wrinklies and taking to the water. She's a lady of vision and determination (she married me after all) but this was elevating madness to a whole new level. Jan's oncologist had her a few years previously that she probably wouldn't see the new millennium, so she had a different perspective about the future than many people. Despite lots of huffing and head-shaking, twelve months later we had sold a perfectly respectable house, given up a job that kept us in cornflakes and moved onto a metal hole less than a tenth the size of our house – excluding garden. It was the 4th July 2003 – independence day.We knew nothing about narrowboats – their workings, waterways lore and how we would cope being cooped up together – particularly when it's minus five and the nearest shop is miles away. We had a mountain to climb – which you can only do by using locks, and we'd never done a lock. A more accurate analogy is shooting the rapids because our venture took on a life of it's own and we were washed down stream on a tide of enthusiasm and ignorance. We had to make it work or the people who had laughed and scoffed would be proved right – we really were mad. Well, make it work we did, and we're still boating twelve years on. It's marvellous and it possibly saved Jan's life.

Worse things happen (I think I'll go to sea Book 2)


Bob Jackson - 2015
    These memoirs take him from enjoying the odd cold beer sailing peacefully across the Indian Ocean to being trapped in a war zone. Here he sees life at sea changing from the leisurely days of general cargoes to the hectic computerised containerships. He seems to have done it all – rescuing drug runners from the ice, dredging aggregates in the North Sea and finally skippering a ‘steamer’ on a tranquil lake. This volume is the second of Bob’s memoirs covering his service as master on a wide variety of ships. The first book ‘I think I’ll go to sea’ relates to his experiences climbing up through the ranks. In this book he has to flee the USA to avoid arrest for drug smuggling, assists rescuing a ship’s crew when their ship sinks in pack ice and gets stuck in the middle of the Iraq/Iran war. He also experiences alcohol free ships which take away the pleasure of his ‘cold beer’

GYPSIES: I married a Romany! Honest, raw and extremely funny!


Nell R. Loveridge - 2017
    When you think about the kind of guy you are going to marry, a Romany living in an old caravan does not normally come to mind! Can't think why, can you?! So, there I was. 19 years old and fed up with 'normal' guys who only wanted one thing. Yep you guessed it! But then.... along comes this guy, tall, skinny, bad hair, ugly/handsome..... did I say bad hair? Oh yes! And that was just the beginning! But little did I know that he was a gypsy! Oh boy! Gypsies and gorgi's don't mix.....do they? I was about to find out! Honest, raw, colourful, and downright hilarious! Based on the true story of Nell Rose Loveridge and Jake her gypsy rover!