The Underground Empire: Where Crime and Governments Embrace


James Mills - 1986
    The Underground Empire is the result of Life reporter James Mills's behind-the-scenes investigation which spanned five years and traversed four continents. With recent media attention propelling the narcotics issue into the nation's headlines, Mills dramatically addresses this issue with stunning depth to explain why we're losing the most important war of our time. Everything in this book is true: no changed names, scenes, characters or dialogues. The Underground Empire, James Mills, Doubleday, 1st edition, 1986, ISBN # 0-385-17535-3. 1,165 pages. Description: Book; Gray boards with black cloth spine, gold lettering to spine and gold script of author's name on front board, red endpapers. Dust jacket; White with black blocks with white text and red splatter on front panel, black and red lettering to the spine, back panel has blurb for this book and author's bio (Report to the Commissioner, Panic in Needle Park), inside flaps carry second blurb for this book, jacket not price clipped, dated 0686 on bottom of the back flap. Condition: Book; Very good with some soiling to top edge of the pages, boards are bright and tight and clean, free of any dings, rubbing or creases to this very thick spine, all the gold lettering is strong but some letters, especially the publisher's name, are hand soiled. Inside red end paper has a black smudge on the upper back area about 1-inch long. No other marks. Dust jacket; Very good with bright and clean panels, not price clipped, chips along the edges of the spine, one closed tear at the bottom of front board, slight sunning to all panels but still bright, points chipped. Jacket now protected in Brodart.

Murderer with a Badge


Edward Humes - 1992
    Pulitzer Prize-winner Humes, the first to break the story, conducted exclusive jail-cell interviews with convicted LAPD officer Bill Leasure to give an enthralling account of his chilling crimes. 8-page insert.

High: Confessions of an International Drug Smuggler


Brian O'Dea - 2006
    Among the advertiser's references was the U.S. district attorney who was responsible for his arrest in 1990. The O'Dea family is well known in the Canadian province of Newfoundland, where Brian's father owned the local brewery before going into politics. But the family's prominence could not protect their middle son. Abused as a child by his local priest, Brian turned to using and selling drugs for the escape and excitement they offered. By the early 1980s, he was operating a $100 million a year, 120-man business, and had developed a terrifying cocaine addiction. Under increasing threat from the DEA in 1986, he quit the trade - and the drugs - and began working with recovering addicts in Santa Barbara. Despite his life change, the authorities caught up with him years later and Brian was arrested, tried, and sentenced to ten years at Terminal Island Federal Penitentiary in Los Angeles Harbor. A born storyteller, Brian O'Dea candidly recounts his incredible experiences in the streets of Bogota with a false-bottom suitcase lined with cocaine, to the engine compartment of an old DC-6 whose engines were failing over the Pacific, to the cell blocks overcrowded with small-time dealers who had fallen victim to the justice system's perverse bureaucracy of drug sentencing. Weaving together extracts from his prison diary with the vivid recounting of his outlaw years and the dawning recognition of those things in his life that were worth living for, High tells the remarkable story of a remarkable man in the late-1980s drug business.

Don Carlo: Boss of Bosses


Paul Meskil - 1973
    

Why Not Kill Her: A Juror's Perspective: The Jodi Arias Death Penalty Retrial


Paul A. Sanders Jr. - 2015
    The killer went to great lengths to cover up her crime including sending his grandmother flowers, going to the memorial service, driving by the victim’s house and calling the lead investigator, Detective Esteban Flores. This incident took place in a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona. It would be five years before this case of capital murder would be put in front of a jury to decide the fate of Jodi Arias although the fate of Travis Alexander had been set in stone. Was she a cold, calculating murderess or was she a victim of extreme domestic violence at the hands of an abusive boyfriend? The first jury was left to decide in 2013. It was the most watched trial of the century. The jury decided that Jodi Arias was guilty of first-degree murder with cruel and heinous circumstances which qualified her for the death penalty. The jury could not reach a decision in the penalty phase and justice was delayed. A new jury, drawn from a pool of four hundred people, was drawn for the highly anticipated retrial of Jodi Arias. On October 21, 2014, a jury of nineteen was given the responsibility of deciding whether Jodi Arias should live or die for her crime. So began a retrial that would last almost five months with Juan Martinez and Detective Flores representing the State of Arizona and the return of Kirk Nurmi and Jennifer Willmott speaking to the defense of the convicted killer. The journey will walk the reader through the meticulous actions of the courtroom and extend to an appellate court, a municipal court and a day in the in the original courthouse in phoenix, Arizona. The trial speaks toward the long arm of the law and the implications of decisions made daily. With the help of former jurors of the Jodi Arias death penalty retrial, the reader will step into the jury box when Jodi Arias was on the witness stand and reach a climax when the reader accompanies the jury foreman into the deliberation room as the jury decides the fate of the defendant. “The lambs to the law were now executors of the law. It was humbling, intimidating and powerful at the same time. It was also the time that the jurors’ souls would be tested for truths and experiences that would mark many discussions in the deliberation room. The jury would remember Travis Alexander and what was done to him.” Why Not Kill her is the suspenseful follow-up to the authors first book, Brain Damage: A Juror’s Tale, the true story of being a death penalty juror on the case of Marissa DeVault and the brutal killing of Dale Harrell. The third revised edition is now available in honor of Dale Harrell. Take a journey into the life of Travis Alexander and a search for truth and justice. Somehow, Lady Justice will wield her sword and the end of a seven year saga would be realized but in no way that anyone could have anticipated. Special thanks to True Crime Radio, Trial Talk Live, the Trial Diaries, FOX 10, ABC, NBC and CBS. The author would also like to thank those who supported this work on Go Fund Me with extra recognition to the administrators and fans of Juan Martinez Prosecutor Support Page, The State vs. Jodi Arias, Joey Jackson Fan Page, Justice For Travis, Justice 4 Dale, Justice For Travis Alexander and His Family, Court Chatter, Beth Karas on Crime, Gavel geeks, Trial Watchers, The House That Travis Built, Understanding The Travesties of Unexpected Murder Trials and For The Love of Travis. This work could not have happened without your support! Why Not Kill Her is dedicated to Travis Alexander, his family and all those whom he touched in his short life.

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.

My Father's Gun: One Family, Three Badges, One Hundred Years in the NYPD


Brian McDonald - 2000
    His grandfather, Thomas Skelly, entered the department in 1893, when the NYPD was little more than a brutal gang of organized enforcers and Tammany Hall a corrupt political machine that could make or break an honest cop's career. His father Frank's career would span World War II through the 1960s, taking him from street cop to squad commander of the Forty-first Precinct. Better known as "Fort Apache", it was a place from which few cops emerged whole. His brother Frank McDonald, Jr., went on to become a decorated officer, waging an undercover war on drugs and crime.From turn-of-the-century Brooklyn to the South Bronx in the 1970s to the bedroom communities of upstate New York, My Father's Gun combines a rare and intimate family story with turbulent social history.

Dancing with the Devil: Confessions of an Undercover Agent


Louis Diaz - 2010
    BUT THE KINGPIN BEHIND LUCAS’S CRIMINAL REIGN, LEROY “NICKY†BARNES, REMAINED “MR. UNTOUCHABLE.†UNTIL ONE UNDERCOVER AGENT PROVED TOUGH ENOUGH—OR CRAZY ENOUGH—TO INFILTRATE HIS DOMAIN AND NAIL THE MOST DANGEROUS DRUG CZAR IN AMERICAN HISTORY. Growing up in Red Hook, Brooklyn, where physical violence was a daily reality at home, at school, and on the streets, Louis Diaz had what it took to survive—and to one day become what he vowed to be: a man of uncompromising principles who is “compassionate on the inside, fierce on the outside.†These were the qualities, along with his street fighter’s steely nerves and hair-trigger temper, that drove Diaz from his savage beginnings and early forays in organized crime to become one of the DEA’s bravest undercover agents—the man who was instrumental in tak­ing down some of the nation’s and the world’s most notorious crime rings. In an unforgettable and utterly engaging first-person narrative, Diaz tells his gritty, colorful, painful, and even humorous life story—a story with all the raw emotional power and bare-knuckle action of Wiseguy or Serpico. From his headline-making cases of Nicky Barnes and the Medellín cartel . . . to his account of outwitting a key villain linked to the record-breaking heist known as The Great English Train Robbery . . . to his all-out confrontations with murderous gunrunners and drug dealers on the mean streets of New York . . . to leading commando raids on clan-destine cocaine labs inside the Bolivian jungles, Dancing with the Devil is an explosive memoir that stands as a classic of true-crime literature.

Black's Law: A Criminal Lawyer Reveals His Defense Strategies in Four Cliffhanger Cases


Roy Black - 1999
    This book takes us behind the scenes of four difficult and dangerous cases to reveal the legal strategies, no-holds-barred tactics, and courtroom psychology Roy Black used to make sure his clients received every protection promised by the law. Black demonstrates in riveting detail how a defense attorney must investigate criminal cases by sifting through evidence and preparing for trial. (It's like preparing for war.) He shows us how the principles of law, cross-examination, and evidence -- as well as careful jury selection and skillful use of expert witnesses -- can level the playing field to counter the enormous resources that state and federal prosecutors have at their disposal. Black's Law makes resoundingly clear the crucial role that criminal defense lawyers play in safeguarding the basic right to a fair trial for all.

Race Riot, A Shocking, Inside Look at Prison Life (Prison Killers- Book 1)


Glenn Langohr - 2011
    He paints the culture into words and takes you on a journey into the belly of the beast with an authentic look at gang warfare behind bars.Only for adults...Inside this story you will find a horrific description of the deadly, 28 minute long blood bath, race war riot at Pelican Bay on a cold Febuary day in 2000...A penetrating look inside of one of California's most dangerous prisons.B.J, a drug dealer serving time, struggling to hold on to truth and his faith in God, takes the reader on a never before seen, inside look at a California level 4 prison. The inner dynamics between prison guards, gang investigators and the Warden are on display along with the political climate between races with a war brewing between the Mexicans and Blacks. A piercing account of the process for gang validation into solitary confinement at Pelican Bay's SHU through the eyes of inmates struggling to survive gang wars, in prison drug debts, prison politics, rules and regulations, and ultimately power and control, while desperately trying to find a path for redemption along the way.

Poisoned Love


Carlton Smith - 2008
    In 2003, her husband Chuck died of an apparent stroke. Only a month later, she married Chaz Higgs, an ER nurse who, it was later revealed, had attended to her late husband just before his death. Three years later, fifty-year-old Kathy died after a heart attack—the result, her family and friends believed, of a stressful political campaign. But when an autopsy of Kathy’s body revealed no signs of heart disease, investigators dug deeper into Kathy’s case…only to find the presence of a powerful, paralyzing emergency-room drug in Kathy’s system. A jury would later charge Nurse Chaz with murder in the first degree. But could Kathy’s first husband also have been the victim of Chaz’s treachery? And just how much did Kathy know? This is the shocking true story of a family torn apart by lies, medical crime, and POISONED LOVE.

Most Wanted: Pursuing Whitey Bulger, the Murderous Mob Chief the FBI Secretly Protected


Thomas J. Foley - 2012
    Foley’s twenty-year pursuit of murderous Boston gangster Whitey Bulger, and of Foley’s key role in exposing the FBI’s protection of Bulger’s criminal empire.June 23, 2011. The news of the notorious gangster Whitey Bulger’s capture—after sixteen years on the FBI’s Most Wanted list—swept the nation. Many breathed a sigh of relief. But for Thomas J. Foley, a former Massachusetts state police colonel and the investigator who sparked Bulger’s flight from Boston, the moment was bittersweet. The FBI may have caught Bulger, but as Foley had painfully discovered almost two decades before, they were also responsible for his escape. It has been known that Whitey Bulger was a secret informant for the FBI, but it has never been revealed—until now—that the FBI was actually actively protecting Bulger from Foley, effectively derailing Foley’s efforts to stop Bulger’s horrific crime sprees time and again. At one point, the FBI even presented Foley with a plaque at a holiday party that read “the Most Hated Man in Law Enforcement,” a not-so-subtle suggestion that he and his team should lay off their investigation. Most Wanted is a true-life thriller, and Foley is the hero at its center. His investigative efforts resulted in criminal convictions of a half-dozen of Boston’s most notorious thugs and also led to the conviction of John Connolly, one of the FBI agents who abetted Bulger; Connolly is now serving a forty-year prison sentence. In this book, Foley, a cop’s cop, honestly recounts how his wide-eyed admiration for the nation’s top law enforcement agency was gradually transformed by dark realities he didn’t want to believe.

Lord High Executioner: The Legendary Mafia Boss Albert Anastasia


Frank DiMatteo - 2020
    legend who helped create the modern American Mafia—one body at a time—featuring shocking eyewitness accounts . . . Umberto “Albert” Anastasia was born in Italy at the turn of the century. Five decades later, he would be gunned down in a barber shop in New York City. What happened in the years in between-- and why every crime family had reason to want him dead-- is one of the most brutal and fascinating stories in the history of American organized crime. This in-depth account of the man who became one of the most powerful and homicidal crime bosses of the twentieth century from Mafia insider Frank Dimatteo is the first full-length book to chronicle Anastasia’s bloody rise from fresh-off-the-boat immigrant to founder of the notorious killer’s club Murder, Inc.—featuring never-before-told accounts from those who feared him most . . . They called him “The One Man Army.” “Mad Hatter.” “Lord High Executioner.” Albert Anastasia came to America mean and became a prolific killer. His merciless assassination of Mafia godfather Vincent Mangano is recounted here in chilling first-hand detail. He set the record: the first man in the history of American justice to be charged with four separate murders—and walk free after each one. But in the end, he was the last obstacle in rival Mafia hoodlum Vito Genovese’s dream of becoming the boss of bosses—and paid the ultimate price . . .

The Long Prison Journey of Leslie Van Houten: Life Beyond the Cult


Karlene Faith - 2001
    Leslie, who was present at the Rosemary and Leno LaBianca stabbings, serenely accepted her sentence, wishing only that she had better served Manson in carrying out his apocalyptic vision of Helter Skelter. When the United States temporarily suspended its death penalty, her sentence for murder conspiracy was converted to life in prison. Today, at the age of 51, after three trials and with no parole in sight, Leslie has become a remarkable survivor of a living nightmare. This work presents the first in-depth look at how this girl-next-door became one of Manson's girls. It also tells about Karlene Faith's thirty-year friendship with Leslie, whom she met while teaching in prison. To everyone who encountered Leslie - including prison staff and television journalists - she was not the demon typically portrayed by the media, but rather a gentle, generous spirit who mourned her victims. But why didn't this intelligent young woman see the evil in the messiah who had sexually exploited her, preached

Friends of the Family


Tommy Dades - 2007
    When they retired in the early 1990s, they left behind a pile of bodies—and for more than a decade, it looked like they were going to get away with it. As highly decorated NYPD detectives with access to the department's most sensitive information, they sold their badges to the Mafia—and became murderers for the mob. Eventually they retired to Las Vegas, believing they had put their lives of murder and mayhem safely behind them. And they would have lived happily ever after, if not for one dedicated cop at the end of his career and an assistant district attorney. Detective Tommy Dades and Brooklyn Assistant DA Mike Vecchione turned this seemingly unsolvable cold-blooded case into one of the great law-and-order stories in the annals of New York City. And for the first time, in this book, Dades and Vecchione tell the whole inside story of the investigation. For Detective Tommy Dades, the case began with a phone call from a distraught mother who just happened to mention an almost forgotten meeting that had taken place years earlier. Dades and Mike Vecchione had performed cold-case miracles before, but this one seemed impossible. Together, quietly and tenaciously, they began to uncover the hideous truth. A highly secret joint state and federal task force began building a body-by-body case against an incredible array of characters, from one of the most viciously insane Mafia bosses in history—who wanted to kill people he dreamed were plotting against him—to the one-eyed Jew who knew all the secrets. As the cold case got front-page-headlinehot, Dades and Vecchione encountered an unexpected obstacle: the federal prosecutor plotted to take the case—and those headlines—away from Brooklyn. For the first time, the two men who brought this incredible story to life reveal the epic confrontations that occurred behind the scenes and led to a stunning courtroom announcement—and came perilously close to destroying the case against the Mafia cops. Friends of the Family is the complete, inside story of the historic case that rocked the world of law enforcement.