The Psychopath Whisperer: The Science of Those Without Conscience


Kent A. Kiehl - 2014
    As Dr. Kent Kiehl shows, psychopaths can be identified by a checklist of symptoms that includes pathological lying; lack of empathy, guilt, and remorse; grandiose sense of self-worth; manipulation; and failure to accept one’s actions. But why do psychopaths behave the way they do? Is it the result of their environment— how they were raised—or is there a genetic compo­nent to their lack of conscience? This is the question Kiehl, a protégé of famed psychopath researcher Dr. Robert Hare, was deter­mined to answer as he began his career twenty years ago. To aid in his quest to unravel the psy­chopathic mind, Kiehl created the first mobile functional MRI scanner to study psychopaths in prison populations. The brains of more than five hundred psychopaths and three thousand other offenders have been scanned by Kiehl’s labora­tory—the world’s largest forensic neuroscience repository of its kind. Over the course of The Psy­chopath Whisperer, we follow the scientific bread crumbs that Kiehl uncovered to show that the key brain structures that correspond with emotional engagement and reactions are diminished in psy­chopaths, offering new clues to how to predict and treat the disorder. In The Psychopath Whisperer, Kiehl describes in fascinating detail his years working with psy­chopaths and studying their thought processes— from the remorseless serial killers he meets with behind bars to children whose behavior and per­sonality traits exhibit the early warning signs of psychopathy. Less than 1 percent of the general population meets the criteria for psychopathy. But psycho­paths account for a vastly outsized proportion of violent crimes. And as Kiehl shows, many who aren’t psychopaths exhibit some of the behaviors and traits associated with the condition. What do you do if you discover your roommate, or boss, or the person you are dating has traits that define a psy­chopath? And what does having a diminished limbic region of the brain mean for how the legal system approaches crimes committed by psychopaths? A compelling narrative of cutting-edge science, The Psychopath Whisperer will open your eyes on a fascinating but little understood world, with startling implications for society, the law, and our personal lives.

Uncle John's True Crime: A Classic Collection of Crooks, Cops, and Capers


Bathroom Readers' Institute - 2011
    You’ll read about dumb crooks and criminal masterminds, mafia henchman and low-level goons, ancient warriors and Old West gunslingers, crazed cops and jovial judges, and even a few loony lawyers and crooked Wall Street types. It’s the True Crime book that only Uncle John could make! Here are some of the unusual suspects . . .- New York City’s “Mad Bomber”- The Biddle Brothers and the Queen of the Jail- Law and Order: Special Pants Unit- Dopes who hide their dope in the strangest places- America’s first private eye- NASCAR’s bootlegging beginnings- The real pirates of the Caribbean- Why CSI makes the cops’ job even harder- Billy the Kid and other outlaws who died with their boots on- George Luger, Samuel Colt, and other fathers of guns- The greatest train robberies- Arrested for farting- And much more!

Young Blood: The Story of the Family Murders


Bob R. O'Brien - 2002
    After years of speculation and rumour, for the first time the real-life expose about this famous series of murders in Adelaide can be told by the man who solved the case. South Australia has an international reputation for being the home of some very strange murders. But during the 1970s this capital city was shocked when a series of young men, all fit and healthy, disappeared from its streets one by one. their bodies were found dumped in the countryside outside the city. All were mutilated and some were dismembered. A group of prominent SA judges and businessmen, believed to be gay, were suspected of being involved with the killings (they weren t). this group were dubbed the Family. the author he detective who investigated the murder of the most high profile of the victims (the son of the city s pre-eminent tV newsreaders) ventually arrested accountant Bevan Von Einem, who is still in gaol for his crimes.

In Broad Daylight


Harry N. MacLean - 1988
    Again and again, the law had failed to stop him. UNTIL THEY TOOK JUSTICE INTO THEIR OWN HANDS.On July 10, 1981, Ken was shot to death on the main street of this small farming community. Forty-five people watched. No indictments were ever issued, no trial held and the town of Skidmore protected the killers with silence. With this powerful, true-life account, Edgar Award-winning author Harry N. MacLean reveals what drove a community of everyday American citizens to commit murder.IN BROAD DAYLIGHT

Fred & Rose


Howard Sounes - 1995
    What was left of Fred West's eight-year-old stepdaughter was dug up from under the Wests' previous Gloucester home; his first wife and nanny were buried in open country outside the city. Several victims had been decapitated and dismembered, their remains showing signs of sexual torture. These twelve are just the ones the police found when the Wests were arrested in 1994. There may be more whose bones have not been located.Howard Sounes broke the first major story about the Wests as a journalist, and covered the murder trial of Rosemary West, before writing this , the classic book about the case. Beginning with Fred's and Rose's bizarre childhoods, Sounes charts their lives and crimes in forensic detail, creating a fascinating and truly frightening account of a marriage soaked in blood.

Zodiac Unmasked: The Identity of America's Most Elusive Serial Killer Revealed


Robert Graysmith - 2002
    Claiming responsibility for thirty-seven murders, he manipulated the media with warnings, dares, and bizarre cryptograms that baffled FBI code-breakers. Then as suddenly as the murders began, Zodiac disappeared into the Bay Area fog.After painstaking investigation and more than thirty years of research, Robert Graysmith finally exposes Zodiac's true identity. With overwhelming evidence he reveals the twisted private life that led to the crimes, and provides startling theories as to why they stopped. America's greatest unsolved mystery has finally been solved.INCLUDES PHOTOS AND A COMPLETE REPRODUCTION OF ZODIAC'S LETTERS

Eyes Pried Open: Rookie FBI Agent


Vincent Sellers - 2014
    His journey is chronicled in Eyes Pried Open: Rookie FBI Agent. Readers will experience both the highs and the lows of an FBI agent working bank robbery, kidnapping, murder-for-hire cases, and border-related crimes in San Diego, California. The book's from-the-heart narrative demonstrates that the typical lifestyle of an FBI agent assigned to a violent crime squad may not be for everyone. This is the first book to be written from the fresh perspective of an agent who joined the FBI after 9/11.

Crack House


Harry Keeble - 2008
    By the end of the decade Britain's inner cities were in the midst of a crack epidemic. Narrated by the leader of the Harginey Drugs Squad, 'Crack House' describes a series of breathtaking raids as well as arrests, beatings, stabbings and shootings.

The Murder Room: The Heirs of Sherlock Holmes Gather to Solve the World's Most Perplexing Cold Cases


Michael Capuzzo - 2008
    Good friends and sometime rivals William Fleisher, Frank Bender, and Richard Walter decided one day over lunch that something had to be done, and pledged themselves to a grand quest for justice. The three men invited the greatest collection of forensic investigators ever assembled, drawn from five continents, to the Downtown Club in Philadelphia to begin an audacious quest: to bring the coldest killers in the world to an accounting. Named for the first modern detective, the Parisian eugène François Vidocq-the flamboyant Napoleonic real-life sleuth who inspired Sherlock Holmes-the Vidocq Society meets monthly in its secretive chambers to solve a cold murder over a gourmet lunch. The Murder Room draws the reader into a chilling, darkly humorous, awe-inspiring world as the three partners travel far from their Victorian dining room to hunt the ruthless killers of a millionaire's son, a serial killer who carves off faces, and a child killer enjoying fifty years of freedom and dark fantasy. Acclaimed bestselling author Michael Capuzzo's brilliant storytelling brings true crime to life more realistically and vividly than it has ever been portrayed before. It is a world of dazzlingly bright forensic science; true evil as old as the Bible and dark as the pages of Dostoevsky; and a group of flawed, passionate men and women, inspired by their own wounded hearts to make a stand for truth, goodness, and justice in a world gone mad.

Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession


Rachel Monroe - 2019
    In the 1940s, a bored heiress began creating dollhouse crime scenes depicting murders, suicides, and accidental deaths. Known as the “Mother of Forensic Science,” she revolutionized the field of what was then called legal medicine. In the aftermath of the Manson Family murders, a young woman moved into Sharon Tate’s guesthouse and, over the next two decades, entwined herself with the Tate family. In the mid-nineties, a landscape architect in Brooklyn fell in love with a convicted murderer, the supposed ringleader of the West Memphis Three, through an intense series of letters. After they married, she devoted her life to getting him freed from death row. And in 2015, a teenager deeply involved in the online fandom for the Columbine killers planned a mass shooting of her own.Each woman, Monroe argues, represents and identifies with a particular archetype that provides an entryway into true crime. Through these four cases, she traces the history of American crime through the growth of forensic science, the evolving role of victims, the Satanic Panic, the rise of online detectives, and the long shadow of the Columbine shooting. In a combination of personal narrative, reportage, and a sociological examination of violence and media in the twentieth and twenty-first century, Savage Appetites scrupulously explores empathy, justice, and the persistent appeal of violence.

I, Mick Gatto


Mick Gatto - 2010
    Mick Gatto.Gambler.Underworld veteran.Melbourne gangland survivor.Mick Gatto in his bestselling autobiography finally reveals the man behind the headlines.Gatto's unique position-of knowing all the players in the Gangland Wars but not being involved in drug trafficking-gave him a remarkable perspective to watch the battles unfold.I, Mick Gatto is an extraordinary insight into a colourful and mysterious world that few even know exists.Part of the proceeds of each book sold will be donated to the Royal Children's Hospital.

Cries Unheard: Why Children Kill: The Story of Mary Bell


Gitta Sereny - 1998
    Her friend, and neighbour, thirteen-year-old, Norma Bell, no relation, was acquitted. Gitta Sereny attended the trial, and spent the next two years researching, and writing, what has become a classic study, The Case of Mary Bell. Over the years, however, she came to realize that if we are ever to understand the pressures which bring a child to commit serious crimes, only they, when adult, can tell us.Twenty-seven years after her conviction, and her sentence of detention for life, after her mother's death, Mary Bell agreed to talk about her harrowing childhood, her two terrible acts nine weeks apart, her public trial, and her twelve years of detention - seven of them, beginning when she was sixteen, in a maximum security women's prison.Nothing she said in the five months of intensive talks with Gitta Sereny was intended, or can be taken, as an excuse for her crimes: she herself rejects all mitigation. But the story of her life forces the reader to ponder society's responsibility for children at breaking point. It challenges our willingness to commit ourselves to the prevention of violent acts such as Mary committed. It is a clarion call to review our system of justice, and punishment, as it applies to the most needy amongst us - our children at risk.Cries Unheard is a brilliant tour de force, meticulously piecing together the terribly damaged life of Mary Bell, who only as an adult, and loving parent herself, grew to realize the moral enormity of her crimes. But it is not an isolated tragedy. There are thousands of children in prison across Europe, and in America. And in Britain, where punitive justice for children is most formalized, recent cases such as the murder of James Bulger show the urgency for our attention, our compassion, and our action.

I Will Find You: A Reporter Investigates the Life of the Man Who Raped Her


Joanna Connors - 2016
    Once her assailant was caught and sentenced, Joanna never spoke of the trauma again, until 21 years later when her daughter was about to go to college. She resolved then to tell her children about her own rape so they could learn and protect themselves, and she began to realize that the man who assaulted her was one of the formative people in her life.Setting out to uncover the story of her attacker, Connors embarked on a journey to find out who he was, where he came from, who his friends were and what his life was like. What she discovered stretches beyond one violent man’s story and back into her own, interweaving a narrative about strength and survival with one about rape culture and violence in America.

The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple


Jeff Guinn - 2017
    His congregation was racially integrated, and he was a much-lauded leader in the contemporary civil rights movement. Eventually, Jones moved his church, Peoples Temple, to northern California. He became involved in electoral politics, and soon was a prominent Bay Area leader.In this riveting narrative, Jeff Guinn examines Jones’s life, from his extramarital affairs, drug use, and fraudulent faith healing to the fraught decision to move almost a thousand of his followers to a settlement in the jungles of Guyana in South America. Guinn provides stunning new details of the events leading to the fatal day in November, 1978 when more than nine hundred people died—including almost three hundred infants and children—after being ordered to swallow a cyanide-laced drink.Guinn examined thousands of pages of FBI files on the case, including material released during the course of his research. He traveled to Jones’s Indiana hometown, where he spoke to people never previously interviewed, and uncovered fresh information from Jonestown survivors. He even visited the Jonestown site with the same pilot who flew there the day that Congressman Leo Ryan was murdered on Jones’s orders. The Road to Jonestown is the definitive book about Jim Jones and the events that led to the tragedy at Jonestown.

A Beautiful, Terrible Thing: A Memoir of Marriage and Betrayal


Jen Waite - 2017
    In a raw, first-person account, Waite recounts each heartbreaking discovery, every life-destroying lie, and reveals what happens once the dust finally settles on her demolished marriage.After a disturbing email sparks Waite's suspicion that her husband is having an affair, she tries to uncover the truth and rebuild trust in her marriage. Instead, she finds more lies, infidelity, and betrayal than she could have imagined. Waite obsessively analyzes her relationship, trying to find a single moment from the last five years that isn't part of the long-con of lies and manipulation. With a dual-timeline narrative structure, we see Waite's romance bud, bloom, and wither simultaneously, making the heartbreak and disbelief even more affecting.