It was the age of austerity and criminal opportunity. Thieves broke into warehouses, hijacked trucks and ransacked rail yards to feed the black market; others stole, recycled or forged ration coupons. Scotland Yard was 6,000 men under strength but something dramatic had to be done and it was.Four of the Yards best informed detectives were summoned to form the Special Duties Squad and were told: Go out into the underworld. Gather your informants. Do whatever is necessary to ensure that the gangs are smashed up. We will never ask you to divulge your sources of information. But remember you must succeed.They did. Divisional Detective Inspector Jack Capstick, a brilliant thief-taker and informant runner, Detective Inspector Henry Clark, who knew the south London villains as few other detectives did and in addition, possessed a punch like the kick of a mule, and Detective Sergeants Matt Brinnand and John Gosling, who topped the Flying Squad wartime arrests, both individually and collectively. In under four years they arrested 789 criminals, solved 1,506 cases and recovered stolen property valued at 250,000 or 10 million by todays standards, with the aid of their informants, undercover officers and their own, unsurpassed ability.The Special Duties Squad was a one-off. How the four officers accomplished their task is divulged in this thrilling book, using hitherto unseen official documents and conversations from people who were there.

     'There are few things better in life than ... the latest novel by Penny Vincenzi' Daily Express1950s London. Tom Knelston is charismatic, working class and an active member of the Labour party, with a passion for the newly formed NHS. He is a man to watch. His wife Alice had a career as a nurse, and shares his ideals. It seems they are the perfect match.Then out of the blue, Tom meets beautiful and unhappily married Diana Southcott, a fashion model. An exciting but dangerous affair is inevitable and potentially damaging to their careers. And when a child becomes ill, Tom is forced to make decisions about his principles, his career, his marriage, and most of all, his love for his child.

    This story of a dedicated prosecutor seeking justice for the grisly murder of a young girl and her mother is an intensely gripping, beat-by-beat reconstruction of the events as they unfold.

    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.

    Then it all went horribly wrong. In 1999 he was charged with being knowingly concerned with the importation of a commercial quantity of cocaine. Fraser pleaded guilty to a charge of possessing, trafficking a small quantity, and using cocaine over a period of time. He was sentenced to seven years in maximum security prison. Court in the Middle describes his early years—growing up in a family of lawyers, running hard to build a criminal law practice; his successful years with a national practice, and defending high profile, sometimes notorious, clients. He also discusses his relationship with cocaine, addiction and deals, crime and punishment, and the shocking details of his time spent in a maximum security prison.

    . . The book works on two levels, much like a good Holmes case."--TimeFor all the scores of biographies of Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the most famous detective in the world, there is no recent book that tells this remarkable story--in which Conan Doyle becomes a real-life detective on an actual murder case. In Conan Doyle for the Defense, Margalit Fox takes us step by step inside Conan Doyle's investigative process and illuminates a murder mystery that is also a morality play for our time--a story of ethnic, religious, and anti-immigrant bias.In 1908, a wealthy woman was brutally murdered in her Glasgow home. The police found a convenient suspect in Oscar Slater--an immigrant Jewish cardsharp--who, despite his obvious innocence, was tried, convicted, and consigned to life at hard labor in a brutal Scottish prison. Conan Doyle, already world famous as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was outraged by this injustice and became obsessed with the case. Using the methods of his most famous character, he scoured trial transcripts, newspaper accounts, and eyewitness statements, meticulously noting myriad holes, inconsistencies, and outright fabrications by police and prosecutors. Finally, in 1927, his work won Slater's freedom.Margalit Fox, a celebrated longtime writer for The New York Times, has "a nose for interesting facts, the ability to construct a taut narrative arc, and a Dickens-level gift for concisely conveying personality" (Kathryn Schulz, New York). In Conan Doyle for the Defense, she immerses readers in the science of Edwardian crime detection and illuminates a watershed moment in the history of forensics, when reflexive prejudice began to be replaced by reason and the scientific method.Praise for Conan Doyle for the Defense"Splendid . . . The ingredients are too good to pass up: a famous detective novelist actually playing detective, a man serving time for a murder he did not commit, and a criminal justice system slowly, and reluctantly, reckoning with the advent of forensic science." -- Sarah Weinman, The New Republic "Entertaining."--Newsday

    Perfect for fans of Philippa Gregory. Katherine Digby, daughter to a country gentleman, is now maid of honour at the court of Anne Boleyn. Shy and intimidated by the glamour of the court, she soon inspires the enmity of the queen's sister in law, Lady Rochford. As Anne Boleyn and Katherine Digby grow to understand each other, friendship blossoms, but dark clouds are beginning to gather and Katherine soon realises that the queen is surrounded by sworn enemies - even among the ladies in waiting. When she is entrusted with the safe keeping of a paper, she cannot resist reading it. What she finds is an explosive secret which could threaten everything - even the queen's life. It is vital to protect her, but Katherine faces a formidable adversary in the form of someone who wishes Anne Boleyn dead. The Boleyn secret cannot remain hidden for long. Curl up and enjoy this Tudor escapade by the author of The Lady's Favour, The Shakespeare Trail, and William Shakespeare in 100 Facts.

    When he finally achieved his ambition, becoming one of only a dozen full-time undercover officers, the reality of covert work turned his life into a nightmare.To catch criminals, Christian bought and sold drugs with taxpayers' money, was beaten up, arrested at gunpoint and barricaded in a pub by a gang of marauding travellers - all in a day's work. At one stage, he was running almost a dozen mobile phones to keep track of his different identities and had so many aliases that he nearly forgot who he was. He put his life on the line for the job but was to find that being the 'best of the best' wasn't all it was cracked up to be. The pressure became so intense that he even contemplated suicide.Crossing the Line is a visceral, gripping account of what it really takes to be an undercover cop, going behind the scenes to reveal the harsh realities of modern covert police work.

    It was the worst bloodbath to take place in more than a century in the heart of the supreme authority of the world's one billion Roman Catholics. Four hours later, the Vatican announced that the lance corporal, twenty-three-year-old Cédric Tornay, had shot the couple, then committed suicide in "a fit of madness" brought on by frutstration with the unit's discipline - a conclusion it reaffirmed after a nine-month internal inquiry.But as John Follain's hard-hitting exposé shows, the official report was a travesty, a tissue of suppositions, contradictions, and omissions. Based on an exhaustive three-year investigation - the first independent attempt to establish the truth - 'City of Secrets' reveals how the Vatican, the oldest and most secretive autocracy in the world, staged an elaborate plot to obstruct justice and hide the scandals it dares not confess. Echoing the pace and plotting of a highstakes thriller, Follain's true-life tale of intrigue moves from the guards' barracks and the pope's palace in Vatican City to Paris, Berlin, and the Swiss Alps, and features a fascinating cast: an old, suffering John Paul II; his chief bodyguard, formerly accused of spying for the Soviet bloc; a mysterious priest punished by the Vatican; and the powerful Opus Dei sect.Timely and explosive, 'City of Secrets' is the story of a still-unsolved crime committed on holy territory, and of a systematic attempt to hide the fatal failings of a security force charged with protecting one of the world's most influential leaders.

    How did he become Glasgow's most feared gangster, deemed a risk to national security?Arthur Thompson, Godfather of the crime world and senior partner of the Krays, recruited young Ferris as a bagman, debt collector and equaliser. Feared for his capacity for extreme violence, respected for his intelligence, Ferris was the Godfather's heir apparent. But when gang warfare broke, underworld leaders traded in flesh, colluding with their partners - the police. Disgusted, Ferris left the Godfather and stood alone. They gave him weeks to live.While Ferris was caged in Barlinnie Prison's segregation unit accused of murdering Thompson's son, Fatboy, his two friends were shot dead the night before the funeral and grotesquely displayed in a car on the cortége's route. Acquitted against all the odds, Ferris moved on, determined to make an honest living.They would not let him.The National Crime Squad, MI5, the police and two of the country's most powerful gangsters saw to that. A maximum-security prisoner, Ferris is known as 'Lucky' because he is still alive.This is one man's unique insight into Britain's crime world and the inextricable web of corruption - a revealing story of official corruption and unholy alliances.

    Part of one of the most prominent and richest families in America: The du Pont Family. Then, strangely, he started losing his mind. This is what is known: du Pont was a fan of amateur sports and established a wrestling facility at his Foxcatcher Farm. He befriended several Olympic champions--including Dave Schultz, who he murdered. It was a never a question of if he did it; the question is why. What turns an otherwise sane man into a psychotic killer? This page-turning true crime story will take you into the mind of a man who had everything and let it all fall away due to madness and paranoia.

    He hung grisly souvenirs on nails in his junkyard.La Costra NostraCharles Carneglia was a stone-cold killer who fell in with the bloodthirsty John Gotti crew. As the infamous crime family rose to power with their murderous trail of sex, jealousy, greed, and revenge, Carneglia rose with them.Mafia, Madness And MurderThis is the horrifying story of a misfit who fit perfectly into the New York mafia. In a harrowing journey inside a ruthless criminal underworld, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Anthony M. DeStefano chronicles one man s life in a world of depraved acts of violence and the horrors that went with being a member of the Gambino family."Thrilling American crime writing. -Jimmy Breslin on "King of the Godfathers"Includes 16 Pages of Shocking Photos"

    The search would last only five days before the worst came to pass. Gary Hilton, suspected in the deaths of three more hikers across the Southeast, was arrested for her murder. What was once a small mountain town had fallen into the sights of a serial killer. Less than a month later, Hilton would plead guilty and be sentenced to life in prison in one of the swiftest cases in Georgia history. Lead investigator John Cagle shares the details of the investigation from start to finish in this day-by-day account. Witness the struggle firsthand to seek justice for Meredith, all while protecting her memory from the opportunists, sensationalist reporters, and unscrupulous practices that threatened to deny her the dignity she deserves. Discover not only the facts of her murder, but the impact on the personal lives of those who worked tirelessly to find her. For them, those days in January will never end.

    Manson was a career criminal who got his education in the U.S. prison system and learned at an early age that only those who have power over others will survive. Inside you will read about... - Starting the Manson Family - Seeking Fame in Los Angeles - The First Murder - 10050 Cielo Drive - Rosemary and Leno LaBianca - Life and Death Behind Bars And much more! In less than three years, Manson transformed his followers from a group of freedom-loving, LSD-dropping hippies into a pack of blood-thirsty murderers who carried out acts of astounding brutality at his request. For many, August 8, 1969, the day the Manson Family murdered Sharon Tate and her guests, marked the end of the Sixties. The Manson Family murder spree shocked the world, and standing silently at the center of it all was one man, Charles Manson.

    A lorry driver stops. The encounter ends in murder.The victim, Dagmar Petrzywalski, is a gentle eccentric spinster. She had sought the peace of the countryside after her London home was bombed. She is the embodiment of Austerity Britain’s self-sacrifice and thrift. Her murderer, Harold Hagger is its opposite. His life is a litany of petty crimes, deceived wives, sloughed-off identities and army desertions. With their characters so indelibly marked the tragic outcome of their meeting seems determined by fate.In Murder at Wrotham Hill Diana Souhami dwells on the significance of this crime, and shows that even after the killing of twenty million people in a global conflict, one death still has much to tell us. In doing so she paints a gripping portrait of post-war Britain that raises questions about murder, punishment and destiny.Her characters include England’s first celebrity policeman, Fabian of the Yard; the celebrated forensic scientist, Keith Simpson; and history’s most famous and dedicated hangman, Albert Pierrepoint.