Book picks similar to
Armed and Dangerous: The Hunt for One of America's Most Wanted Criminals by William Queen
true-crime
non-fiction
crime
nonfiction
A Hunt for Justice: The True Story of a Woman Undercover Wildlife Agent
Lucinda Delaney Schroeder - 2006
Fish and Wildlife Service. In August 1992, she accepted an assignment that forever changed--and endangered--her life. She posed as a big-game hunter in Alaska in order to infiltrate an international ring of poachers out to kill the biggest and best of that state's wildlife.A Hunt for Justice recounts her dramatic story--a story she was not legally permitted to write about until her retirement in 2004.
Prodigal Father, Pagan Son: Growing Up Inside the Dangerous World of the Pagans Motorcycle Club
Anthony Menginie - 2011
Abandoned by his mother, and with his father, "Mangy" Menginie—president of the Pagans Motorcycle Club, Philadelphia chapter—in jail, Anthony "LT" Menginie is raised inside the Pagans and inducted into a life of sex, violence, drugs, and organized crime. In Mangy's absence, LT finds a father figure in the Saint, a club member who helps teach him the difference between the club members you respect…and those you fear. The author recounts the power struggles that occur when Mangy is released from jail and tries to resume his role as father and president. Soon all hell breaks loose when Mangy betrays the club by going over to the rival Hells Angels, helping to touch off the "Biker Wars" in Philadelphia. The chapter's new president grooms LT to one day confront his father for his treachery. Faced with an impossible decision, LT has to decide where his loyalties lie.Prodigal Father, Pagan Son is a voyeuristic glimpse into the shocking and hypnotic underworld of notorious "one-percenter" biker clubs, hit men, drug dealers, and the other individuals who operate under no other rules than the "club code." But more than this, Menginie's story is the gritty and powerful true tale of surviving amid personal trials and tragedies, and of one man's determination to escape to a better life.
Secrets and Lies
Christine Keeler - 2001
Having found fame and success as a model - the portrait of her astride a chair is iconic - her short affair with the Minister of War, John Profumo, led to the downfall of Harold Macmillan's government and was at the epicentre of the social and political earthquake that followed. She was the subject of scandal, intrigue and gossip and was tried for perjury and briefly jailed following the death of Stephen Ward, who had introduced her to Profumo. Now that those directly involved are no longer alive, Christine is finally able to tell the full story of that extraordinary time. This is the life's journey of a woman whom history has refused to let go, who can never escape being Christine Keeler. She remains a headline and will do so for ever. It is the fascinating and shocking story of her enormous personal sacrifice, her unstinting resolve and her triumphant survival, set against a backdrop of political turmoil and Cold War espionage. This story Christine Keeler has finally found herself brave enough to tell will shatter all preconceptions and has the power to rewrite history.
At the Devil's Table: The Untold Story of the Insider Who Brought Down the Cali Cartel
William C. Rempel - 2011
Rempel tells the harrowing story of former Cali cartel insider Jorge Salcedo, an ordinary man facing an extraordinary dilemma—a man forced to risk everything to escape the powerful and treacherous Cali crime syndicate. Colombia in the 1990s is a country in chaos, as a weak government battles guerrilla movements and narco-traffickers, including the notorious Pablo Escobar and his rivals in the Cali cartel. Enter Jorge Salcedo, a part-time soldier, a gifted engineer, a respected businessman and family man—and a man who despises Pablo Escobar for patriotic and deeply personal reasons. He is introduced to the godfathers of the Cali cartel, who are at war with Escobar and desperately want their foe dead. With mixed feelings, Jorge agrees to help them. Once inside, Jorge rises to become head of security for Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela, principal godfather of the $7-billion-a-year Cali drug cartel. Jorge tries to turn a blind eye to the violence, corruption, and brutality that surround him, and he struggles privately to preserve his integrity even as he is drawn deeper into the web of cartel operations. Then comes an order from the godfathers that he can’t obey—but can’t refuse. Jorge realizes that his only way out is to bring down the biggest, richest crime syndicate of all time. Thus begins a heart-pumping roller-coaster ride of intensifying peril. Secretly aided by a pair of young American DEA agents, Jorge races time and cartel assassins to extract damaging evidence, help capture the fugitive godfather, and save the life of a witness targeted for murder. Through it all, death lurks a single misstep away.William C. Rempel is the only reporter with access to this story and to Jorge, who remains in hiding somewhere in the United States—even the author doesn’t know where—but has revealed his experience in gripping detail. Salcedo’s is the story of one extraordinary ordinary man forced to risk everything to end a nightmare of his own making.
The Girl Who Escaped ISIS: This Is My Story
Farida Khalaf - 2016
In the early summer of 2014, Farida Khalaf was a typical Yazidi teenager living with her parents and three brothers in her village in the mountains of Northern Iraq. In one horrific day, she lost everything: ISIS invaded her village, destroyed her family, and sold her into sexual slavery. The Girl Who Escaped ISIS is her incredible account of captivity and describes how she defied the odds and escaped a life of torture, in order to share her story with the world. Devastating and inspiring, this is an astonishing, intimate account of courage and hope in the face of appalling violence"--
Inside the Robe: A Judge's Candid Tale of Criminal Justice in America
Katherine Mader - 2021
As Anthony Bourdain invited readers to follow him behind the scenes of the restaurant business in his bestseller, Kitchen Confidential, and Caitlin Doughty’s Smoke Gets in Your Eyes was a revealing peak into the mysteries of what happens after death inside a mortuary, Inside the Robe shines a bright spotlight into the hidden folds of the judging world. Despite the old saw that judges should merely “follow the law,” Inside the Robe lays bare how following the law can produce wildly different results depending upon the background, politics, and life experiences of each judge. Even the floor of the courthouse can mean the difference between prison and freedom.Judge Katherine Mader spent decades as a judge in a criminal court, was the LAPD’s first inspector general, a prosecutor in two murder-for-hire trials, and a defense attorney who successfully argued to spare the life of the Hillside Strangler. From her perch behind the bench, Judge Mader witnesses a parade of drug addicts, gang members, mentally ill defendants, pricey private attorneys ranging from brilliant to incompetent, jaded prosecutors, and starry-eyed true believer public defenders. Never before has the judging profession been laid bare for all to see.
A Thousand Naked Strangers: A Paramedic's Wild Ride to the Edge and Back
Kevin Hazzard - 2016
A failed salesman turned local reporter, he wanted to test himself, see how he might respond to pressure and danger. He signed up for emergency medical training and became, at age twenty-six, a newly minted EMT running calls in the worst sections of Atlanta. His life entered a different realm—one of blood, violence, and amazing grace.Thoroughly intimidated at first and frequently terrified, he experienced on a nightly basis the adrenaline rush of walking into chaos. But in his downtime, Kevin reflected on how people’s facades drop away when catastrophe strikes. As his hours on the job piled up, he realized he was beginning to see into the truth of things. There is no pretense five beats into a chest compression, or in an alley next to a crack den, or on a dimly lit highway where cars have collided. Eventually, what had at first seemed impossible happened: Kevin acquired mastery. And in the process he was able to discern the professional differences between his freewheeling peers, what marked each—as he termed them—as “a tourist,” “true believer,” or “killer.”Combining indelible scenes that remind us of life’s fragile beauty with laugh-out-loud moments that keep us smiling through the worst, A Thousand Naked Strangers is an absorbing read about one man’s journey of self-discovery—a trip that also teaches us about ourselves.
Diamond Doris: The True Story of the World's Most Notorious Jewel Thief
Doris Payne - 2019
Surrounded by people who sought to limit her potential, Doris vowed to turn the tables after the owner of a jewelry store threw her out when a white customer arrived. Neither racism nor poverty would hold her back; she would get what she wanted and help her mother escape an abusive relationship.Using her southern charm, quick wit, and fascination with magic as her tools, Payne began shoplifting small pieces of jewelry from local stores. Over the course of six decades, her talents grew with each heist. Becoming an expert world-class jewel thief, she daringly pulled off numerous diamond robberies and her Jewish boyfriend fenced the stolen gems to Hollywood celebrities.Doris’s criminal exploits went unsolved well into the 1970s—partly because the stores did not want to admit that they were duped by a black woman. Eventually realizing Doris was using him, her boyfriend turned her in. She was arrested after stealing a diamond ring in Monte Carlo that was valued at more than half a million dollars. But even prison couldn’t contain this larger-than-life personality who cleverly used nuns as well as various ruses to help her break out. With her arrest in 2013 in San Diego, Doris’s fame skyrocketed when media coverage of her astonishing escapades exploded.Today, at eighty-seven, Doris, as bold and vibrant as ever, lives in Atlanta, and is celebrated for her glamorous legacy. She sums up her adventurous career best: “It beat being a teacher or a maid.” A rip-roaringly fun and exciting story as captivating and audacious as Catch Me if You Can and Can You Ever Forgive Me?—Diamond Doris is the portrait of a captivating anti-hero who refused to be defined by the prejudices and mores of a hypocritical society.Diamond Doris features 20-30 color photographs.
The Truths We Hold: An American Journey
Kamala Harris - 2019
The daughter of immigrants, she was raised in an Oakland, California community that cared deeply about social justice; her parents--an esteemed economist from Jamaica and an admired cancer researcher from India--met as activists in the civil rights movement when they were graduate students at Berkeley. Growing up, Harris herself never hid her passion for justice, and when she became a prosecutor out of law school, a deputy district attorney, she quickly established herself as one of the most innovative change agents in American law enforcement. She progressed rapidly to become the elected District Attorney for San Francisco, and then the chief law enforcement officer of the state of California as a whole. Known for bringing a voice to the voiceless, she took on the big banks during the foreclosure crisis, winning a historic settlement for California's working families. Her hallmarks were applying a holistic, data-driven approach to many of California's thorniest issues, always eschewing stale "tough on crime" rhetoric as presenting a series of false choices. Neither "tough" nor "soft" but smart on crime became her mantra. Being smart means learning the truths that can make us better as a community, and supporting those truths with all our might. That has been the pole star that guided Harris to a transformational career as the top law enforcement official in California, and it is guiding her now as a transformational United States Senator, grappling with an array of complex issues that affect her state, our country, and the world, from health care and the new economy to immigration, national security, the opioid crisis, and accelerating inequality.By reckoning with the big challenges we face together, drawing on the hard-won wisdom and insight from her own career and the work of those who have most inspired her, Kamala Harris offers in The Truths We Hold a master class in problem-solving, in crisis management, and leadership in challenging times. Through the arc of her own life, on into the great work of our day, she communicates a vision of shared struggle, shared purpose, and shared values. In a book rich in many home truths, not least is that a relatively small number of people work very hard to convince a great many of us that we have less in common than we actually do, but it falls to us to look past them and get on with the good work of living our common truth. When we do, our shared effort will continue to sustain us and this great nation, now and in the years to come.
American Prison: A Reporter's Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment
Shane Bauer - 2018
An award-winning investigative journalist, he used his real name; In American Prison, Bauer weaves a much deeper reckoning with his experiences together with a thoroughly researched history of for-profit prisons in America from their origins in the decades before the Civil War. For, as he soon realized, we can't understand the cruelty of our current system and its place in the larger story of mass incarceration without understanding where it came from. Private prisons became entrenched in the South as part of a systemic effort to keep the African-American labor force in place in the aftermath of slavery, and the echoes of these shameful origins are with us still.
Buried Memories: Katie Beers' Story
Katie Beers - 2013
Katie Beers was a profoundly neglected and abused child even before she was kidnapped on Long Island in 1992. Abducted by a family friend, she was held captive in an underground cell for 17 days and sexually abused. With smarts and strength, she slipped the bonds of captivity and began a new life.Katie, now a married working mother, has revealed her inspiring story of torment and recovery to the TV reporter who, as part of the original media frenzy covering the case, sought the ending to one of the most compelling sagas in New York criminal history. Katie, at the center of a national media storm, dropped out of sight 20 years ago and—until now—has never spoken publicly. Her appearance January on the Dr. Phil show and in People magazine to discuss her book is the first time she has ever spoken publicly. Katie is also expected to be featured in Newsday, the daily newspaper serving 3 million Long Islanders.The telling of her story, upon the 20th anniversary of her rescue (January 13th) offers enlightening hindsight into what enabled Katie to overcome a lost childhood. The book includes never-before told details of her ordeal and the shocking discovery of audio tapes recorded by her kidnapper during the captivity.
Truevine: Two Brothers, a Kidnapping, and a Mother's Quest: A True Story of the Jim Crow South
Beth Macy - 2016
George and Willie Muse were two little boys born to a sharecropper family. One day a white man offered them a piece of candy, setting off events that would take them around the world and change their lives forever.Captured into the circus, the Muse brothers performed for royalty at Buckingham Palace and headlined over a dozen sold-out shows at New York's Madison Square Garden. They were global superstars in a pre-broadcast era. But the very root of their success was in the color of their skin and in the outrageous caricatures they were forced to assume: supposed cannibals, sheep-headed freaks, even "Ambassadors from Mars." Back home, their mother never accepted that they were "gone" and spent 28 years trying to get them back. Through hundreds of interviews and decades of research, Beth Macy expertly explores a central and difficult question: Where were the brothers better off? On the world stage as stars or in poverty at home? Truevine is a compelling narrative rich in historical detail and rife with implications to race relations today.
A Fighting Chance
Elizabeth Warren - 2014
Early marriage and motherhood seemed to put even that dream out of reach, but fifteen years later she was a distinguished law professor with a deep understanding of why people go bankrupt. Then came the phone call that changed her life: could she come to Washington DC to help advise Congress on rewriting the bankruptcy laws?Thus began an impolite education into the bare-knuckled, often dysfunctional ways of Washington. She fought for better bankruptcy laws for ten years and lost. She tried to hold the federal government accountable during the financial crisis but became a target of the big banks. She came up with the idea for a new agency designed to protect consumers from predatory bankers and was denied the opportunity to run it. Finally, at age 62, she decided to run for elective office and won the most competitive—and watched—Senate race in the country. In this passionate, funny, rabble-rousing book, Warren shows why she has chosen to fight tooth and nail for the middle class—and why she has become a hero to all those who believe that America's government can and must do better for working families.
Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose
Joe Biden - 2017
And in so doing, he offers something for everyone, no matter which strand draws you in.”—The New York Times Book ReviewIn November 2014, thirteen members of the Biden family gathered on Nantucket for Thanksgiving, a tradition they had been celebrating for the past forty years; it was the one constant in what had become a hectic, scrutinized, and overscheduled life. The Thanksgiving holiday was a much-needed respite, a time to connect, a time to reflect on what the year had brought, and what the future might hold. But this year felt different from all those that had come before. Joe and Jill Biden’s eldest son, Beau, had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor fifteen months earlier, and his survival was uncertain. “Promise me, Dad,” Beau had told his father. “Give me your word that no matter what happens, you’re going to be all right.” Joe Biden gave him his word.Promise Me Dad chronicles the year that followed, which would be the most momentous and challenging in Joe Biden’s extraordinary life and career. As vice president, Biden traveled more than a hundred thousand miles that year, across the world, dealing with crises in Ukraine, Central America, and Iraq. When a call came from New York, or Capitol Hill, or Kyiv, or Baghdad—“Joe, I need your help”—he responded. For twelve months, while Beau fought for and then lost his life, the vice president balanced the twin imperatives of living up to his responsibilities to his country and his responsibilities to his family. And never far away was the insistent and urgent question of whether he should seek the presidency in 2016.The year brought real triumph and accomplishment, and wrenching pain. But even in the worst times, Biden was able to lean on the strength of his long, deep bonds with his family, on his faith, and on his deepening friendship with the man in the Oval Office, Barack Obama.Writing with poignancy and immediacy, Joe Biden allows readers to feel the urgency of each moment, to experience the days when he felt unable to move forward as well as the days when he felt like he could not afford to stop.This is a book written not just by the president, but by a father, grandfather, friend, and husband. Promise Me Dad is a story of how family and friendships sustain us and how hope, purpose, and action can guide us through the pain of personal loss into the light of a new future.