In it she tells the story of a miraculous ocean encounter that happened to her when she was seventeen and in training for a big swim (she had already swum the English Channel, twice, and the Catalina Channel).It was the dark of early morning; Lynne was in 55-degree water as smooth as black ice, two hundred yards offshore, outside the wave break. She was swimming her last half-mile back to the pier before heading home for breakfast when she became aware that something was swimming with her. The ocean was charged with energy as if a squall was moving in; thousands of baby anchovy darted through the water like lit sparklers, trying to evade something larger. Whatever it was, it felt large enough to be a white shark coursing beneath her body.It wasn't a shark. It became clear that it was a baby gray whale—following alongside Lynne for a mile or so. Lynne had been swimming for more than an hour; she needed to get out of the water to rest, but she realized that if she did, the young calf would follow her onto shore and die from collapsed lungs.The baby whale—eighteen feet long!—was migrating on a three-month trek to its feeding grounds in the Bering Sea, an eight-thousand-mile journey. It would have to be carried on its mother's back for much of that distance, and was dependent on its mother's milk for food—baby whales drink up to fifty gallons of milk a day. If Lynne didn't find the mother whale, the baby would suffer from dehydration and starve to death.Something so enormous—the mother whale was fifty feet long—suddenly seemed very small in the vast Pacific Ocean. How could Lynne possibly find her?This is the story—part mystery, part magical tale—of what happened . . .

    Then, in one fateful night, she lost everything, and the nightmare beganJennifer Robertson was working hard to build a life for herself from the ashes of her first marriage. Still only twenty-six, she swiped right on a dating app and met Gerry Cotten, a man she would not normally have considered—too young and not her type—but found she’d met her match. Eccentric but funny and kind, Cotten turned out to be a bitcoin wizard who quickly amassed substantial wealth through his company, Quadriga. The couple travelled the world, first-class all the way, while Cotten worked on his multitude of encrypted laptops. Then, while the couple was on their honeymoon in India, opening an orphanage in their name, Gerry fell ill and died in a matter of hours. Jennifer was consumed by grief and guilt, but that was only the beginning. It turned out that Gerry owed $250 million to Quadriga customers, and all the passwords to his encrypted virtual vaults, hidden on his many laptops, had died with him. Jennifer was left with more than one hundred thousand investors looking for their money, and questions, suspicions and accusations spiralling dangerously out of control. The Quadriga scandal touched off major investment and criminal investigations, not to mention Internet rumours circulating on dark message boards, including claims that Gerry had faked his own death and that his wife was the real mastermind behind a sophisticated sting operation. While Jennifer waited for a dead man’s switch e-mail that would probably never come, it became clear that Cotten had gambled away about $100 million of the funds entrusted to him for investment in his many schemes, leaving Robertson holding the bag. Bitcoin Widow is Catch Me If You Can meeting a widow betrayed, a life of fairy-tale romance and private jets torched by duplicity, as Jennifer Robertson tries to reset her life in the wake of one of the biggest investments scandals of the digital age.

    Her father's hidden liquor bottles, the strange cancers in children in the neighborhood, the truth about what was made at Rocky Flats (cleaning supplies, her mother guessed)—best not to inquire too deeply into any of it.But as Iversen grew older, she began to ask questions. She learned about the infamous 1969 Mother's Day fire, in which a few scraps of plutonium spontaneously ignited and—despite the desperate efforts of firefighters—came perilously close to a "criticality," the deadly blue flash that signals a nuclear chain reaction. Intense heat and radiation almost melted the roof, which nearly resulted in an explosion that would have had devastating consequences for the entire Denver metro area. Yet the only mention of the fire was on page 28 of the Rocky Mountain News, underneath a photo of the Pet of the Week. In her early thirties, Iversen even worked at Rocky Flats for a time, typing up memos in which accidents were always called "incidents."And as this memoir unfolds, it reveals itself as a brilliant work of investigative journalism—a detailed and shocking account of the government's sustained attempt to conceal the effects of the toxic and radioactive waste released by Rocky Flats, and of local residents' vain attempts to seek justice in court. Here, too, are vivid portraits of former Rocky Flats workers—from the healthy, who regard their work at the plant with pride and patriotism, to the ill or dying, who battle for compensation for cancers they got on the job.Based on extensive interviews, FBI and EPA documents, and class-action testimony, this taut, beautifully written book promises to have a very long half-life.

    As the mother of forensic science, Frances Glessner Lee is the reason why homicide detectives are a thing. She is responsible for the popularity of forensic science in television shows and pop culture. Long overlooked in the history books, this extremely detailed and thoroughly researched biography will at long last tell the story of the life and contributions of this pioneering woman.

    

    At once shocking, heartbreaking, and inspiring, Wall’s story of subjugation and survival exposes the darkness at the root of this rebel offshoot of the Mormon faith.

    Don’t ask her to forgive and forget.When Kim was just 22, her older brother, Ron Goldman, was brutally killed by O.J. Simpson. Ron and Kim were very close, and her devastation was compounded by the shocking not guilty verdict that allowed a smirking Simpson to leave as a free man.It wasn’t Kim’s first trauma. Her parents divorced when she was young, and she and Ron were raised by their father. Her mother kidnapped her, telling her that her father didn’t love her any more. When she was 14, she was almost blinded from severe battery acid burns on her face during an automobile accident, requiring three reconstructive surgeries.But none of these early traumas compared to the loss of her brother, the painful knowledge that his killer was free, and fact that she could not even grieve privately—her grief was made painfully public. Counseled by friends, strangers, and even Oprah to “find closure,” Kim chose a different route. She chose to fight.Repeatedly, Kim and her family pursued Simpson by every legal means. Foiled over and over again, they ultimately achieved a small measure of justice.Kim’s story is one of tragedy, but also of humanity and, often, comedy. Living life as one of America’s most famous “victims” isn’t always easy, especially as a single mother in the dating market. She often had bizarre first date experiences, with one man even breaking down into tears and inconsolable with grief after realizing who she was.Ultimately Kim’s story is that of an ordinary person thrown into extraordinary circumstances at a very young age, and who had the courage—despite the discouragement of so many—to ignore the conventional wisdom and never give up her fight for justice.

    They planned one last career-topping heist that they hoped would land them in the history books. Perhaps not the smoothest of criminals, they nevertheless walked away with a stunning haul—more than $20 million in jewels, gold, diamonds, family heirlooms, and cash.Veteran crime reporter and former London correspondent for the New York Times Dan Bilefsky offers a gripping account of how these unassuming criminal masterminds nearly pulled off one of the great heists of the century. Drawing on unrivaled access to the leading officers on the case at the Flying Squad, the legendary Scotland Yard unit that hunted the gang, and notorious criminals from London’s shadowy underworld, Bilefsky follows the villains as they plot, execute, and attempt to evade capture in a nail-biting game of cat-and-mouse.

    In Canada a few years later, when her friend Carol asked her to participate in a bold new venture in a men's medium security prison, Ann had to weigh her curiosity and desire to be of service with her anxiety and fear.But she signed up and for eighteen months went to a remote building a few hours outside of Toronto, meeting a group of heavily tattooed book club members without the presence of guards or security cameras. There was no wine and cheese, plush furnishings, or superficial chat about jobs or recent vacations. But a book club on the inside proved to be a place to share ideas, learn about each other, and regain humanity.For the men, the books were rare prized possessions, and the meetings were an oasis of safety and a respite from isolation in an otherwise hostile environment. Having been judged themselves, they were quick to make judgments about the books they read. As they discussed the obstacles the characters faced, they revealed glimpses of their own struggles that were devastating and comic. From The Grapes of Wrath to The Cellist of Sarajevo, and Outliers to Infidel, the book discussions became a springboard for frank conversations about loss, anger, redemption, heroism and loneliness.

     Since the first Ultimate Fighting Championship in 1993, mixed martial arts (MMA) has punched, kicked, and wrestled its way into the public's consciousness. MMA is an often brutal sport that combines any and every unarmed fighting technique with pure grit. Today, the gross yearly profits of Ultimate Fighting Championship-the sport's premier professional league-exceed that of professional wrestling, boxing, and even the Boston Red Sox. In Tapped Out, Matthew Polly gives readers his on-the ground take of training and fighting in MMA. At the age of thirty-six, Polly was out of shape and totally unprepared for what was ahead: a grueling journey through leading MMA training facilities in Bangkok, St. Petersburg, Rio de Janeiro, New York, and Las Vegas. After being utterly beaten down and built back up, he fought his first match against a fighter nearly fifteen years younger-and not only won, but sent his opponent to the hospital. Polly intersperses his own narrative with the history and background of fighting and interviews with top UFC stars such as GSP, Fedor Emelianenko, Randy Couture, and Gina Carano. Evocative of George Plimpton's classic Paper Lion, Polly's honest, funny, and eye-opening account of his experiences will appeal to the millions of devoted MMA fans who are as hardcore as the sport itself.Watch a Video

    He wanted to give his girlfriend the moon. Literally.  Thad convinced his girlfriend and another female accomplice, both NASA interns, to break into an impregnable laboratory at NASA—past security checkpoints, an electronically locked door with cipher security codes, and camera-lined hallways—and help him steal the most precious objects in the world: the moon rocks. But what does one do with an item so valuable that it’s illegal even to own? And was Thad Roberts—undeniably gifted, picked for one of the most competitive scientific posts imaginable, a possible astronaut—really what he seemed? Mezrich has pored over thousands of pages of court records, FBI transcripts, and NASA documents and has interviewed most of the participants in the crime to reconstruct this Ocean’s Eleven–style heist, a madcap story of genius, love, and duplicity that reads like a Hollywood thrill ride.

    We follow Strauss as he explores his startling past-collision life - the funeral, the queasy drama of a high-stakes court case? and what starts as a personal tale of a tragic event opens into the story of how to live with a very hard fact: we can try our human best in the crucial moment, and it might not be good enough. Half a Life is a nakedly honest, ultimately hopeful examination of guilt, responsibility, and living with the past.

    You will be glued to the pages as you read about high profile true crime murder cases, such as the murder of Laci Peterson, and the murder trial of actor Robert Blake, while learning about some lesser known yet equally notorious murder trials. You will follow criminal investigations into cold murder cases that were once thought to be unsolvable, but through a combination of scientific advances, good police work, and some luck, homicide detectives were able to give the victims’ families closure. Although most of the cases profiled in this book are clearly true crime stories, one case, the story of the famous doctor Jack Kevorkian, concerns changing legal interpretations of what constitutes murder in the United States of America. Other cases profiled involve privileged individuals who had plenty of money, but resorted to murder out of greed and selfishness. You will also read about one privileged woman, actress Dominque Dunne, who had her whole life in front of her, only to have it ended by a jealous lover who could not handle her success and privilege. Open the cover of this book, if you dare, and learn about some of the most intriguing high profile crimes and true murder to happen in the last 100 years. You may want to share this book with a friend, though, because as intriguing as the following cases are, they are also shocking and disturbing.

    For the Harlem-born ex-Marine, being an officer of the law was the ticket he'd been waiting for to move up from a low-wage security job and out of the Polo Ground Projects in New York City—and take his mother with him.Heyward was warned of the temptations he'd encounter as a new officer, but when faced with financial hardship, he suddenly found himself unable to resist the income generated from selling contraband to inmates. In his distinctive voice, Heyward takes you on a journey inside the walls of Rikers Island, showing how he teamed up with various inmates and other officers to develop a system that allowed him to profit from selling drugs inside the jail.Corruption Officer is a jarring exposé of a man having lived on both sides of the law, a rare insider's look at a corrupt city jail, and a testament to the lengths we'll go when our backs are against the wall.

    It was shortly before 19h00 when Don Steenkamp jumped out of the vehicle and ran into the station’s charge office, covered in blood, to announce that his parents and sister had been brutally shot and killed on the family farm, Naauwhoek. Although the killings were initially thought to be just another farm attack, months later a sixteen-year-old youth was arrested for the murders, setting in motion a chain of events that would grip South Africa, and divide the people of Griekwastad.Based on interviews with all the role-players, including the investigating officers on the case, the forensic and ballistic experts, and family and friends of the deceased, this is the riveting account of what really happened on Naauwhoek farm on that fateful day, as told by the reporter who followed the case from day one…