Book picks similar to
The Galapagos Affair by John Treherne
non-fiction
true-crime
history
galapagos
The Deadly Dozen: India's Most Notorious Serial Killers
Anirban Bhattacharya - 2019
A schoolteacher who killed multiple paramours with cyanide; a mother who trained her daughters to kill children; a thug from the 1800s who slaughtered more than 900 people, a manservant who killed girls and devoured their body parts.If you thought serial killers was a Western phenomenon, think again!These bone-chilling stories in The Deadly Dozen will take you into the hearts and heads of India's most devious murderers and schemers, exploring what made them kill and why?
The Radium Girls [Excerpt]
Kate Moore - 2017
During World War I, the young women who were hired to work in America's radium watch dial factories were considered the lucky ones. They were paid well, they got to work with the luminous element dubbed "liquid sunshine" that was all the rage, and they were helping the war effort by providing instruments that shone in the dark. And their bodies literally glowed because of the amount of radium they were ingesting. In her new book, The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women, author Kate Moore gives voice to two groups of workers who became horribly ill and fought back against the companies that poisoned them. Using diaries and letters from the women, their statements in court documents, medical records and archived x-rays, as well as using ancestry documents to track down their relatives for interviews, Moore showcases the forgotten young women whose legal fight led to life-changing workplace safety regulations amid one of the biggest scandals of America's twentieth century. Preorder and find out how their story ends on May 2.
Jesse James: A Life from Beginning to End (Biographies of Criminals)
Hourly History - 2021
Famous Crimes the World Forgot: Ten Vintage True Crime Stories Rescued from Obscurity
Jason Lucky Morrow - 2014
Click on the Author link above to see all titles available. Famous Crimes the World Forgot uncovers ten amazing true crimes that exploded into the national news, shocking Americans from coast to coast—crimes that were eventually forgotten—until now. Many of these incredible cases went unexplored for decades. They include: a “Jack the Slugger” style serial killer who haunted the streets of Denver, bashing women in the head with a baton; the hatchet murder of a wife and child in Florida that put the husband in the prosecutor’s cross-hairs; a psychotic and delusional killer who taunted the public and police with coded messages—long before the Zodiac Killer did the same thing in California; the only family in America to produce two spree killers; a beautiful, young coed who shot a foreign student for a bizarre motive; a doctor who sought revenge and wiped out an innocent family; a blind man so desperate to support his family that he set off a bomb in one of America’s largest department stores; and a ruthless killer who murdered a husband and wife in their car on Route 66 while their four young sons slept in a pup tent just a few feet away. These astonishing true crimes will leave you wondering how they could have been ignored for so long. Silver Medal Winner: 2015 eLit Book Awards, True Crime Category. Famous Crimes the World Forgot Volume II is also now available. Click on the Author link above to see all titles available.
Wildest Dream: The Biography of George Mallory
Peter L. Gillman - 2000
Yet behind the headlines, investigative journalists Peter and Leni Gillman sensed there was far more to the story than whether Mallory had reached the top. How did Mallory reconcile his deep love for his wife and children with his dream of Everest? Why did he make his final attempt when he knew the odds were stacked against him?The Wildest Dream is an intimate portrait of a man torn between competing desires - and the fatal choice he ultimately made. Drawing on newly discovered documents and letters, and aided by members of Mallory's family, the Gillmans bare the heart and soul of the man behind the myth.--From the 2000 paperback edition.
Travels with Rachel: In Search of South America
George Mahood - 2017
Join George and Rachel on their hilarious journey through the wilds of Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, as they climb volcanoes, fish for piranhas, trek through the Amazon rainforest, take death-defying bus rides, sample some of the continent’s strangest delicacies, and try to get to Machu Picchu. Armed only with a basic knowledge of Spanish, small backpacks, and bags of enthusiasm, they set off together on what promised to be a life-changing adventure.
Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA
Amaryllis Fox - 2019
Amaryllis Fox's memoir tells the story of her ten years in the most elite clandestine ops unit of the CIA, hunting the world's most dangerous terrorists in sixteen countries while marrying and giving birth to a daughter.
A Soldier Of The Legion: An Englishman's Adventures Under the French Flag in Algeria and Tonquin
George Manington - 1907
He would remain part of the French Foreign Legion for the next five years. After swearing to the cause of liberté, égalité, fraternité Manington was immediately transported away from France to begin his training in Algeria. But Africa was not where he would be fighting, instead he and his comrades, from Germany, Scotland, America and the rest of the world, were sent to south-east Asia. Tonquin in French Indochina was their destination, to help quell the rebels against colonial rule that had emerged after the Sino-French War. The Yên Thế Insurrection had been continuing for twenty-two years in this area before Manington arrived, and he entered into the midst of this of this vicious war. Manington’s work A Soldier of the Legion is a fascinating account of life in one of the most famous regiments in history. Although loyal to the legion, he saw many faults in the colonial administration and developed friendships with the locals. This work gives brilliant insight into the guerrilla warfare used by the Tonkinese rebels. Methods of warfare that would be once again used in this area in the twentieth century, first against the French and later against the Americans during the Vietnam War. George Manington left the French Foreign Legion in 1895. Prior to joining he had been a student in France and Germany and a prospective doctor in Paris. After his time serving under the French flag he continued to live in Southeast Asia as an interpreter, traveller and journalist. This work was published in 1907.
The Crime of the Century
Dennis L. Breo - 1993
He broke in as his helpless victims slept, bound them one by one, and then stabbed, assaulted, and strangled all eight in a sadistic sexual frenzy. By morning only one young nurse had miraculously survived. The barbarity of the attack shocked a nation and opened a new chapter in the history of American crime: mass murder. Here is the never-before-told story of Richard Speck by the prosecutor who put him in prison for life."In the Crime of the Century," William J. Martin has teamed up with Dennis L. Breo to re-create the blood-soaked night that made American criminal history, offerning fascinating behind-the-scenes descriptions of Speck, his innocent victims, the desperate manhunt and massive investigation, and the trial that led to Speck's successful conviction. In 1991 Richard Speck died of a heart attack in prison, but the horror of his crime still haunts the conscience of a nation.
Happy Like Murderers
Gordon Burn - 1998
As the true horror of what happened there unfolded it became clear that this was the most infamous series of murders in Britain in the 20th century.'With his first forensic commitment to get behing the tabloid headlines Burn brilliantly reinvents reportorial writing ... Startlingly original.' - Matt Seaton, Esquire'Long, brilliant, horrifying ... Burn researched with great care every detail (my God, the detail) of what went on in the Wests' household over decades.' - Libby Purves, The Times'Brilliant, bleak, unflinching ... Layer after layer, level after level, deeper and deeper, until, at last, a pricture is constructed ... His interpretations make sense. They feel right. They explain the inexplicable.' - Deborah Orr, Guardian
Money, Murder, and Dominick Dunne: A Life in Several Acts
Robert Hofler - 2017
As a television and film producer in the 1950s–1970s, hobnobbing with Humphrey Bogart and Natalie Wood, he found success and crushing failure in a pitiless Hollywood. As a Vanity Fair journalist covering the lives of the rich and powerful, he mesmerized readers with his detailed coverage of spectacular murder cases—O.J. Simpson, the Menendez brothers, Michael Skakel, Phil Spector, and Claus von Bülow. He had his own television show, Dominick Dunne's Power, Privilege, and Justic. His five best-selling novels, including The Two Mrs. Grenvilles, People Like Us, and An Inconvenient Woman, were inspired by real lives and scandals. The brother of John Gregory Dunne and brother-in-law of Joan Didion, he was a friend and confidante of many literary luminaries. Dunne also had the ear of some of the world's most famous women, among them Princess Diana, Nancy Reagan, Liz Smith, Barbara Walters, and Elizabeth Taylor.Dunne admitted to inventing himself, and it was that public persona he wrote about in his own memoir, The Way We Lived Then. Left out of that account, but brought to light here, were his intense rivalry with his brother John Gregory, the gay affairs and relationships he had throughout his marriage and beyond, and his fights with editors at Vanity Fair. Robert Hofler also reveals the painful rift in the family after the murder of Dominick's daughter, Dominique—compounded by his coverage of her killer's trial, which launched his career as a reporter.
Pearl: Lost Girl of White Oak Mountain
Bill Yates - 2020
The search for little Pearl consumed the next several weeks, and the story became front page news all over the United States. Hundreds of residents from the nearby towns of Waldron and Booneville Arkansas helped in the search, and a mysterious mountain hermit seemed to hold the secret to Pearl's disappearance. The incredible events that followed contributed to a mountain legend that still exists today.
Gringo Nightmare: A Young American Framed for Murder in Nicaragua
Eric Volz - 2010
He and a friend cofounded a bilingual magazine, "El Puente, " and it proved more successful than they ever expected. Then Volz met Doris Jimenez, an incomparable beauty from a small Nicaraguan beach town, and they began a passionate and meaningful relationship. Though the relationship ended amicably less than a year later and Volz moved his business to the capital city of Managua, a close bond between the two endured.Nothing prepared him for the phone call he received on November 21, 2006, when he learned that Doris had been found dead---murdered---in her seaside clothing boutique. He rushed from Managua to be with her friends and family, and before he knew it, he found himself accused of her murder, arrested, and imprisoned.Decried in the press and vilified by his onetime friends, Volz suffered horrific conditions, illness, deadly inmates, an angry lynch mob, sadistic guards, and the merciless treatment of government officials. It was only through his dogged persistence, the tireless support of his friends and family, and the assistance of a former intelligence operative that Eric was released, in December 2007, after more than a year in prison.A story that made national and international headlines, this is the first and only book to tell Eric's absorbing, moving account in his own words."Visit the companion Exhibit Hall at the Gringo Nightmare website for additional photos, audio clips, video, case files, and more."
Narco Wars: The Gripping Story of How British Agents Infiltrated the Colombian Drug Cartels
Tom Chandler - 2018
Pablo Escobar lay dead, the Cali Cartel had taken over much of the global supply, and an avalanche of coke was poised to hit Europe. Now the British government wanted Chandler and his team to do the impossible: infiltrate the most powerful crime syndicates on earth and stop their drug shipments. It was a perilous assignment. The cartel bosses operated like a lethal multi-national, with armies of hitmen and myriad spies in ports, airports, police stations and government offices. Their intelligence systems flushed out turncoats and traitors, and they ruthlessly exterminated their enemies. Yet Chandler, an HM Customs investigator fluent in Spanish, knew he could only succeed by recruiting local informants, and went out into the field to find them. Within four years he had a network of fifty agents buried deep inside the trafficking organisations. The result was unprecedented. Their intel led to the arrest of hundreds of narcos and to the seizure of 300 tonnes of drugs, worth a staggering $3 billion. Chandler's web disrupted the Bogotá mafia, who controlled the main airport and boasted they could put anything on a plane, from drugs to bombs; penetrated the go-fast crews who raced coke-laden speedboats to the transit station of Jamaica; dismantled the 'rip-on' teams who smuggled through the coastal ports; and identified the so-called motherships, the largest method of bulk transit ever discovered. He faced appalling risks. Treacherous stool pigeons worked for both sides, and some of his Colombian law-enforcement colleagues were abducted, tortured and killed. Chandler too faced a grave threat when the crime lords learned he was responsible for a string of interdictions. Yet he persisted, driven to continue with the greatest series of sustained seizures ever made, until he finally burned out and his tour of duty came to an end. Two of his best sources were subsequently murdered, and his bosses dropped the entire overseas informant programme, with dire consequences. Narco Wars is an unflinching story of danger fear and stress, and of the tradecraft and unsung heroism of the agents and their handlers.
Witness to Nuremberg: The Many Lives of the Man who Translated at the Nazi War Trials
Richard W. Sonnenfeldt - 2006
By the time he was 18, Sonnenfeldt had grown up in Germany, escaped to England, been deported to Australia as a "German enemy alien", arrived in the U.S., and joined the U.S. army. By age 22 he had fought in the Battle of the Bulge and helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp, when he was appointed chief interpreter for the American prosecution of Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials. During his service, he spent pretrial time with Hermann Goering as well as other top Nazi leaders like von Ribbentrop, Rudolph Hoess, and Julius Streicher, the infamous editor of the anti-Semitic Der Sturmer. An engineer in later life, he was a principal developer of color TV and computer technology and a key player in NASA's preparation of the first moon shot.