Book picks similar to
Waste Land: The Savage Odyssey of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate by Michael Newton
true-crime
non-fiction
crime
nonfiction
Strange Crime
Portable Press - 2018
Dumb crooks, celebrities gone bad, unsolved mysteries, odd laws, and more—Strange Crime has plenty of stories that will make you ask yourself, “What could they possibly have been thinking?” This easily portable paperback book is ideal for readers on the go. Take it to school, to work, to jury duty!
Perfect Victim: The True Story of "The Girl in the Box" by the D.A. Who Prosecuted Her Captor
Christine McGuire - 1989
. . most thought-provoking."--BooklistIn 1997 twenty-year-old Colleen Stan left home to hitchhike from Oregon to California. Seven years later she emerged from hell, the victim of a bizarre and extraordinary crime.This is Colleen's incredible true story, told by the determined young district attorney who prosecuted the man who had forced her to endure years of sexual perversion . . . and held her captive in a coffin-like box under his and his wife's bed. A story of riveting psychological intensity and gripping courtroom drama, Perfect Victim reveals the whole truth about Collen Stan's real-life nightmare . . . and the psychopath who enslaved her body and her mind."Horrifying!"--The Cincinnati Post"Hard to put down!"--Chicago Tribune"A gripping and disturbing story of the secret life of apparently normal people. At once, horrific and engrossing."--Vincent Bugliosi, author of
Helter Skelter
The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government
David Talbot - 2015
Drawing on revelatory new materials—including newly discovered U.S. government documents, U.S. and European intelligence sources, the personal correspondence and journals of Allen Dulles’s wife and mistress, and exclusive interviews with the children of prominent CIA officials—Talbot reveals the underside of one of America’s most powerful and influential figures.Dulles’s decade as the director of the CIA—which he used to further his public and private agendas—were dark times in American politics. Calling himself “the secretary of state of unfriendly countries,” Dulles saw himself as above the elected law, manipulating and subverting American presidents in the pursuit of his personal interests and those of the wealthy elite he counted as his friends and clients—colluding with Nazi-controlled cartels, German war criminals, and Mafiosi in the process. Targeting foreign leaders for assassination and overthrowing nationalist governments not in line with his political aims, Dulles employed those same tactics to further his goals at home, Talbot charges, offering shocking new evidence in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.An exposé of American power that is as disturbing as it is timely, The Devil’s Chessboard is a provocative and gripping story of the rise of the national security state—and the battle for America’s soul.
"Until You Are Dead": Steven Truscott's Long Ride into History
Julian Sher - 2001
That summer, Canada lost its innocence and the shocking story of Steven Truscott became imprinted on the nation’s memory. First published in 2001, “Until You Are Dead” revealed new witnesses, leads and evidence never presented to the courts. Now this national bestseller is fully revised and updated, and takes readers from that fateful night in 1959 up to the new appeal granted to Truscott in 2006. Julian Sher’s award-winning and insightful chronicle details Steven Truscott’s dramatic final battle – with the help of his family, investigative journalists and lawyers – to clear his name once and for all.
Thunderstruck
Erik Larson - 2006
Set in Edwardian London and on the stormy coasts of Cornwall, Cape Cod, and Nova Scotia, Thunderstruck evokes the dynamism of those years when great shipping companies competed to build the biggest, fastest ocean liners, scientific advances dazzled the public with visions of a world transformed, and the rich outdid one another with ostentatious displays of wealth. Against this background, Marconi races against incredible odds and relentless skepticism to perfect his invention: the wireless, a prime catalyst for the emergence of the world we know today. Meanwhile, Crippen, “the kindest of men,” nearly commits the perfect crime. With his superb narrative skills, Erik Larson guides these parallel narratives toward a relentlessly suspenseful meeting on the waters of the North Atlantic. Along the way, he tells of a sad and tragic love affair that was described on the front pages of newspapers around the world, a chief inspector who found himself strangely sympathetic to the killer and his lover, and a driven and compelling inventor who transformed the way we communicate. Thunderstruck presents a vibrant portrait of an era of séances, science, and fog, inhabited by inventors, magicians, and Scotland Yard detectives, all presided over by the amiable and fun-loving Edward VII as the world slid inevitably toward the first great war of the twentieth century. Gripping from the first page, and rich with fascinating detail about the time, the people, and the new inventions that connect and divide us, Thunderstruck is splendid narrative history from a master of the form.
The Cartel: Inside the Rise and Imminent Fall of the NCAA
Taylor Branch - 2011
deprives them of the right to due process guaranteed by the Constitution." Decades of greed and self-interest pushed the NCAA to collapse under the weight of its hypocrisy. The parasitic business of college sports generates billions every year, yet fails to compensate college athletes.
Tony Accardo is Joe Batters
Neil Gordon - 2018
Throw in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and the murders of John F. Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, Marilyn Monroe, Bugsy Siegel, Sam Giancana, Lucky Luciano, Tony the Ant Spilotro, Johnny Roselli and Jimmy Hoffa. Toss in Hollywood scandal and the mobbed up career of Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack. Now you can begin to grasp the epic story of Tony Accardo. Why has this story never been told? Accardo killed everyone in his path: family, friends, cops, reporters, movie stars, and politicians. Operating from deep within the shadows Tony influenced national policy, exploited the FBI, owned politicians, and fixed presidential elections. Connected to every gangster from Al Capone to Lucky Luciano to John Gotti, Joe Batters is the must-read that every Godfather fan is craving.
Jack the Ripper: The Simple Truth
Bruce Paley - 1995
Not only does he build a powerful case against his suspect, Joseph Barnett, but Paley probably did more research than anyone else, with the result that his depiction of the East End of London c. 1888 is second to none, and has been singled out for its unrivalled richness and vividness. Paley has also been praised for his studious, unsensational account of the crimes, and his compassionate portraits of the Ripper’s victims. This is what some of the critics had to say. Writing in The Daily Mail (25/11/95), Val Hennessy wrote: "Bruce Paley's excellent book convinces me, for one, that Jack the Ripper has at last been nailed…Apart from convincingly identifying the Ripper, Paley's book paints an extraordinarily vivid picture of late 19th century London. It opens your eyes to the hopeless, harsh lives endured by single and deserted women, especially those with children, in the days before job opportunities and full time education." As such, Hennessey echoes the words of the esteemed writer Colin Wilson, who wrote in the foreword to Paley's book: "If I had to recommend a single book on Jack the Ripper to someone who knew nothing about the subject, I would unhesitatingly choose this one. Bruce Paley has captured the atmosphere of Whitechapel at the time of the murders - and indeed, London in the late 19th century - with a sense of living reality that no other writer on the case has achieved…[It is] the most evocative book on the period that I have ever read." Writing in the Guardian (22/11/06), Nancy Banks-Smith wrote: "[Jack the Ripper] was almost certainly Joseph Barnett, the live-in lover of the last victim, Mary Kelly, a theory convincingly argued by Bruce Paley in his book Jack the Ripper: The Simple Truth." Some years later, Adrian Morris, the editor of The Journal of the Whitechapel Society, declared Paley's book to be the best Jack the Ripper book of them all. "The immense strength of Paley's book," Morris wrote in February, 2010, "is that his suspect Barnett is perfectly placed to act as an almost unknowing device to explore the milieu of the East End with its poverty, exploitation and vice, whilst also drawing the reader into the soulless world of the victim...This Paley does brilliantly. His prose is powerful and, dare I say it beautiful. In Paley's words the Nietzschian hordes that are measured and understood as a value of history become material to act within a story that explores the full tragedy of the East End. Paley really does understand the East End A.D.1888, his words map out its DNA, his sentences tap out the arithmetic of existence. For one to understand the Whitechapel murders, one must understand the times. Nowhere can one do this better than in the chapters Paley devotes to this historical sociology. For Paley understands that while the Ripper was killing its womenfolk (albeit destitutes), the East End itself was eating its children in the jaws of poverty. Paley's excellent and wide ranging research underpins his descriptions. This is history with a poetical syncopation that adds to the subject matter in the mind of the reader. Paley describes the environs of Dorset Street and Miller's Court that takes some beating and is redolent of an informed approach that makes you feel he must have known the old place…I can only amplify [Colin Wilson's] endorsement uttered on the book's 1995 release by adding, without wishing to seem overly unctuous, that when compiling a booklist of authors that one would like to proffer to the uninitiated, soon-to-be initiated or just plain curious on the subject of the Whitechapel murders, I would advise that the list starts wit
The Last Book on the Left: Stories of Murder and Mayhem from History’s Most Notorious Serial Killers
Ben Kissel - 2020
Deeply researched but with a morbidly humorous bent, the podcast has earned a dedicated and aptly cultlike following for its unique take on all things macabre. In their first book, the guys take a deep dive into history’s most infamous serial killers, from Ted Bundy to John Wayne Gacy, exploring their origin stories, haunting habits, and perverse predilections. Featuring newly developed content alongside updated fan favorites, each profile is an exhaustive examination of the darker side of human existence. With appropriately creepy four-color illustrations throughout and a gift-worthy paper over board format, The Last Book on the Left will satisfy the bloodlust of readers everywhere.
The Sting: The Undercover Operation That Caught Daniel Morcombe’s Killer
Kate Kyriacou - 2015
An elaborately staged fake crime gang, run by a ‘Mr Big’, that lured Brett Cowan in with the promise of a hefty payout. It was the stuff of a TV crime series rather than an Australian police operation. The Sting reveals extraordinary new detail and a shocking insight into one of the country's most evil killers, and the operation that brought him down.Go behind the scenes in one of Australia’s most sensational undercover busts, including never-before-heard detail of the covert investigation, including how Cowan was slowly brainwashed into believing ‘Mr Big’.Read what Cowan’s family think of their black sheep.
Hunted: The Zodiac Murders
Mark Hewitt - 2016
Despite his appalling acts of violence, he was never arrested—he has never even been identified. Thousands of men have been accused; nearly 2,500 have been investigated. The police lack only the name of the perpetrator. Never has there been more passionate interest in the Zodiac serial killer. Never has there been more FOIA-released information on his crime spree and the subsequent law enforcement investigation. Yet, never before has a carefully-researched scholarly treatment of this otherwise eminently solvable riddle been attempted. That is, until now.
Bind, Torture, Kill: The Inside Story of the Serial Killer Next Door
Roy Wenzl - 2007
A bloodthirsty serial killer, self-named "BTK"—for "bind them, torture them, kill them"—he slaughtered men, women, and children alike, eluding the police for decades while bragging of his grisly exploits to the media. The nation was shocked when the fiend who was finally apprehended turned out to be Dennis Rader—a friendly neighbor . . . a devoted husband . . . a helpful Boy Scout dad . . . the respected president of his church.Written by four award-winning crime reporters who covered the story for more than twenty years, Bind, Torture, Kill is the most intimate and complete account of the BTK nightmare told by the people who were there from the beginning. With newly released documents, evidence, and information—and with the full cooperation, for the very first time, of the Wichita Police Department’s BTK Task Force—the authors have put all the pieces of the grisly puzzle into place, thanks to their unparalleled access to the families of the killer and his victims.
For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Chicago
Simon Baatz - 2008
Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were intellectual--too smart, they believed, for the police to catch them. When they were apprehended, state's attorney Robert Crowe was certain that no defense could save the ruthless killers from the gallows. But the families of the confessed murderers hired Clarence Darrow, entrusting the lives of their sons to the most famous lawyer in America in what would be one of the most sensational criminal trials in the history of American justice.Set against the backdrop of the 1920s--a time of prosperity, self-indulgence, and hedonistic excess in a lawless city on the brink of anarchy—For the Thrill of It draws the reader into a world of speakeasies and flappers, of gangsters and gin parties, with a spellbinding narrative of Jazz Age murder and mystery.
Denial of Justice: Dorothy Kilgallen, Abuse of Power, and the Most Compelling JFK Assassination Investigation in History
Mark Shaw - 2018
Shaw includes facts that have never before been published, including eyewitness accounts of the underbelly of Kilgallen’s private life, revealing statements by family members convinced she was murdered, and shocking new information about Jack Ruby’s part in the JFK assassination that only Kilgallen knew about, causing her to be marked for danger. Peppered with additional evidence signaling the potential motives of Kilgallen’s arch enemies J. Edgar Hoover, mobster Carlos Marcello, Frank Sinatra, her husband Richard, and her last lover, Denial of Justice adds the final chapter to the story behind why the famous journalist was killed, with no investigation to follow despite a staged death scene. More information can be found at www.thedorothykilgallenstory.com.
L.A. '56
Joel Engel - 2012
Glamorous. Prosperous. The place to see and be seen. But beneath the shiny exterior beats a dark heart. For when the sun goes down, L.A. becomes the noir city of James Ellroy’s L.A. Confidential or Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins novels. Segregation is the unwritten law of the land. The growing black population is expected to keep to South Central. The white cops are encouraged to deal out harsh street justice. In L.A. ’56, Joel Engel paints a tense, moody portrait of the city as a devil weaves his way through the shadows.While R&B and hot jazz spill out of record shops and clubs and all-night burger stands, Willie Fields cruises past in his dark green DeSoto, looking for a woman on whom he can bestow the gift of his company. His brilliant idea: Buy a tin badge in the five-and-ten to go along with his big flashlight and Luger and pretend to be an undercover vice cop. The young white girls doing it with their boyfriends in the lovers’ lanes dotting the L.A. hills would never say no to a cop. Into the car they go for a ride downtown on a “morals charge,” before he kicks out the young man in the middle of nowhere and takes the girl for a ride she’ll spend a lifetime trying to forget.There’s a bad guy on the loose in the City of Angels.Enter Detective Danny Galindo—he’d worked the Black Dahlia case back in ’47 as a rookie. The suave Latino—one of the few in the department—is able to move easily among the white detectives. Maybe it’s all those stories he’s sold to Jack Webb for Dragnet. When Todd Roark, a black ex-cop, is arrested, Galindo knows he’s innocent. But there’s no sympathy for Roark among the white cops on the LAPD; Galindo will have to go it alone.There’s only one problem: The victims aren’t coming forward. The white press ignores the story, too, making Galindo’s job that much more difficult. And now he’s fallen in love with one of the rapist’s first victims. If he’s ever found out, he can kiss his badge good-bye.With his back up against a wall, Galindo realizes that it will take some good old-fashioned Hollywood magic to take down a devil in the City of Angels.