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.

    

    Gasping for breath, down and out, it was then that something extraordinary happened: 20,000 fans began to sing his name. Ricky Hatton: War and Peace is the story of one of British boxing’s true icons. From a Manchester council estate to the lights of Las Vegas, Ricky Hatton experienced incredible highs in his career, including one of the greatest ever wins by a British boxer, over the IBF Light Welterweight champion Kostya Tszyu. But heavy defeats to two legends of the ring, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, brought him quickly down to earth to face a new set of battles against depression, drink and drugs.Through it all, however, Ricky Hatton has remained the same charismatic, genuinely funny, eloquent man – a man who boxing fans have always taken to their heart. A man who has survived a lifetime of wars both in and out of the ring, and who in defeat has finally found something close to peace.

    The book unveils a truth of universal importance, namely, by helping others in need we can become their miracles.

    A free spirit, she broke away from the conventions that others imposed upon her and lived a life that has seemed to some scandalous, to others liberating.It was Margaret who had an illicit love affair with jazz musician Robin Douglas-Home and letters from that relationship are reprinted here. When Douglas-Home was rejected by Margaret, he killed himself and was replaced by another lover.It is stories such as this, revealed in this book, that paint a portrait of one of the most secretive members of Britain's royal family.

    This insider's view of the humorous and bizarre journey of a World Series champion pitcher turned color commentator will delight Pirates and baseball fans alike. Recounting his first years in the Major Leagues and his battle with the baffling condition that would ultimately bear his own name, Steve Blass tells the story of his life on and off the field with a poignant, dazzling wit and shares the life of a baseball player who had the prime of his career cut short.

    The branches are the different directions a man can take, live or exist. When you're dead, those that you leave behind will put you in a part of that tree. It represents what was, what is and what will be. It's eternal." -- John Holmes Most people might, understandably, predict that the world s first porn star was a woman, but they would be wrong. John Curtis Holmes was just a simple country boy from Ohio when he moved to California in 1964. It was the infancy of hardcore, so in Holmes' wildest dreams, he could not have predicted the turbulent ride on which he had embarked by publicizing his private parts. With the fame he achieved by playing his most famous character - a gun toting detective named Johnny Wadd - came money. Holmes was pleased to spend it on his wife and mistresses, but soon was in over his head after he became addicted to cocaine. Unfortunately for Holmes, in the years that followed, his addiction led him into several desperate choices - including setting up a robbery at the home of Ed Nash, a powerful L.A. nightclub owner. The robbery resulted in one of the most gruesome, unsolved, multiple-murders in Hollywood history. Amazingly, before his untimely death in 1988, Holmes regained his momentum, remarried and rebuilt his life and career. However, the grave consequences of his addiction, his association with the Wonderland murders, and his AIDS-related death made him an infamous figure in pop culture. Digging past the stigmas, John Holmes: A Life Measured in Inches - the first biography about John C. Holmes - unearths the human being behind the penis and proves that there was more to him than could be measured in inches. This biography includes material from the authors' new interviews with: Laurie Holmes, Bill Amerson, Bob Chinn, Julia St. Vincent, Detective Tom Lange, Detective Frank Tomlinson, Paul Thomas, Ron Jeremy, Seka, Marilyn Chambers, Candida Royalle, Rhonda Jo Petty, Dr. Sharon Mitchell, Bill Margold, and many others! John Holmes: A Life Measured in Inches also includes 114 reviews of John's most notable feature films, 86 loops synopses, 3 photos sections with rare nudes, and a 21 page comprehensive filmography.

    The full and frank life story of one of the greatest British boxers of modern times, whose unique mix of eccentric personality and strong moral values have made him a role model to thousands of fans the world over.

    Jimmy Nail has been a household name since Auf Wiedersehen, Pet hit our screens in the 1980s. since then, his career as an actor and a musician has put on him on the silver screen alongside Madonna and given him a No. 1 hit single. Success on this astonishing scale was beyond the wildest dreams of the working class lad whose harsh childhood and brutal schooling put him on a collision course with Strangeways. But a short spell in prison helped propel Nail onwards and upwards. With the support of his friends and family, it wasn't long before Jimmy's unique talents and single-minded determination brought him attention of a different kind - and changed his life for ever. In A Northern Soul, Jimmy Nail tells his own vivid story in this intriguing, inspiring and sometimes confounding account of how one man rose to fame and fortune by refusing to be anything but himself.

    Cathy's worst fears had been realised...Through a Mother’s Tears is the poignant and heartbreaking story of how Cathy lost not only Kirsty, her youngest daughter, but Kirsty’s big sister Hayley, who died of heartbreak when the agony of her baby sister’s loss became too much to bear.

    Here in this book Ron Ebner—author of The Winds of Hell, Nova, Plague World, and two short story collections—has collected a voluminous amount of information about current actors and former actors, including:Disney favorites Annette Funicello, Tommy Kirk, Tim Considine, Hayley Mills and Kevin Corcoran, as well as Mouseketeers Sharon Baird, Lonnie Burr, Cubby O’Brien and Karen Pendleton; Lauren Chapin and Elinor Donahue of “Father Knows Best”; Johnny Crawford of “The Rifleman”; Shelley Fabares of “The Donna Reed Show”; Little Rascal “Spanky” McFarland; Beverly Washburn; Cynthia Pepper; Native American actors Chief Dan George and Will Sampson; the frisky star of the original Nancy Drew movies, Bonita Granville; Al “Grandpa” Lewis; Fess Parker; John Amos…and many others.Read through these pages and find out what’s happening with about 100 of your favorite Hollywood celebrities.

    This is a detailed description of the life of one helicopter pilot and what he did in the air, on the ground, with the people during his first tour in the Central Highlands while assigned to and flying for an Infantry Division, the Cambodia Invasion, and what it was really like living in Vietnam. The second tour was in the Saigon area with an Air Cavalry Troop and recounts live for Americans at the final months of the War, final cease fire events, prisoner exchanges, life on the ground, Saigon, the final flight of combat troops to leave Vietnam and the end of American combat operations and involvement. For those who want to know what it was like to be there -- without the hidden agenda, embellishment, or hype normally associated with the Vietnam War

    It was the first Brian Eno album tobe composed almost completely in the confines of a recording studio,over a scant few months in the summer of 1975. The album was a proofof concept for Eno's budding ideas of "the studio as musicalinstrument," and a signpost for a bold new way of thinking aboutmusic.In this book, Geeta Dayal unravels Another Green World's abundantmysteries, venturing into its dense thickets of sound. How was analbum this cohesive and refined formed in such a seemingly ad hoc way?How were electronics and layers of synthetic treatments used to createan album so redolent of the natural world? How did a deck of cardsfigure into all of this? Here, through interviews and archivalresearch, she unearths the strange story of how Another Green Worldformed the link to Eno's future -- foreshadowing his metamorphosisfrom unlikely glam rocker to sonic painter and producer.

    I have no idea if it is part of the dream, a hallucination, or reality. It talks of children, bringing news of a girl called Grace who loves me very much and a new baby boy called Freddie, who apparently needs me to get better... It stirs a part of me, even in my coma, reminding me that I'm thirty-eight and in love with the most beautiful woman in the world. It tells me that one third of me is gone but what's left is enough; that the thing is, above all, to survive.' When Tom Ray put his young daughter to bed one chilly December evening, he had everything he could ever want - the house of his dreams, a beautiful wife and a second baby on the way. By the next morning all of this was in jeopardy as Tom succumbed to the devastating illness that is sepsis.Starfish tells Tom and Nic Ray's truly inspirational story of their life before, during and after the illness which claimed Tom's lower arms, legs, and a portion of his face. Heart-breakingly honest and affecting, their story charts the devastating effects of Tom's illness, Nic's heroic struggle to cope and, ultimately, the love and hope that has held their family together in the ensuing years. A tragic yet beautiful tale of a couple whose love is tested to its limit after their perfect life falls apart in a single moment.

    That young soldier, Albert Edward Clack, was my father.The first part of this book covers his capture near Dunkirk in 1940 and his nearly five years in the Stalag VIIIB prisoner-of-war camp. For most of this time he endured forced labour and occasional beatings in a coal mine.The second part relates his escape from the ‘March of Death’, when the Germans forced prisoners-of-war to trudge westwards through snow and ice in January, 1945. After giving his guards the slip, he was assisted out of harm’s way by front-line storm-troopers of the Red Army.Criss-crossing Poland amidst the chaos of the Soviet advance and the German retreat, he and three other escaped prisoners found refuge with Polish families, until they were put on a train to the Ukrainian port of Odessa, there to board a ship home to England.When Dad died in 1984, he left me the manuscript of this true story. I have changed some names because, even if they were still alive, it would be extremely difficult to find them 70 years later; and I have improved the literary style for ease of reading; but I have altered none of the substance of the events described. Please note that it is a short book.I had always felt proud of what Dad did in the War; but it was not until later in life that I truly appreciated how much being able to live a normal family life in freedom afterwards must have meant to him after the long years of fear and uncertainty that he endured as a POW; and it is only through editing this manuscript that I have come to realise quite what a nightmare that experience must have been, despite the optimism which rings through his text.Albert John Clack - Son & Editor