Book picks similar to
Tales of the Criminous by William Roughead


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Killer With a Badge


Chuck Hustmyre - 2004
     On March 4th, 1995, a New Orleans police officer shot a fellow off-duty cop and two innocent bystanders at a Vietnamese restaurant. She then responded to their call for help, as though she knew nothing of what had transpired. This is the story of her rise through the corrupted ranks, her crime, and her capture.

Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder Exposed


Alastair Morgan - 2017
    At the bottom of that iceberg of 'dark arts' - hacking, bugging and bribing bent cops - is the body of Daniel Morgan. The truth behind his killing is obscured by a web of corruption and cover-ups.Written by Daniel's brother Alastair, with investigative journalist Peter Jukes, Untold marks the 30th anniversary of the murder once described by an Assistant Commissioner of the Met as 'one of the most disgraceful episodes in the entire history of the Metropolitan Police Service.'Going beyond the number one hit podcast of the same name, this is the inside story in full. Including fresh revelations, new evidence, all the latest findings and, at its heart, the tragic story of a family whose lives have been torn apart in the search for answers.If you haven't heard of this story, ask yourself, why?

Handsome Brute: The Story of a Ladykiller


Sean O'Connor - 2013
    Since the 1940s, Heath has generally been dismissed as a sadistic sex-killer - the preserve of sensational Murder Anthologies - and little else. But the story behind the tabloid headlines reveals itself to be complex and ambiguous, provoking unsettling questions that echo across the decades to the present day.For the first time, with access to previously restricted files from the Home Office and Metropolitan Police, this book explores the complex motivations behind the murders through the prism of the immediate post-war period. Against the backdrop of a society in flux, a culture at a moment of change, how much is Heath's case symptomatic, or indeed, emblematic of the age he lived in?Handsome Brute is both an examination of the age of austerity, and a real-lifethriller as shocking and provocative as American Psycho or The Killer Inside Me, exploring the perspectives of the women in Heath's life - his wife, his mother, his lovers - and his victims. This collage of experiences from the women who knew him intimately probes the schism at the heart of his fascinating, chilling personality.

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.

Ram Chandra Series: Book 1 and Book 2


Amish Tripathi - 2019
    As the suffering of the people intensifies so does the resentment against the ruling elite. As Raavan, the king of Lanka, grows increasingly powerful, the citizens of the Sapt Sindhu cry out for a leader to lead them out of this morass.The Malayaputras and the Vayuputras — two powerful tribes and the protectors of the divine land of India — decide that enough is enough. A saviour is needed. They begin their search.Who will fulfil the destiny of the Vishnu? Will a leader, who can restore the past glory of the Sapt Sindhu, emerge? Will Ram, the law abiding prince of Ayodhya rise above the taint that others heap on him? Will Sita, the warrior princess of Mithila, be able to prove her worth?Start on an epic journey with Amish’s Ram Chandra Series.

Flood


Ann Swinfen - 2014
    Granddaughter of a local hero, Mercy Bennington moves out of the shadow of her elder brother to become a leader of the protestors, finding the strength to confront the enemies who endanger the survival of her village and her own life. Yet the violence wreaked upon the fragile fenlands unleashes a force no one can control – flood.

Greetings from Myanmar


David Bockino - 2016
    Traversing the country, he encounters a pompous Western businessman swindling his way to millions, a local vendor with a flair for painting nudes, and long ago legends of a western circus. Sensitively written and expertly researched, Greetings from Myanmar: Exploring the Price of Progress in One of the Last Countries on Earth to Open for Business is the story of a flourishing nation still very much in limbo and an answer to the hard questions that arise when tourism not only charts, but shapes a place as well.

The Mad Trapper of Rat River: A True Story of Canada's Biggest Manhunt


Dick North - 1972
    Now author Dick North (of course) may have solved the mystery of the Mad Trapper's true identity, thereby enhancing the saga."--Thomas McIntyre, author of Seasons & Days: A Hunting Life "A courageous and unrelenting posse on the trail of a furious and desperate wilderness outlaw . . . Lean and bloody, meticulously researched, The Mad Trapper of Rat River is a dark and haunting story of human endurance, adventure, and will that speeds along like the best fiction."--Bob Butz, author of Beast of Never, Cat of God They called it "The Arctic Circle War." It was a forty-eight-day manhunt across the harshest terrain in the world, the likes of which we will never see again. The quarry, Albert Johnson, was a loner working a string of traps in the far reaches of Canada's Northwest Territories, where winter temperatures average forty degrees below zero. The chase began when two Mounties came to ask Johnson about allegations that he had interfered with a neighbor's trap. No questions were asked. Johnson discharged the first shot through a hole in the wall of his log cabin. When the Mounties returned with reinforcements, Johnson was gone, and The Arctic Circle War had begun. On Johnson's heels were a corps of Mounties and an irregular posse on dogsled. Johnson, on snowshoes, seemed superhuman in his ability to evade capture. The chase stretched for hundreds of miles and, during a blizzard, crossed the Richardson Mountains, the northernmost extension of the Rockies. It culminated in the historic shootout at Eagle River.

The Men on the Sixth Floor


Glen Sample - 2003
    The web of murder and greed is clearly explained in this book that was the first to reveal the strong ties that developed from Malcolm Wallace all the way to the Johnson White House - encircling the richest and most influential men in Texas - oil barons, weapons manufacturers, and businessmen who would consider the removal of John Kennedy an act of patriotism.

The Altar Boys


Suzanne Smith - 2020
    A community betrayed ... The whistle-blower priest who paid the ultimate price Glen Walsh and Steven Alward were childhood friends in their tight-knit working-class community in Shortland, on the outskirts of Newcastle, New South Wales. Both proud altar boys at the local Catholic church, they went on to attend the city's Catholic boys' highs schools: Glen to Marist Brothers and Steven to St Pius X. Both did well: Steven became a journalist; Glen a priest. But when Glen discovered another priest was sexually abusing boys, he reported the offending to police, breaking Canon Law and his vows to the Catholic 'brotherhood' in the process. Just weeks before he was due to give evidence at a key trial against the highest cleric to ever be charged with covering up child abuse, Father Glen Walsh was dead. Two months later, his friend Steven also died, only weeks before he was to marry the love of his life. Ensuing investigations revealed that at least 60 men in the region had taken their own lives. Why? What had happened, and why were so many from the three Catholic high schools in the area?By six-time Walkley Award-winning investigative reporter Suzanne Smith, The Altar Boys is the powerful expose of widespread and organised clerical abuse of children in an Australian city, and how the cover-up in the Catholic Church in Australia extended from parish priests to every echelon of the organisation. Focusing on two childhood friends, their families and community, this gripping and explosive story is backed by secret documents, diary notes and witness accounts, and details a deliberate church strategy of using psychological warfare against witnesses in key trials involving paedophile priests.

THE BARREL MURDER - a Detective Joe Petrosino case (based on true events)


Michael Zarocostas - 2013
    Two NYPD outcasts hunt for the killer: Detective Joe Petrosino (a stocky "Dago" nicknamed Bulldog Joe) and Inspector Max Schmittberger (a giant "Yid" nicknamed The Broom).Commissioner Teddy Roosevelt appointed Petrosino the first Italian-American detective in the NYPD and reinstated Schmittberger after The Broom confessed to grafting and blew the whistle on his fellow cops. By 1903, however, Roosevelt is in the White House, and Tammany Hall casts a long Irish shadow over the NYPD again. To complicate matters, investigative reporter Lincoln Steffens seeks Petrosino's help in finding out if there is a crooked lawman behind a gambling syndicate in the City.As they work the barrel murder, Petrosino and Schmittberger encounter a lunatic doctor, the Secret Service, vicious Sicilian mafiosi known as the Morello Gang, and a mysterious code that may unlock the secrets of the killing and Steffens' alleged syndicate.Note to the reader:   This novel is based on an actual murder that occurred in New York City in 1903 and the criminal investigation that followed. Several of the main characters are real persons or inspired by real persons. Joe Petrosino, the central character, was the first Italian-American detective in the NYPD's Central Bureau appointed in 1895 by Teddy Roosevelt (then President of the Board of New York City Police Commissoners). Petrosino and a few other brave men protected the immigrant masses and fought against the most feared criminals in the city's history. Their story begins here.

Mobsters in Our Midst: The Kansas City Crime Family


William Ouseley - 2011
    The book includes never-before-published detail of the

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.

One Last Job


Tom Pettifor - 2016
    This book cuts through the myth to reveal the astonishing true-life story of its elderly mastermind, Brian Reader. Gang insiders, family, friends and detectives talk for the first time about Reader’s six-decade career, from mixing with the Krays and the cream of the London underworld to an ill-fated collaboration with violent gangster Kenny Noye.

How Baseball Explains America


Hal Bodley - 2014
    Longtime USA TODAY baseball editor and columnist Hal Bodley explores just how essential baseball is to understanding the American experience. He takes readers into the Oval Office with George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton as the former presidents share their thoughts on the game, he looks at the changes that America's Greatest Generation ushered in, as well as examining baseball's struggle with performance enhancing drugs alongside America's war on drugs.An unabashedly celebratory explanation of America's love affair with baseball and the men who make it possible, this work sheds light on topics such as the role Jackie Robinson's signing with the Dodgers played in the civil rights movement, how baseball's westward expansion mirrored the growth of our national economy, labor strife, baseball families, the international explosion of the game, and even the myriad ways in which movies, music, and baseball are intrinsically tied. It is a must read for anyone interested in more fully understanding not only the game but also the nation in which it thrives.