Sports Illustrated Baseball's Greatest


Sports Illustrated - 2013
    rank on the list of the best shortstops? At third base, would you rather have Mike Schmidt or Brooks Robinson? Is Fenway or Wrigley the better ballpark?This book will end many arguments-and start some new ones. Sports Illustrated's has polled its Major League Baseball experts to determine the ultimate Top 10 in more than 20 categories. The rankings appear alongside stunning photography and classic stories from SI's archives. This is the best of the best in the major leagues, or, more simply, Baseball's Greatest.

The Vietnam Air War: From The Cockpit


Dennis M. Ridnouer - 2018
    Showcasing seventy-two true stories told by American servicemen who fought from the skies, this unique and historically significant collection is a stunning record of the air war in Southeast Asia during the 1960s and 1970s. There is no political agenda. There is no partisan opinion. There is no romanticizing. These are simply tales from the thick of an endlessly complex conflict, raw and uncut, told directly by the men who were foisted into its napalm- and sweat-soaked clutches. Occasionally funny, sometimes tragic, and often harrowing, these true accounts bring new and personal perspectives to one of the most studied and most maligned wars in America’s history, revealing with no Hollywood glamorizing what the war was really like for members of the US Air Force of all ranks and myriad functions who answered the call to fight. They saw no choice but to follow the orders they were given. And for better or for worse, by the time they returned, each of them would be changed forever.

INCONVENIENCE GONE: The Short Tragic Life Of Brandon Sims


Diane Marger Moore - 2018
    Jones was employed, confident, talented, smart, assertive and involved in many community activities in Indianapolis, Indiana. In contrast, when he was last seen, Brandon Sims, an only child, was a serious, quiet, thin boy who rarely maintained eye contact with his mother. After that night, he was never seen again. His body has never been found. For years Jones lied to her friends about Brandon, telling some that he was living with his father and others that he was staying with his grandmother in another state. When Brandon's father, who had been in jail, came looking for Brandon, Michelle's shocked friends confronted her. She confessed that Brandon was dead. She repeated her story of how Brandon died to a detective, after she admitted herself to the local psych unit. Days later she checked out of the unit and refused to reveal where he had hidden Brandon's body. She was sure she had gotten away with murder. And she would have except the detective didn't believe her story. He enlisted the help of a novice prosecutor because no experienced prosecutor would take the case. In Indiana, no one had ever been convicted of murder without a body. That prosecutor has written a book that reads like a mystery novel instead of the real murder prosecution. Truth is stranger than fiction where Santeria curses, the law and politics are only a few of obstacles to justice.

A Well-Behaved Woman: A Novel of the Vanderbilts


Therese Anne Fowler - 2018
    costume ball--a coup for the former Alva Smith, who not long before was destitute, her family's good name useless on its own. Marrying into the newly rich but socially scorned Vanderbilt clan, a union contrived by Alva's bestfriend and now-Duchess of Manchester, saved the Smiths--and elevated the Vanderbilts.From outside, Alva seems to have it all and want more. She does have a knack for getting all she tries for: the costume ball--no mere amusement--wrests acceptance from doyenne Caroline Astor. Denied abox at the Academy of Music, Alva founds The Met. No obstacle puts her off for long.But how much of ambition arises from insecurity? From despair? From refusal to play insipid games by absurd rules? --There are, however, consequences to breaking those rules. One must tread carefully.And what of her maddening sister-in-law, Alice? Her husband William, who's hiding a terrible betrayal? The not-entirely-unwelcome attentions of his friend Oliver Belmont, who is everything William is not? What of her own best friend, whose troubles cast a wide net?Alva will build mansions, push boundaries, test friendships, and marry her daughter to England's most eligible duke or die trying. She means to do right by all, but good behavior will only get a woman so far. What is the price of going further? What might be the rewards? There's only one way to know for certain...

The Burn Farm


Michael Benson - 2009
    . .Sheila LaBarre liked to troll the personal ads and homeless shelters, looking for men whom society had rejected for one reason or another--men she could easily dominate both verbally and sexually. One by one, she invited them to her remote New Hampshire farmhouse, where she engaged them in S&M. But over time, sex gave way to brutal acts of torture as she mercilessly flogged and beat her captives until they confessed to committing unspeakable acts. Once satisfied that they had paid for their sins, Sheila savagely slaughtered them and burned their remains on her farm. . .Then, Humiliated, Tortured, And Killed Them. . . From the disturbing audiotapes Sheila made of her victims' confessions to her own bizarre statements in which she claimed to have returned from the dead to be God's avenger, The Burn Farm takes you behind the scenes of the scandal that rocked a quiet New England town, and into the twisted, depraved mind of a manipulative, cold-blooded murderer. . .Includes 16 Pages of Shocking Photos

The Perfect Father: The True Story of Chris Watts, His All-American Family, and a Shocking Murder


John Glatt - 2020
    It was the last time anyone would see her alive. By the next day, Shanann and her two young daughters, Bella and Celeste, had been reported missing, and her husband, Chris Watts, was appearing on the local news, pleading for his family's safe return.But Chris Watts already knew that he would never see his family again. Less than 24 hours after his desperate plea, Watts made a shocking confession to police: he had strangled his pregnant wife to death and smothered their daughters, dumping their bodies at a nearby oil site. Heartbroken friends and neighbors watched in shock as the movie-star handsome, devoted family man they knew was arrested and charged with first degree murder. The perfect mask Chris had presented to the world in his TV interviews and the family's Facebook accounts was slipping--and what lay beneath was a horrifying image of instability, infidelity, sexual ambivalence, and boiling rage.In this first major account of the case, bestselling author and journalist John Glatt reveals the truth behind the tragedy and constructs a chilling portrait of one of the most shocking family annihilator cases of the 21st century.

Cold Cases Solved Vol. 2: More True Stories of Murders That Took Years or Decades to Solve


Mike Riley - 2015
    2:  This follow-up book to Cold Cases Solved continues where the first book left off detailing more true stories of criminal cases that went cold and were eventually solved, sometimes many years later. Some of the cases include: Martha Moxley – the case with a Kennedy connection, Jeanine Nicarico – the case that took over 20 years to solve, Sherri Rasmussen – fresh eyes caught the right clue, The 16th Baptist Church Bombing – solved after 14 years, Leslie Long – the young mother kidnapped, raped and murdered, The Outlaw Clubhouse Murders – a motorcycle gang wiped out, and many others. The closure attained by solving these cases must at least provide a modicum of relief for the friends and family of the victims. The authorities involved in the investigations and in bringing the perpetrators to justice must also feel a sense of accomplishment when they are able to successfully close a long-standing case.Grab your copy TODAY and read about more Cold Cases Solved!

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.

Murder, Lies, and Cover-Ups: Who Killed Marilyn Monroe, JFK, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, and Princess Diana?


David Gardner - 2018
    We all famously recall where we were and what we were doing when JFK was assassinated, as well as the moments Elvis, Princess Diana, and Michael Jackson died. As for Marilyn Monroe, the candle flickered out long ago, but only now can the truth be told about how—and why—she died. After combing through thousands of recently declassified FBI files and interviewing key witnesses, crime analysts, and forensic experts during years of research, investigative writer David Gardner has unearthed new information that will transform the way we look at these iconic tragedies that have long fascinated and intrigued the general public. Legends: Murder, Lies, and Cover-Ups reveals that Elvis Presley died not as a self-obsessed caricature but as a genuine hero who may have signed his death warrant going undercover for the FBI; how Marilyn Monroe's secret affairs with JFK and his brother, Robert, left her in the crosshairs of a lethal conspiracy; why Princess Diana's death was no accident; who ordered President John F. Kennedy's assassination; and how on three occasions Michael Jackson “died” of painkiller drug overdoses in the months before his death. In the wake of new evidence and testimonies, Legends: Murder, Lies, and Cover-Ups provides many of the answers that have been elusive for so long, while explaining what it was about these enduring legends that made their legacies burn so bright.

Right for a Reason: Life, Liberty, and a Crapload of Common Sense


Miriam Weaver - 2014
    We conservatives have truth and rationality and logic on our side. We just need to remind ourselves why we are right, and we need that reminder delivered in a way that’s not a lecture, not a history lesson, and not a complicated political diatribe.” If you think all conservatives are old white dudes, think again. Meet the Chicks on the Right (if you haven’t already). Everyone loves to tell them they’re wrong. Everyone. Liberals say they’re wrong because, well, they’re conservative. Conservatives tell them they’re wrong because they are not conservative enough. Or because they’re too conservative. Or because they’re the wrong kind of conservative. With all the blame flying around, it’s easy to lose sight of one important thing: They think like you. And they are right. It’s right to revere the Constitution. It’s right to value personal responsibility, economic liberty, and free enterprise. It’s right to think that political correctness is crap, and it’s right to call out the mainstream media for bias. And it’s right to laugh at the so-called War on Women and to stand up for the unborn. As they do every day on their blog and radio show, Miriam Weaver and Amy Jo Clark offer a definitive response to critics on the right and the left, and a cheerfully snarky pep talk for likeminded conservatives. On the one hand, they are tired of the media’s portrayal of conservatives as repressed sticks-in-the-mud; on the other hand, they are sick of GOP leaders who play right into that stereotype. With humor and insight, Mock and Daisy, as the Chicks are known on their blog, explain why:Capitalism is a good thing—success and the money that comes with it are nothing to be ashamed of! First Amendment protections extend to all Americans, not just those with whom we agree. Americans have a constitutional right to things that go pew-pew-pew. Skin color is irrelevant. It makes sense to be pro-life and pro-Plan B. The Chicks offer suggestions for a conservative makeover that will realign the GOP with the regular folks who are frustrated with uptight and clueless politicians. But they also show why conservatism makes sense for everyone, especially those who love their country, their families, God, rock and roll, and a well-made cocktail (not necessarily in that order).

The Last Pirate of New York: A Ghost Ship, a Killer, and the Birth of a Gangster Nation


Rich Cohen - 2019
    Handsome and charismatic, he was known to frequent the dive bars and gin joints of the Five Points, the most dangerous neighborhood in maritime Manhattan. For years, he operated out of the public eye, rambling from crime to crime, working on the water, in ships, sleeping in the nickel-a-night flops, drinking in barrooms where rat-baiting and bear-baiting were great entertainments.Hicks's criminal career reached its peak in 1860, when he was hired, under an alias, as an extra hand on an oyster sloop. His plan was to rob the ship, make his getaway, and disappear in the teeming streets of lower Manhattan, as he'd done numerous times before. But the plan went awry, and the voyage turned into a massacre. In the straits of Coney Island, on a foggy night, the ghost sloop, adrift and unmanned, was rammed by another vessel. When police boarded the ship to investigate, they found blood and gore everywhere, no bodies, only the grisly signs of struggle. A manhunt was launched for the mysterious merchant seaman on the manifest.Long fascinated by gangster legends, Rich Cohen tells the story of this notorious underworld figure for the first time, from his humble origins to his incarnation as a demon who terrorized the Five Points and became the gangster most feared by other gangsters, at a time when pirates anchored off of 14th street.

A Serial Killer's Daughter: My Story of Faith, Love, and Overcoming


Kerri Rawson - 2019
    When she opened it, an FBI agent informed her that her father had been arrested for murdering ten people, including two children. It was then that she learned her father was the notorious serial killer known as BTK, a name he’d given himself that described the horrific way he committed his crimes: bind, torture, kill. As news of his capture spread, Wichita celebrated the end of a thirty-one-year nightmare. For Kerri Rawson, another was just beginning. She was plunged into a black hole of horror and disbelief. The same man who had been a loving father, a devoted husband, church president, Boy Scout leader, and a public servant had been using their family as a cover for his heinous crimes since before she was born. Everything she had believed about her life had been a lie.Written with candor and extraordinary courage, A Serial Killer’s Daughter is an unflinching exploration of life with one of America’s most infamous killers and an astonishing tale of personal and spiritual transformation. For all who suffer from unhealed wounds or the crippling effects of violence, betrayal, and anger, Kerri Rawson’s story offers the hope of reclaiming sanity in the midst of madness, rebuilding a life in the shadow of death, and learning to forgive the unforgivable.

The Hate Factory: A First-Hand Account of the 1980 Riot at the Penitentiary of New Mexico


Georgelle Hirliman - 1985
    When it was over, thirty-three inmates were dead, all at the hands of their fellow convicts. It was an outbreak of inmate violence unequaled in the annals of prison uprisings. It happened at the Penitentiary of New Mexico�Time magazine called it �the nation�s most notorious prison.� W.G. Stone was there. He witnessed the beatings, the stabbings, the rape, the torture. �Tying the rope under his arms and around his chest, they strung him up on the basketball hoop for all to see. There he would hang for the rest of the riot…During those hours of madness that were to follow, inmates would come in and hack at his dangling corpse with knives, beat it with pipes, mutilating it so totally that it was beyond recognition, a raw, bloody mass of flesh, by the time the uprising was over.� The Hate Factory…

Mad Frank and Sons


David Fraser - 2016
    It includes the story of Frank's beloved sister, Eva, who was a top-class West End shoplifter, and his sons David and Patrick, who reveal in shocking detail the full extent of the family's network and the influences that shaped them.With sawn-off shotguns as toys, the Kray twins as family friends and a mother who urged them as teenagers to 'get out of bed and rob a bleedin' bank', it is little wonder that the Fraser boys were heavily involved in organized crime by the time they were in their twenties. Packed with new information, and featuring some of the most famous names in the London underworld, this is a fascinating slice of gangland history seen through the eyes of Frank Fraser and his two renegade sons.

Out of the Wild: Seven Years in the Wilderness


Charlie Paterson
    Away from all the modern conveniences and comforts most take for granted, his tale is one of adversity, building a dream with dogged determination. Battling against considerable and powerful opposition, bureaucracy, severe lack of money, unforgiving nature, loneliness and ultimately his own ill health; only to find the dream fulfilled will almost destroy him. A sometimes spiritual and critical tale of self-discovery where ultimately his growing faith in God literally saves him from a very sorry end in the mountainous wilderness of New Zealand. A story that exposes wilderness living as it truly is, not for the faint hearted. However, Out of the Wild is more than just a candid wilderness survival tale, but includes some very interesting snippets of New Zealand's early pioneer history associated to the Fiordland National Park, the Hollyford Valley, Martins Bay, the beautiful deserted ghost town of Jamestown Bay and even the fabled "lost ruby mine" in the inaccessible Red Hills. For the outdoor and "back to basics" enthusiasts Charlie details his accounts of hunting red deer in the thick Fiordland rainforest around his wilderness home to using the old traditional methods to store his kills, through to trapping introduced predators destroying the special rainforest ecosystems of Fiordland. "Out of the Wild" is a very unique New Zealand wilderness tale which will appeal to the outdoor conservative types.