The Road to Hell: How the Biker Gangs Are Conquering Canada


Julian Sher - 2003
    By the spring of 2002, Boucher was safely in prison but the Hells Angels had grown to 37 chapters with close to 600 members across the country. They had taken over the drug trade and continued their rapid expansion into Ontario with a recent, high-profile enlistment -- or patchover -- of 168 members from other gangs. In Winnipeg, gang warfare turned ugly as the Hells muscled out the competition and firebombed a policeman's home. In Vancouver, they secured a stranglehold on smuggling in the all-important West Coast port. The Road to Hell is the story of how the Hells have taken over the Canadian crime scene: how politicians dithered while overburdened prosecutors burned out and lost major cases; how police brass squabbled while a handful of dedicated cops worked years to amass their evidence; how a few citizens stood up the bikers and paid for that bravery with their lives. Murder plots, drug deals, money laundering and assassinations are brought to life through never-before-revealed police files, wiretaps and surveillance tapes. In gripping prose, the authors tell all about Boucher's war on the justice system; how he finally lost in Quebec, thanks in part to Danny Kane, a reluctant biker turned informer; but how across Canada the Hells have succeeded in building a national crime empire. "The RCMP and then the police in Montreal would run Danny Kane as one of the most successful -- and most secretive -- agents ever to infiltrate organized crime. Kane would climb allthe way to the top: from a lowly hangaround to a trusted confidante of the Quebec Nomads, the elite chapter led by the top Hells Angels lieutenants of Maurice "Mom" Boucher. And through his entire six-year-career as a spy, few people -- even inside the police -- would ever know about his dangerous double life. -- from" The Road to Hell

The Doctor, the Hitman, and the Motorcycle Gang: The True Story of One of New Jersey's Most Notorious Murder for Hire Plots


Annie McCormick - 2020
    

The Phillip Island Murder


Vikki Petraitis - 2013
    It also created an enduring mystery, for no one was ever brought to trial for her brutal death, and the main suspect disappeared – never to be seen again. Beth Barnard, a popular and attractive 23-year-old, had been having an affair with a local married man. On the night of her brutal murder, a car belonging to Vivienne Cameron – wife of Beth’s lover – was found abandoned near the bridge that connects the famous tourist island to the mainland. No trace of Vivienne was ever found, and her disappearance has never been adequately explained. Nevertheless, a Coroner's Court found that Vivienne had killed her rival then jumped to her death into the waters of Westernport Bay. The case was closed but not forgotten. Ever since their first edition of The Phillip Island Murder, in 1993, Vikki Petraitis and Paul Daley have been regularly contacted by people wanting to know more; people who, like the authors, let the case get under their skin. More than three decades later the mystery, rumours and arm-chair solutions continue.

The LawDog Files


D. LawDog - 2017
    In THE LAWDOG FILES, he chronicles his official encounters with everything from naked bikers, combative eco-warriors, suicidal drunks, respectful methheads, prison tattoo artists, and creepy children to six-foot chickens and lethal chihuahuas. THE LAWDOG FILES range from the bittersweet to the explosively hilarious, as LawDog relates his unforgettable experiences in a laconic, self-deprecating manner that is funny in its own right. The book is more than mere entertainment, it is an education in two English dialects, Police and Texas Country. And underlying the humor is an unmistakable sympathy for society's less fortunate - and in most cases, significantly less intelligent - whose encounters with the law are an all-too-frequent affair.

Our Friend Travis: The Travis Alexander Story


Chris Hughes - 2015
    He was in the prime of his life enjoying good health, financial success, world travel and a bustling social life. But, things weren't always so good for him. His life began in dismal circumstances, and tragically, it ended worse than it began. He was born to drug addicted parents and suffered many of the worst privations of life. His family was poor and his parents were neglectful and abusive. He was teased and bullied as a small child and had few, if any, friends.    After running away at the age of ten and going to live with his Grandmother, he became active in his church. Travis began to thrive in this environment. He had found a place where he was accepted. He had a support group, many friends and a purpose. Travis did not let his dark childhood stop him from accomplishing great things in his life. He used his negative experiences to propel him into a life of abundance and success by becoming better every day. Like many single, thirty-year-old men, he was dating in hopes of finding Mrs. Right, so he could get married, start a family and live the good life. Unfortunately, Jodi Arias, one of the women Travis was dating, was a psychopath. When Travis was dating her, they were living in different states. Soon after he broke things off, she moved within a mile of his house in Mesa, Arizona! She stalked him, hacked his email and social media accounts, and made his life unlivable. Her manipulation, lies, conniving, need for control and invasive behaviors were too much for Travis and he finally convinced her to move back to Yreka, California in April of 2008. On May 26, 2008 Travis finally saw Jodi for the evil monster she is. Via text, chat and email, they got into a huge fight. In June 2008, she set off on a 1,027 mile road trip to Mesa, Arizona to murder Travis. With Travis’ blood still under her fingernails, she headed to Utah to hook-up with a new love interest. Travis was found with twenty-nine stab wounds, shot in the face, and with his throat slit from ear to ear. After a heart-wrenching, five-year delay, the case finally went to trial, and became one of the highest profile murder trials in recent history. On May 8, 2013, his killer was convicted of first-degree, pre-meditated murder. During the grueling, ten month trial, which was in large part a circus act of character assassination, lies and fiction, Travis’s life was purposefully distorted and despicably misrepresented. This book was written to share with the world who Travis Victor Alexander was, the reality of what he endured, and the positive impact he continues to have on the world. Our Friend Travis is a book about the real Travis; his life, his light, his triumphs, his mistakes, his death, his murderer’s trial and his legacy. Chris and Sky Hughes are able to offer an insight that few, if any, have into Travis’s life and the evil that ended it. The world deserves to know the real Travis, and they hope you will get to know him through this book. They hope that his loving demeanor, zest for life, passion for service and ability to make people realize their divine potential jumps off the pages and into your heart. NOTE ABOUT REVIEWS OF THIS BOOK: This book includes information about the Jodi Arias murder trial, which was one of the highest profile murder trials in recent history. As a result of the media attention this case garnered, millions around the world have come to know Travis Alexander and Jodi Arias, the woman who viciously murdered him. Though the public came out overwhelmingly in support of Travis Alexander, his friends and family, there is a very small, but vocal group, who, for whatever reason, are supportive of a convicted murderer.

The North Country Murder of Irene Izak: Stained by Her Blood (True Crime)


Dave Shampine - 2010
    Irene Izak, a young French teacher from Scranton, Pennsylvania, was headed toward a new job and the promise of a new life in Quebec. She never reached the border that early June morning. Savagely bludgeoned—her face and head pummeled with rocks—Irene’s body was discovered in a ravine by a state trooper patrolling Route 81 in Jefferson County, New York. Blending suspense with true-crime reporting, author Dave Shampine investigates the brutal murder that shook the communities of northeast Pennsylvania and New York’s North Country. Join Shampine as he tells the story of this vicious and confounding killing that has remained unsolved for four decades.

Unsolved Serial Killers: 10 Frightening True Crime Cases of Unidentified Serial Killers (The Ones You've Never Heard of) Volume 1


D.R. Werner - 2021
    

Family Secrets: The scandalous history of an extraordinary family


Derek Malcolm - 2017
    The secret, though, that surrounded my parents’ unhappy life together, was divulged to me by accident . . .’ Hidden under some papers in his father’s bureau, the sixteen-year-old Derek Malcolm finds a book by the famous criminologist Edgar Lustgarten called The Judges and the Damned. Browsing through the Contents pages Derek reads, ‘Mr Justice McCardie tries Lieutenant Malcolm – page 33.’ But there is no page 33. The whole chapter has been ripped out of the book. Slowly but surely, the shocking truth emerges: that Derek’s father, shot his wife’s lover and was acquitted at a famous trial at the Old Bailey. The trial was unique in British legal history as the first case of a crime passionel, where a guilty man is set free, on the grounds of self-defence. Husband and wife lived together unhappily ever after, raising Derek in their wake. Then, in a dramatic twist, following his father’s death, Derek receives an open postcard from his Aunt Phyllis, informing him that his real father is the Italian Ambassador to London . . . By turns laconic and affectionate, Derek Malcolm has written a richly evocative memoir of a family sinking into hopeless disrepair. Derek Malcolm was chief film critic of the Guardian for thirty years and still writes for the paper. Educated at Eton and Merton College, Oxford, he became first a steeplechase rider and then an actor after leaving university. He worked as a journalist in the sixties, first in Cheltenham and then with the Guardian where he was a features sub-editor and writer, racing correspondent and finally film critic. He directed the London Film Festival for a spell in the 80s and is now President of both the International Film Critics Association and the British Federation of Film Societies. He lives with his wife Sarah Gristwood in London and Kent and has published two books – one on Robert Mitchum and another on his favourite 100 films. He is a frequent broadcaster on radio and television and a veteran of film festival juries all over the world.

The Life: A True Story About A Brooklyn Boy Seduced Into The Dark World Of The Mafia


Larry Mazza - 2016
    young Larry later learns she is married to the vicious gangster Greg Scarpa known as "The Grim Reaper." Greg takes a liking to Larry and makes him his protegé. He likes him so much that he gives his blessing for the affair to continue and brings Larry deep into the "family."

Tunnel Vision


N.P. Simpson - 2017
    Simpson and edited by New York Times bestseller and True Crime legend, Jerry Bledsoe, Tunnel Vision is a chilling tale of triple murder like no other. A horrific crime that shook the largest Marine base in America quickly becomes much more than meets the eye in this meticulously researched account from N.P. Simpson. A family’s life is in shambles when a mother and two children are found brutally murdered in their home. To make matters worse, the prime suspect is their own relative. Fifteen-year-old Butch Smith was a troubled teen. Despite being kicked out of school for his aggressive behavior, his family was fiercely loyal to him. During visits home while attending a camp for troubled boys, Butch lived a fairly normal life with his mother and two siblings in their duplex at Camp Lejeune. After returning home from a rare trip to New York with his aunt and cousins in tow, tragedy struck this unsuspecting family. In the dark of the night, his aunt, cousin and one of Butch's siblings were found savagely slain. When clashing confessions point to Butch as a suspect, his life is changed forever. From its portrayal of one young man’s harrowing past, to the shocking murder that shook the North Carolina Supreme Court, Tunnel Vision is true crime reporting at its most gripping.

Almost Eleven: The Murder of Brenda Sue Sayers


Harrell Glenn Crowson - 2013
    Imperial Valley’s biggest crime is detailed through volumes of official records and interviews with witnesses, relatives and investigators.Serial killer Robert Eugene Pennington not only murdered Sayers, but was a suspect in killing Dorothy Minor-Hindman in Fresno and possibly fifteen other innocent victims from coast to coast including one victim attributed to the Boston Strangler.Extensive research provides the reader with details of Pennington’s life before and after his encounter with Brenda.

The Life and Times of the Stopwatch Gang (Kindle Single)


Josh Dean - 2015
    And for the duration of their reign, no bank robbers were more feared (though they never fired their guns) nor more pursued or more mythologized than the Stopwatch Gang. The members themselves were straight out of central casting: Lionel Wright, a meticulous introvert who could disappear in a room full of people; Paddy Mitchell, a charming and well-connected crook who saw an angle in everything and would go to any lengths to avoid the hell of being locked away; and Stephen Reid, a fearless point man who could find the weakness in any system and whose story—of addiction and descent into crime, of redemption and literary fame—was all prelude to a tragic but life-saving fall from grace. In The Life and Times of the Stopwatch Gang, Josh Dean reconstructs the Gang’s glory days and reveals how the real story, pieced together through months of research and reporting most prominently with Reid himself, as he comes to the end, at age 64, of his final days in the custody of the state—is more remarkable than the myth that has long been told.

Sikhs: The Untold Agony Of 1984


Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay - 2015
    She claimed the police had inserted a stick inside her… Swaranpreet realised that she had been cruelly violated; He spoke a single sentence but repeated it twice in chaste Punjabi: ‘Please give me a turban? I want nothing else…’ These are voices begging for deliverance in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination in October-November 1984 in which 2,733 Sikhs were killed, burnt and exterminated by lumpens in the country. Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay walks us through one of the most shameful episodes of sectarian violence in post Independent India and highlights the apathy of subsequent governments towards Sikhs who paid a price for what was clearly a state-sponsored riot. Poignant, raw and most importantly, macabre, the personal histories in the book reveal how even after three decades, a community continues to battle for its identity in its own country.

Small-town Slayings in South Carolina (True Crime)


Rita Y. Shuler - 2009
    After working with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division as special agent/forensic photographer for twenty-four years, Rita Shuler has a passion for remembering the victims. In Small-town Slayings, Shuler takes us back in time, showing differences and similarities of crime solving in the past and present and some surprising twists of court proceedings, verdicts and sentences. From an unsolved case that has haunted her for thirty years to a cold case that was solved after fifteen years by advanced DNA technology, Shuler blends her own memories with extensive research, resulting in a fast-paced, factual and fascinating look at crime in South Carolina.

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?