Book picks similar to
Public Enemies: The Host of America's Most Wanted Targets the Nation's Most Notorious Criminals by John Walsh
true-crime
crime
non-fiction
might-read-one-day
Last Don standing
Larry McShane - 2017
Natale's reign atop the Philadelphia and New Jersey underworlds brought the region's mafia back to prominence in the 1990s. Smart, savvy, and articulate, Natale came up in the mob and saw first-hand as it hatched its plan to control Atlantic City's casino unions. Later on, after spending 16 years in prison, he reclaimed the family as his own after a bloody mob war that left bodies scattered across South Philly. He forged connections around the country, invigorated the family with more allies than it had in two decades, and achieved a status within the mob never seen before or since until he was betrayed by his men and decided to testify against them in a stunning turn of events.Using dozens of hours of interviews with Natale along with research and interviews with FBI agents, this book delivers revelatory insights into seminal events in American mob history, including: - The truth about Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance- The murder of Jewish mob icon Bugsy Siegel - The identity of the man who created modern-day Las VegasWith the full cooperation of Natale, New York Daily News reporter Larry McShane and producer Dan Pearson uncover the deadly reign of the last great mob boss of Philadelphia, a tale that covers a half-century of mob lore--and gore.
Poisoned Love
Carlton Smith - 2008
In 2003, her husband Chuck died of an apparent stroke. Only a month later, she married Chaz Higgs, an ER nurse who, it was later revealed, had attended to her late husband just before his death. Three years later, fifty-year-old Kathy died after a heart attack—the result, her family and friends believed, of a stressful political campaign. But when an autopsy of Kathy’s body revealed no signs of heart disease, investigators dug deeper into Kathy’s case…only to find the presence of a powerful, paralyzing emergency-room drug in Kathy’s system. A jury would later charge Nurse Chaz with murder in the first degree. But could Kathy’s first husband also have been the victim of Chaz’s treachery? And just how much did Kathy know? This is the shocking true story of a family torn apart by lies, medical crime, and POISONED LOVE.
Smuggler's Blues: A True Story of the Hippie Mafia
Richard Stratton - 2016
A clean-cut Wellesley boy who entered outlaw culture on a trip to Mexico, he saw his search for a joint morph into a thrill-filled dope run smuggling two kilos across the border in his car door. He became a member of the Hippie Mafia, traveling the world to keep America high, living the underground life while embracing the hippie credo, rejecting hard drugs in favor of marijuana and hashish. With cameos by Whitey Bulger and Norman Mailer, Smuggler’s Blues tells Stratton’s adventure while centering on his last years as he travels from New York to Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley to source and smuggle high-grade hash in the midst of civil war, from the Caribbean to the backwoods of Maine, and from the Chelsea Hotel to the Plaza as his fortunes rise and fall. All the while he is being pursued by his nemesis, a philosophical DEA agent who respects him for his good business practices.A true-crime story that reads like fiction, Smuggler’s Blues is a psychedelic road trip through international drug smuggling, the hippie underground, and the war on weed. As Big Marijuana emerges, it brings to vivid life an important chapter in pot’s cultural history.
Irreparable: Three Lives. Two Deaths. One Story that Has to be Told.
Mark Gerardot - 2020
When what had begun as a harmless flirtation blossomed into a passionate love affair, Mark confessed his infidelity and began taking the painful steps toward what he thought was an amicable but long-overdue divorce. What he didn't realize, however, was that Jennair was taking steps of her own--steps that would end with both women dead and Mark a prime suspect in their murder.A harrowing account of marriage, infidelity and murder, Irreparable is a must-read for anyone who has ever been faced with, or thought about betrayal, divorce, or electronic surveillance of a loved one. Based on hundreds of hours of recorded conversations and videotapes documenting a marriage as it shatters and a romance as it blooms, Irreparable will stun and surprise you on every page. The suspense builds as each chapter takes you deeper into the grief of a man tortured by his guilt, and the madness of a heartbroken woman determined to destroy the man she loved.Unexpectedly thrust into the media spotlight after a life-altering personal tragedy in 2018, Mark Gerardot's obsessive two-year search to understand the bewildering secret life that led his wife to kill and to come to terms with his grief and remorse for his own actions is told in his debut book, "Irreparable". Determined to share the sad but true story of his 24-year marriage, the events that led up to the tragedy and the lessons he has learned since, Gerardot hopes to help others who find themselves at a crossroads in a troubled marriage or relationship. "We have a responsibility," Gerardot says "to not only take care of those we love, but those we hurt, to make sure they're okay."
Stay With Me, Rhys: The heartbreaking story of Rhys Jones, by his mother. As seen on ITV’s new documentary Police Tapes
Mel Jones - 2018
‘Please stay with me. I love you.’
There was still no expression in his eyes. I was talking and talking to him, desperate to let him know I was there, but there was no flicker in his face. In hindsight, it was like he’d already gone.
It's a Wednesday evening in Liverpool in the summer holidays, and Melanie is expecting her Everton-mad eleven-year-old son back from football practice very soon. She turns on Coronation Street and sets about stripping the wallpaper off the walls in the lounge, which is long-overdue a makeover. Suddenly she receives a frantic knock at the door. Rhys has been shot on his way home.From that fateful day when Melanie cradled her child as he lay dying, repeating to him ‘Stay with Me, Rhys’, to the day in court when his killers were finally sent down, this is a story of a family in trauma, of a community united behind them and of how a notorious local gang who terrorised the neighbourhood was brought to justice.In 2017, more than 7 million people watched the drama unfold in the highly-acclaimed ITV series Little Boy Blue. And now Melanie Jones tells the family's unbelievable story for the first time.Melanie, her husband Steve and Rhys’s brother Owen have been through unimaginable pain. The grief doesn’t go away, but the strength they’ve found within it is an inspiration.
Maybe You Die: The True Story of a Couple Living the All-American Nightmare
Nancy Lee - 2020
Smiling, the palm reader tells Nina that she has a long lifeline, as she traces it on her hand. As soon as the words are uttered, the palm reader's facial expression turns to one of fear. In broken English, she whispers, "Break - very bad break in middle of life. Maybe you die."Nina does come close to death at age thirty-four when she and her family are involved in a serious auto accident. She assumes she has successfully cheated the death that the palm reader prophesied. Unfortunately, the sinister and tragic break in the lifeline and its deliverer are yet to be revealed.
Till Death Do Us Part: The true story of misguided love, marriage, death and deception.
Siobhan Gaffney - 2005
Little did they know that underneath his cool exterior lay a twisted desire to kill.Behind the facade of normality lay a psychopathic mind struggling to control its homicidal urges. Having seduced and married his sweetheart Mary Gough, Whelan immediately began planning her brutal murder.While his young wife dreamed of a love-filled marriage, Whelan searched the internet for information on serial killers and the methods they used to strangle their victims.Compelling and disturbing, this book reveals how Whelan murdered his wife to claim a hefty life insurance policy, and how he faked his own suicide when he became the prime suspect for the murder.Till Death Do Us Part offers a fascinating insight into the true motivation behind one of Irelands most notorious murders, and is a horrifying story of love, lust, revenge and murder - all the more shocking because every word is true.
Hoods: The Gangs of Nottingham, A Study in Organised Crime
Carl Fellstrom - 2006
The slaughter of Joan and John Stirland revealed an evil empire of powerful ganglords, contract killings and police corruption. At its dark heart was the East Midlands city of Nottingham. A prosperous centre of business, education and leisure, Nottingham had fallen under the shadow of vicious gangsters. Eventually its police were investigating so many murders that their boss had to appeal to other forces for help, and the influx of drugs and weapons saw the city labelled "Gun Capital UK".HOODS traces the roots of the gangs, revealing how economic dislocation and the clash of cultures between working-class white residents and black immigrants from the 1950s onwards created an alienated underclass. In the 1990s, a more malignant breed of organised criminal emerged. Crime families who had been involved in armed robbery, protection rackets and extortion now sought to control the recreational drugs trade and forged links across Europe to import wholesale quantities of cocaine, ecstasy and amphetamines. By 2002, shootings were running at one a week. HOODS uncovers how outlaw Yardies pioneered the sale of crack cocaine and imported the ruthless violence of the Jamaican ghettos; how young black gangs from the so-called NG Triangle of the Meadows, St Ann’s and Radford areas clashed in a series of turf wars; how the shadowy Dawes Cartel built a lucrative international drugs empire; and how the Bestwood Cartel and its terrifying leader, Colin Gunn, corrupted police officers and left dead and maimed in its wake. As local police struggled to cope with the mayhem, MI5 and the National Crime Squad launched a massive undercover investigation into the Nottingham ‘untouchables’. It led ultimately to the dismantling of some of the UK’s most powerful crime networks. HOODS is a stark account of what happens when the rule of the gun supplants the rule of law and fear stalks the streets.
Becoming A Son
David Labrava - 2015
David writes from life experience as he has lived more lives than most people ever will, and he did it all over the globe. David is an accomplished Glass artist, Tattoo artist, Five Diploma Harley Davidson Motorcycle Mechanic, Producer, Director and an award winning Writer and Actor. David is a member of the most famous and notorious motorcycle club in the world. David was the Technical Advisor on the hit TV series Sons of Anarchy from the inception to the completion of the series. David was also a series regular on the show, reaching that position after being hired as the technical advisor, then becoming a day player actor, then a recurring character then moving to series regular. All of these things had to be earned, as they were not for sale at any price. Becoming A Son is not about them. It’s about David getting to those spots. It’s about overcoming great odds and coming out alive. David left home at fifteen years old and hit the streets. This is David’s journey of discovery and redemption spanning a course of forty years. From the beaches of Hawaii and California, to the forest of the great Northwest, to years in Amsterdam, San Francisco, New York City, Miami then back to California. David hit some highs and survived severe lows, living years on the streets, in and out of jail only to take his life back, and then squeeze every bit out of it that life has to offer. Becoming A Son is a journey of epic proportion. It’s about realizing your dreams and then against the odds achieving them. Adventuring across the globe David learned many lessons by reaching out and trying everything, making many mistakes and paying the price for it and living through it. Now he wrote about it. David has been writing and getting published for over 14 years. He wrote for the Motorcycle magazine ‘The Horse’ then had his own column in the National Hot Rod Magazine ‘Ol Skool Rodz’ for eight years. He co-wrote Episode ten in season four of SOA which Time magazine awarded an honorable mention to as best of the season. David also won the 2013 Readers Choice Buzz focus award for Best Wildcard Actor. Like great authors before him Labrava takes the reader into some dark places most people would never dare to go. Becoming A Son is a modern day story of living on the street and redemption, it is one man’s journey into the darkness of himself crossing the planet and transcending all levels and then coming back again full circle. It is an inspiration for anyone who is chasing their dreams and making them their reality. Becoming A Son will come to be known as an instant classic.
Street Justice
Chuck Zito - 2002
From Hells Angel to celebrity bodyguard. The revealing autobiography of an American man.Chuck Zito comes by his reputation honestly as one of the toughest, most uncompromising men ever to sit astride a Harley. Now, with tales both hilarious and chilling, violent and truthful, Zito tells his life story in his own words.From growing up on the mean streets of Brooklyn and the Bronx, where fighting was a way of life, to becoming president of the New York chapter of the Hells Angels, to the wild and crazy life of protecting some of the world's biggest celebrities, Zito might be seen as a latter-day outlaw, the last of a dying breed of men. But throughout his tempestuous days, one thing defined him: his unfailing sense of justice, of what's really right and what's really wrong. That's how Zito found himself facing his biggest challenge: refusing to cooperate with a federal investigation into his brothers, the Hells Angels, and in the process losing the very thing he cherished most-his freedom.Zito's astonishing recovery from this experience, and the unique kind of stardom he forged based on hard work and sheer will, is a testament to his courage, his ambition, and his indomitable heart-a testament now recorded unflinchingly in Street Justice.
Boy Missing: The Search for Kyron Horman
Rebecca Morris - 2020
Where is Kyron Horman? Why hasn't the woman who police suspect is responsible for his disappearance-Kyron's stepmother-been charged? On the last day he was seen, June 4, 2010, the boy with the toothy smile, crew cut, and glasses posed in front of his science project on frogs. Kyron grinned for a photo taken by his stepmother. She said he walked to his second-grade classroom and turned to wave at her. Then he vanished. That Kyron disappeared from his grade school got the attention of parents around the world. The twists of the case -adultery, sexting, murder-for-hire-keep the story in the spotlight. On the tenth anniversary of Kyron's disappearance, New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Morris tells for the first time the story of the investigation and the toll the boy's disappearance took on his family and law enforcement. Based on years of research and interviews with people close to the case, including Kyron's mother, Desiree Young. the book is the story of the boy's disappearance, the suspicion that quickly fell on one member of a messy blended family, and how Desiree Young turned grief into advocacy. "Boy Missing" examines what recourse families have as they wait for a loved one to be found. It challenges a common assumption in no-body cases: that prosecutors must wait until there is a confession or remains are found. No-body cases can be prosecuted successfully. Jeff Guinn, author of "Manson" and "The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple," calls "Boy Missing " "an important book and one readers will never forget." Rebecca Morris is the author of "If I Can't Have You: Susan Powell, Her Mysterious Disappearance, and the Murder of Her Children," "Ted and Ann: They Mystery of a Missing Child and Her Neighbor Ted Bundy," and other books. A veteran journalist, she appears frequently on network and cable TV as a crime expert.
Witness: For the Prosecution of Scott Peterson
Amber Frey - 2005
And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."Amber Frey's life was full of blessings: an exciting new business, a beautiful home, and most of all, her infant daughter, Ayiana. But Amber had been through some unhappy relationships, and she longed for a true and loving partner. In November 2002, she went on a blind date with Scott Peterson. He was handsome, charming, thoughtful, and romantic. Best of all, he was single and ready to settle down . . . or so he said.Their connection was immediate. Over the next few weeks, Amber and Scott grew closer and closer. Scott won her over with his warmth, humor, and intelligence, and he even won the heart of little Ayiana. Before long, he began to speak of the beautiful future the three of them were destined to share as a family.Soon enough, however, Amber began to suspect that Scott Peterson might not be the man he claimed to be. On December 9, he broke down in tears and told her that he had been married, but had "lost" his wife. This was weeks before Laci Peterson, eight months pregnant at the time, was even reported missing. Scott Peterson hadn't lost her, but clearly he was planning to.Suddenly a relationship that seemed full of promise was turning into Amber's worst nightmare.Amber launched an investigation of her own. The moment she was able to confirm her worst suspicions, she contacted the Modesto Police Department, in northern California, and offered to do whatever she could to help. She began secretly taping her conversations with Scott, pressing him for information but never letting on that she had heard the news of Laci's disappearance. Those conversations became the basis for the prosecution's case against Scott Peterson for the murder of his wife and unborn child.Amber's whole world was turned upside down in the process. She lost her privacy, as every detail of her life was scrutinized by the media, who couldn't seem to get enough of this tragic, heart-wrenching story. But she soldiered on, looking deep inside herself and drawing strength from her faith.Witness is the chilling story of how a young woman became ensnared in Scott Peterson's web of lies, then risked everything to seek justice for Laci Peterson and her unborn child, Conner. It is also a story of forgiveness and faith, and of one woman's struggle to live with an open and honest heart.
Clevenger Gold: The True Story of Murder and Unfound Treasure
S.E. Swapp - 2016
Once the old, cantankerous Sam Clevenger and his wife, Charlotte, hired Frank Willson and John Johnson to help with the move, their fate took a dark turn. These true events were documented by journalists through the 1887 trial and well into the 1900s, and stories have been told of Sam’s unfound treasure for nearly 130 years. But, this is the first detailed, documented, and vetted account of their bizarre and fascinating tale.
Shang-a-lang: Life as an International Pop Idol
Les McKeown - 2003
It is a remarkable story of extremes, and a no-holds barred account of Rollermania.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Ladykiller
Donna Fielder - 2012
But the answer wasn't really so simple...