True crime Books

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Book SynopsisPresenting 16 famous criminal cases from Fresno California at the turn of the 20th century, this gripping history brings fascinating tales of murder and mayhem to light. Introducing a blend of memorable and tragic figures, such as the "Old Broom Man" or the "Black Widow," a long-time detective of the Fresno sheriff''s office shares his notes on each filed occurrence. Detailed and historically accurate, an entire chapter highlights the men who were put to death under the state of California''s justice apparatus. Comparing and contrasting these sensational past events to the current high-profile criminal cases, this informed analysis reveals a modern upswing in child abuse, multiple murders, and kidnapping cases and highlights the extended nature of the current legal process as compared to the open-and-shut character of the early 1900s.

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Book SynopsisBringing a dark and forgotten era into vivid life, this fascinating history explores a booming criminal enterprise that was spawned in California in the 1920s and 1930s. Exposing a spree of kidnappings referred to as the "snatch racket," true accounts of the crimes and the unfortunate victims are revealed. Driven by greed, desperation, or sheer stupidity, this detailed discussion explains that the ransom artists preyed indiscriminately on Hollywood socialites, wealthy heiresses, and even the poor -- while each new disappearance brought new headlines and sales to the newspaper companies. Illustrating the manner in which even the simplest capers would often run tragically awry, 15 bizarre and often ironic tales are presented, including how a modern city rose to lynch a pair of kidnappers, the college kids who chose to imitate Leopold and Loeb, and the famed evangelist who faked her own abduction to cover up an affair. Early forensic techniques are described, including the first documented call tracing using a bevy of operators in a phone chain, as well as the birth of the modern symbiotic relationship between the news media and high-profile crime, demonstrating how the sensationalism of personal tragedy became a source for increased media sales.

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Book SynopsisOn a foggy evening in November 1905, 48-year-old Thomas Jackson returned to his home on Melville Street in Vancouver after nine months of prospecting north of the Skeena. Jackson was happy because he had made an important gold strike. Four days later he was dead from strychnine poisoning. Any of the other four people living in the house on Melville Street could have slipped the poison into the mixture of Epsom salts and beer that Jackson took on the morning of his death. Reporters from Vancouver''s newspapers chose Jackson''s teary-eyed, fragile, 24-year-old wife, Theresa, as their first choice for the guilty party. Then as the days went by, their preference shifted to the dead man''s steely-eyed, light-fingered, American mother-in-law, Esther Jones. Suspicion also fell on the two boarders -- Esther''s nephew Harry Fisher and Ernest Exall. All of them had the opportunity to plant the poison. Eventually the police followed up on the newspapers'' revelations, the most important being that Harry Fisher was not Esther''s nephew but her son. Fisher fled to Washington, and in his absence his mother and sister were arrested -- not for murder but for perjured testimony at the coroner''s inquest. What followed was a series of hearings and trials in the city''s courtrooms with fledgling lawyers trying to make their names in combat with the celebrated defence counsel Joseph Martin, KC. At the same time the newspapers, which were locked in a deadly circulation war, tried desperately to trump each other with juicy bits of information, all of it splashed on their front pages week after week. In the end the two women served time in the BC Penitentiary, but no one was ever tried for the murder of Thomas Jackson. Acclaimed writer Betty Keller has based her sensational story of murder and intrigue on actual events that occurred in Vancouver''s pre-World War I years.

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Book SynopsisThe thirsty days of Prohibition in Alberta began at midnight on June 30, 1916, but many had been drinking so hard that the booze had long ago run out. Suddenly, the rumrunner was king, and backyard stills popped up everywhere. Even though the government introduced new laws and set up a new police force, liquor was still being made, sold and consumed by those who could outwit the law. Here is Frank W. Anderson''s rollicking account of the Prohibition years: the schemes by temperance and moral leaders to convince the government to pass a Prohibition bill to halt the use and trafficking of liquor the loopholes in the law that rumrunners could easily drive their product through the escapades of Emperor Pick, the Bottle King, whose lucrative bottle-collecting business was a front for his more secretive liquor trafficking business the covert operations of John Greenburg and Mike Segal, whose backwoods still was never found Mr. Big''s many hideouts along the Crowsnest Pass road where he could cache the liquor if the police was chasing him or his cohorts and stories of ordinary citizens across the province who risked their lives and livelihoods just to be able to lift a glass. The question remains: Did Prohibition really serve its purpose of preventing crime or did it have the opposite effect?

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Book SynopsisThese eight true tales explore the dark side of 20th-century prairie history. A Saskatchewan farmhouse is burned to the ground to conceal the brutal murders of a family of seven. A German prisoner-of-war camp in Medicine Hat is the scene of savage Nazi killings. A convicted killer is given a day pass out of prison for his birthday, only to escape and kill again. From a deadly Prohibition-era shootout to a landmark case solved with DNA evidence, these are riveting stories of murderers and the people who fought to bring them to justice.

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Book SynopsisTen gripping tales of murder and missing persons show how skulls and skeletons reveal their secrets to forensic investigators. A skull is found on a scree slope high above the mirror-calm waters of Spray Lakes. Bones rumoured for years to be buried in a Medicine Hat backyard are finally dug up. The trussed and tortured skeletal remains of an unknown man are found in a septic tank near Tofield. These baffling Alberta cases show how dogged, old-fashioned detective work combines with modern forensic techniques in the search for the truth.

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Book Synopsis'Who Killed Janet Smith?' examines one of the most infamous and still unsolved murder cases in Canadian History: the 1924 murder of twenty-two-year-old Scottish nursemaid Janet Smith. Originally published in 1984, and out of print for over a decade, this tale of intrigue, racism, privilege, and corruption in high places as a true-crime recreation that reads like a complex thriller. We are pleased to be reissuing this title as part of the City of Vancouver's Legacy Book Project. "... drug traffic, Roaring Twenties hedonism, official corruption, cutthroat competition among newspapers, a public taste for occultism, etc.- and entrust the whole works to a good storyteller, and you have one terrific political history of Vancouver." - Geist Magazine "Starkins cuts away at the layers with the delicacy of a neurosurgeon. What he uncovers almost defies belief." - Quill & Quire

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Book SynopsisFoul Deeds & Suspicious Deaths in Leicester - True Crime BooksWithin the pages of this book are some of the most notorious and often baffling cases in Leicestershire's history. From the appalling double murder at Melton Mowbray in 1856, known locally as the Peppermint Billy murders, to the 1953 murderer Joseph Reynolds who killed because he wanted to know how it felt. This book explores the cases that dominated the headlines, not only across the city and surrounding county but also nationwide. These are the stories of those involved in Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths at a time when murder was a capital offence and guilt or innocence was proven without the benefit of modern forensic technique or DNA profiling. Included in this list are also some of those mysterious cases that will remain forever unsolved, as in the now famous case of Bella Wright. Known across the whole country as the green bicycle murder, it commanded public attention in 1919 because of the complex and puzzling nature of the crime and has continued to do so ever since. Just as many of the other cases re-examined here have done.

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Book Synopsis"On Thursday 7 July 2005, four bombs were detonated in London killing 52 people (including the bombers) and injuring a further 700. It was the first successful suicide bomb attack on British soil and the biggest terrorist atrocity since the 1988 Lockerbie bomb which brought down Pan Am flight 103. The four suicide bombers were named as Mohammed Sidique Khan, aged 30 of Beeston, Leeds; Shehzad Tanweer: aged 22 of Leeds; Germaine Lindsay: aged 19 from Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire and Hasib Hussain, 18, from Holbeck in Leeds. Hasib Hussain was my son." In the immediate aftermath of the bombing there was much media attention focussed on Hasib''s father. Mahmood Hussain was a hardworking Pakistani immigrant who had lived and worked in Leeds for almost 30 years by the time of the bombing. He was as astonished as anyone else that his son was one of the first UK suicide bombers. he also reveals that it was his amateur detective work that tracked down the terror cell of which his son had been a part. Prior to him mentioning the names of the other two local men involved, the police had no idea what they were dealing with. Here he tells the story of Hasib''s upbringing and the facts behind many misreported aspects of Hasib''s brief life from his trips to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to his education and his discussions with his father, just days before the attack, about his future plans and marriage.

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Book Synopsis'Kenny's story shows us that we all have the potential to achieve extraordinary things. What a hero.' Bear Grylls'If you are compelled by a hero's journey, then Kenny Imafidon is a hero for this generation.' Simon SinekFor fans of Poverty Safari and Skint Estate, That Peckham Boy is a real-life manifesto calling for positive change for those on the fringes of society.'When you're writing the story of your life, make sure you're holding the pen. In this life you can be whoever you want to be.'Two days after his eighteenth birthday, Kenny Imafidon was charged with the murder of a seventeen-year-old boy in south-east London. The middle child of a single mother with ambitions for her children, Kenny grew up near an estate in Peckham where deprivation and hopelessness were rife, and gang culture flourished in his community. Kenny faced a minimum of thirty years behind bars - longer than the life he had lived.When the case against Kenny collapsed, he quickly realised that his name was still inextricably linked with a horrific crime he hadn't committed. He decided to rewrite his story. It began with The Kenny Report, which he delivered to the House of Commons and which detailed the experiences of marginalised young people who drift into gangs, and has led to extensive work with charities, communities and policy-makers that is helping to change the narratives of other young people just like Kenny.A candid and unfiltered take on some of the most challenging topics that define our times, That Peckham Boy is a personal manifesto exploring what it means to be young, Black and poor in the city. It is shaped by Kenny's difficult childhood, his transformative time in prison, and the people and conversations that took him from being on trial for murder into the company of some of the most successful people in the world.Trade Review'A clean-hearted guy, even through the BS' -- Giggs'A very real, honest and inspiring book that demonstrates an understanding of the real world while providing hope and inspiration for a better one. Kenny Imafidon's real-life experiences and hardships growing up in the hood of south London are tragic but enlightening. In his inspiring new book, That Peckham Boy, Kenny openly and honesty shares the obstacles, disadvantages and devastating consequences that typically accompany those who grow up on the streets in poverty and need. From drug deals to racial targeting to being wrongly accused of murder, Kenny reveals the flaws and weaknesses of a broken system that we all pay into. But most importantly, he exemplifies how one person's determination and resolve against all odds can triumph and succeed! A remarkable read!' -- Stephen M. R Covey * The New York Times and #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Speed of Trust and Trust & Inspire *If you are compelled by a hero's journey, then Kenny Imafidon is a hero for this generation. His story is an inspiration to anyone who dreams of making a better life for themselves and having a positive impact on those around them. -- Simon Sinek * New York Times Bestselling author of Start with Why and The Infinite Game *'Shows that sometimes the hardest choices lead to the biggest and brightest outcomes... Kenny's story is now part of the solution that stops stereotypes limiting potential.' * Tim Campbell MBE *Breathtaking * The Observer *

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Book SynopsisArising from a National Writing Competition in 2022-3 on the theme of 'Endurance', this collection of works by serving prisoners relates both to the deepest of human tragedies and the greatest of triumphs. Contributors describe what endurance means for them; not just of the prison system, whose efficacy this collection brings into question, but of the lives that led them there. Victor Frankl, the psychologist and Jewish WWII concentration camp survivor, is referenced independently by two contributors. In his words: "He, who has a why to live for, can bear with almost any how."The 'why's' in this collection are sometimes obscure, sometimes inspiring, and always heart-rending. Sometimes, it is Nature's touch or vision that helps the authors endure. Often, it is meaningful relationships with others. Readers can extend such meaningful connection further, by receiving these touching passages with a spirit of compassion and a desire to understand.

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Book SynopsisTake some twenty wicked British villains. Add their dastardly crimes. Then include their miserable backgrounds. Mix in some nefarious conversations and combine all this together to produce an exciting collection of stories: Villains of Yore. This book describes in an entertaining way through conversations and facts how criminals from Richard Pudlicott (1303) up to the 20th Century Elephant Gang operated on the wrong side of the law to make their fortunes. Reading your way through these 700 years, you will come across well-known characters such as Dick Turpin, Burke and Hare and Moll Cutpurse, as well as some lesser known but equally nasty characters, including Colonel Thomas Blood, Mary Carleton and Jonathan Wild, the ‘Thief-taker General’. “Villains of Yore” by D. Lawrence-Young will open your eyes to the criminal world and give you a completely new view on British social history.

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Book SynopsisFrom one of Australia's top true crime writers and co-author of the bestselling Underbelly series comes Rule on Crime, a gripping collection of 11 unforgettable stories of Australian crime and corruption. Curated and updated by Andrew Rule, this book dives deep into some of the most shocking cases that gripped the nation.

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Book SynopsisIn the cold winter of 1875, two rebellious spirits travel from the pale sunlight of England to the raw heat of Australia. Harriet Rowell (age 22) and Alice Moon (age 18), were champion swimmers in a time when women didn’t go into the sea; they were athletic and strong in a time when women believed men who told them if they didn’t bind their bodies in whalebone corsets they would fall over or ruin their childbearing purpose; and they were in love in a time when many women were in love with each other but held such love secretly, for fear of retribution. In Australia, they will achieve their freedom and create a path for others to follow! With Alice’s wealth, they open a Women’s Gymnasium and begin to teach mothers and daughters how to be strong; daring them to throw off the shackles of fashion and social laws that bind their natural female bodies and minds. With courageous defiance and rebellious natures, Harriet and Alice take on the world at a dangerous time for women’s freedom of expression.

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Book SynopsisIn October 1935, three Doukhobor farm boys embarked on a violent trail of robbery and murder that stretched from Manitoba to Alberta. By the time the spree ended near Banff, seven people were dead, including the fugitives and four law-enforcement officers. For the next 70 years, these farm-boy killers held the distinction of being the RCMP''s deadliest adversaries, yet many questions about the shocking case remained unanswered. This gripping narrative reveals surprising new details about the tragic events as it chronicles the disastrous impact of the Great Depression on the young killers and the lawmen who faced them down.

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Book SynopsisThe Canadian Oxford Dictionary defines hoax as a humorous or malicious deception, and hex as a magic spell. These stories of hoaxes and hexes illustrate our curious desire to believe in the impossible and explain the inexplicable. Portrayed here are accomplished hoaxers and swidnlders, including the flamboyant 19th-century financier known as Lord Gordon--Gordon; David Walsh, author of the horrendous Bre-X gold-mine hoax of the 1990s; and the eccentric Josef Papp, who claimed to have crossed the Atlantic in a homemade submarine.The persistent power of hexes is recorded in stories of cursed places--including a strange haunting in the Cypress Hills and a deadly Lake Superior lighthouse--and weird coincidences, such as the legendary Hollywood hex on Oscar-winning actresses. Whether humorous or malicious, real or imagined, hoaxes or hexes have entertained and ensnared us throughout history.

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Book SynopsisWilliam ''''Canada Bill'''' Jones once proclaimed that it was ''''immoral to let a sucker keep his money.'''' As a result, confidence men and women looking to make a quick buck find it easy to exploit the trusting and compassionate Canadian nature. Many have misrepresented, misguided and lied their way through some of the most convincing schemes ever pulled in Canada: * In 2002, bank manager Nick Lysyk helped himself to $16 million in fake loans from the Bank of Montreal, and by the time he was arrested, he had amassed 17 homes and 40 vehicles * Richard Minard, the ''''Con man for Christ,'''' claimed to be an ordained minister, and he convinced his trusting clients to invest money in time share condos that he did not own * Christophe Rocancourt was such a charismatic man that he managed to con many rich and powerful Hamptonites into believing he was really Christopher Rockefeller * Ferdinand Waldo Demara, ''''The Great Imposter,'''' conducted medical procedures while serving in the Canadian Navy, including major chest surgery, even though he wasn''t actually a surgeon. * And more.

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Book SynopsisIt is estimated that one in six Canadians will be victims of identity theft. Complaints of identity theft and fraud in Canada double and even triple each year, according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. Fraud artists often use electronic means to steal millions of dollars from ordinary Canadians. In some cases, the appropriation of an individual''s identity may go unnoticed for years, and some victims lose everything. But you can learn to safeguard your identity, recognize scams and protect yourself. This book examines: - how criminals target their victims - how they collect personal information - what they do with that information - why identity theft is so profitable and - the many types of fraud related to identity theft. It also explains ways to identify if you have been a victim of identity theft or fraud, and what you should do. Read the astonishing stories of people who have had their identity stolen, the heartbreak of their losses and how they recovered.

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Book SynopsisDo you think the smuggling of drugs and people is a new phenomenon in Canada''s west? Think again! Between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries, many daring smugglers carried contraband goods and people into western Canada across the US-Canada border or into BC from Asia. Smugglers of the West tells the dramatic tales of the bold criminals who smuggled Chinese immigrants, opium, liquor and a host of commodities ranging from wool to live animals to tobacco. Among them are Boss Harris, the shadowy kingpin whose opium-smuggling empire stretched from Victoria across North America, and King of the Smugglers Larry Kelly, who reputedly tied illegal Chinese immigrants to pig iron so they could be tossed overboard if American patrollers got too close. Rosemary Neering takes readers into a shadowy world where no item was too small and no risk too large for the men and women who carried goods and people clandestinely across the border.

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Book SynopsisA handsome, high-profile and tenacious defense attorney. Three elusive suspects. An investigation that stretches across four decades. And two frenetic murder trials. Decades of Doubt: the John McCabe Murder Saga is a gripping true-life mystery that follows the case of a 15-year-old boy bound and strangled in Massachusetts in 1969, the ensuing investigation that continues for over forty years, and the shocking events of the resulting trials. As defense counsel for one of three men charged with the crime, New Hampshire attorney Eric Wilson undermines the States evidence, destroys the credibility of the prosecutions star witness, and overcomes insurmountable odds in an attempt to bankrupt the prosecutions case. And even before the verdict is rendered, Wilson again raises the question to which readers will beg for an answer: who really killed John McCabe?

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Book SynopsisShortlisted for the Brass Knuckles Award for Best Nonfiction Crime Book at the Crime Writers of Canada Awards of Excellence!Finalist for Book Cover Design at the 2021 Alberta Book Publishing Awards!In his first true crime memoir, undercover operator Norm Boucher recounts eight months spent infiltrating Vancouver''s heroin scene, a world of paranoia, ripoffs, and violence. It is 1983 and the War on Drugs is intensifying. From his barroom observer''s seat, Boucher candidly reveals the lives of heroin addicts who spend each day looking for their next hit. Their dangerous subculture, centred around three gritty hotels on the Granville Strip, becomes Boucher''s domain as he attempts both to gain acceptance in a world far removed from his own and to keep himself safe.With Horseplay, decorated RCMP officer Norm Boucher takes readers back to the assignment that shaped his outlook on the role of criminal law enforcement and the human side of addiction as it collides with the ruthlessness of the drug business.

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Book SynopsisThe size of crypto investments in India stands at more than $10 billion, and about 15 million Indians have invested in cryptocurrencies. Most crypto traders are in the age group of twenty-two to thirty years, and hail from Tier 2, Tier 3 and Tier 4 towns. The volatility and easy money that crypto promises has turned it into a financial phenomenon. As the traders know, mining crypto coins is an arms race that rewards early adopters. And they are in a hurry. This book traces the murky underbelly of the crypto world and its mercurial spread across India-from the interiors of Uttar Pradesh, where crypto accounts are looted at gunpoint to quick black to white, switches for money in Bihar to the lure of drugs and parties in Karnataka and social media influencers who choose to be paid in crypto to circumvent both taxes and accountability.

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Book SynopsisOn 24 May 1971, based on a telephone call purportedly from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her secretary P.N. Haksar, the chief cashier at the Parliament Street branch of the State Bank of India handed over Rs 60 lakh to a stranger posing as the PM''s courier. The money was supposedly meant for secret operations in East Pakistan. When the chief cashier approached the PMO for a receipt, he was told that neither Haksar nor the PM had given any such instructions. He had been duped. Within a few hours, the Delhi Police recovered the cash and caught the man responsible for the heist, a former army captain-Rustom Sohrab Nagarwala.

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Book SynopsisUnderworld don Shakti Pillai in Bangkok uses technology for extortion and contract killings. India's wealthy hire assassin Venus to eliminate him. Other enemies also target Pillai, including a police inspector and former mentor. A thrilling cat-and-mouse game unfolds in Bangkok to capture the elusive don.

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Book SynopsisKwan Lai-chun was sick of being made to feel second-class by her husbands concubine; sick of her mother-in-laws endless carping about the money she spent; sick of the whole family. Late one sticky, humid night, something snapped in her -- and she grabbed the meat chopper. Within minutes, three people were dead: the concubine with over 70 gashes, many of them to the bone. Kwan was found guilty and became the second and last woman in Hong Kong to suffer the death penalty. But behind her story, and those of the citys other female murderers, lie complex webs of relationships and jealousies, poverty and despair. Taking the first 100 years of Hong Kongs colonial history, this book unravels the lives of women -- Chinese and Westerners alike -- who found themselves on the wrong side of the law. Hong Kongs female prison population was a tiny fraction of that in Britain or America, but there are still plenty of tales from its women kidnappers, smugglers, bomb-makers, thieves and cruel mistresses.

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Book SynopsisScandal and corruption, drugs and pirates, triads and flower boats; the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong and the Communist take-over of Canton. Peter Hui was there. He knew everybody and saw everything. This is the real story of Hong Kong, told with the rich flavours of the street. If Peter had been only a little bit different he could have been an important man. But this is a riches to rags to riches to rags story. As we follow Peter''s life, we see in sharp focus what it was like to be a Chinese man in the British territory of Hong Kong through most of the years of the 20th century. And yet this book is not just one man''s tale. It is the story of a time and place -- colonial Hong Kong, Portuguese Macau and the South China hinterland -- seen from the unique point of view of a man who was at home at all levels of society. This is the bizarre story of a man who really did, for a very short time, own all the opium in Hong Kong. If Suzie Wong had been a real person, Peter Hui would have known her.

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Book SynopsisPart of the outstanding biographical series – edited by Richard Holmes – that recovers the great classical tradition of English biography. Every book is a biographical masterpiece, still thrilling to read and vividly alive.

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Book SynopsisThe intensely moving memoir of Patrick Maguire, one of the ‘Maguire Seven’, wrongly imprisoned as a teenager for making bombs for the IRA.Trade Review'It goes deep into the mind of the abused boy who has become a troubled man.’ Mail on Sunday ‘Patrick Maguire…tells the sometimes unbearably poignant story of his childhood, sudden arrest, three years of prison and what came next.' Daily Mail 'Its power derives from Patrick himself…a damaged survivor with the burdens of a past he cannot shrug off. A devastating chronicle of injustice and blighted lives. It is moving and sad, and told without bitterness. It's not a happy story, but it is a necessary one.' Ronan Bennett, Guardian ‘Painfully honest and utterly compelling.’ Irish Mail on Sunday

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Book SynopsisThey call me Sour. The opposite of sweet. Shanking, stabbing, steaming, robbing, I did it all, rolling with the Man Dem. I did it because I was bad. I did it because I had heart. And the reason I reckon I got away with it for so long? Because I was a girl.

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Book SynopsisA heart-stopping story of lies, brutality and fear. British girl Megan Stephens tells the true story of how an idyllic Mediterranean holiday turned into an unimaginable nightmare when she was tricked into becoming a victim of human trafficking and held captive for six years by deception, threats and violence.

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Book SynopsisJohn "Red" Shea was a top lieutenant to South Boston's top Irish mobster, Whitey Bulger, and was the only guy to walk the walk and take the rap when the mob boss and his fellow rats turned and ran. Shea did 12 years of hard time to maintain his personal dignity and sense of integrity. This book provides an account of mob life and Red Shea.Trade Review"...a slick read dripping with the underworld holy trinity of sex, drugs, and violence...a bawdy page-turner." -- Publishers Weekly "...the hottest Irish-American mob story of all time." -- Liz Smith, New York Post "...dish-a-thon on Whitey Bulger." -- Boston Herald "...the only memoir told from the perspective of a mobster who refused to betray the code of silence." -- The Improper Bostonian

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