Search results for ""Author Douglas Thompson""

Drawing on new interviews and previously hidden police and intelligence files, Reckless finally reveals the full corruption of America's Camelot.

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April Ashley was a trailblazing figure in the fight for trans visibility and acceptance, one of the first British people to undergo gender-reassignment surgery, in 1960 - this is her remarkable story

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Cilla Black is one of Britain's best loved entertainers and an icon of the sixties. Known to one generation for a string of number one hits like 'Anyone Who Had a Heart' and 'You're My World', and loved by another for hosting the classic ITV show Blind Date, Cilla has come a long way from hanging coats in Liverpool's Cavern Club for five bob an hour. In Cilla: Queen of the Swinging Sixties, Douglas Thompson traces her rise to the top, her heart-warming marriage to Bobby Willis and the profound effect his death had on her. This affectionate biography is fitting tribute to 50 years in show-business for 'our Cilla'.

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In her own words, the life of the beautiful young model and dancer who helped to bring down the Tory government of Harold Macmillan - the 'Profumo Affair' remains the greatest political sex scandal in recent British history.Following Christine Keeler's death in December 2017, it is now possible to update her book to include revelations that she did not wish to be published in her lifetime. The result is a revised and updated book containing material that has never been officially released, which really does lift the lid on just how far the Establishment will go to protect its own.Published to coincide with the BBC's major new six-part TV drama series, The Trial of Christine Keeler, starring Sophie Cookson as Keeler and James Norton as Stephen Ward

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‘Bobby called. He’s coming to California. He wants to see me.’ Drawing on secret police files, Marilyn Monroe’s private diary and never before published first-hand testimony, this book proves that Robert Kennedy was directly responsible for her death. It details the legendary star’s tumultuous personal involvement with him and his brother, President John Kennedy, and how they plotted to silence her. The new evidence and revelatory statements are provided by Mike Rothmiller who, as a detective of the Organized Crime Intelligence Division (OCID) of the LAPD, had direct personal access to hundreds of restricted LAPD files on exactly what happened at Marilyn Monroe’s Californian home on August 5, 1962. With his training and investigator’s knowledge, Rothmiller used that confidential information to get to the heart of the matter, to the people who were there the night Marilyn died – two of whom played major roles in the cover-up – and the wider conspiracy to protect the Kennedys whatever the collateral damage. There will be those with doubts, but to them, the lawman – who directed international intelligence operations targeting organized crime – says the printed, forensic and oral evidence are totally convincing. He insists: ‘If I presented my evidence in any court of law, I’d get a conviction.’

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The astonishing true story of the Scottish coal miner’s daughter who took on the Mafia-backed creators of the world’s biggest financial fraud and helped the FBI to convict them Soon to be a major Hollywood film directed by Scott Z Burns ‘In the 1990s, Erin Brockovich showed what a difference one smart, angry woman can make in a world that marginalized her. Jen McAdam stepped forward in our time to shut down a diabolical fraud that preys those most desperate.’ Scott Z Burns, Director (Contagion and The Bourne Ultimatum)As featured on the hit BBC podcast The Missing CryptoqueenJen McAdam was a victim of the OneCoin global cryptocurrency fraud, which stole an estimated $27 billion from ordinary people around the world. The evil genius of the scam was its target, society’s ‘unbanked,’ not wealthy investors, and it robbed millions of their livelihood and futures. The poor became poorer. The brutal plundering led by self-styled Cryptoqueen Ruja Ignatova defied all legal and banking barriers bamboozling financial authorities — until Jen McAdam fought back. With a £15,000 inheritance from her father, saved from a careful life in a west of Scotland mining town, Jen wanted to invest wisely for her family’s future and was enraptured by the possibilities offered by OneCoin’s promotional material and convincing endorsements from celebrities and financial institutions. They, like all Dr Ruja’s flamboyant promises, were bogus. Jen McAdam was the first victim brave enough to fight back and despite death threats and an intimidating campaign to shut her down, and through a debilitating illness, strived tirelessly for justice – for herself, her family and friends, and the millions around the world who lost everything. She created and continues to lead victims ’support groups and in 2023, as the OneCoin bandits were being punished by international courts, spearheaded a move to get financial compensation for the many whose life hopes were cruelly crushed by the Cryptoqueen. This is a true David-and-Goliath story. It shows us the power we can have as individuals, even when things seem hopeless.

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It was said of the young Frank Sinatra that he came across as ‘St Francis of Assisi with a shoulder holster’. In Frank Sinatra and the Mafia Murders Mike Rothmiller and Douglas Thompson draw on previously secret Los Angeles Police intelligence files, a cache of FBI documents released to the authors in 2021 and extensive interviews with prime sources, including many who worked with Frank Sinatra and many more who tracked his long and fatal association with the American Mafia, notably his ongoing connection, after his original godfather was assassinated: Sam ‘Momo’ Giancana, who shared a lover with President John F. Kennedy. Sixteen days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy on 30 November 1963, nineteen-year-old Frank Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped at gunpoint from his hotel room in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. A $240,000 ransom was demanded from his father. While the FBI and Nevada and California law-enforcement agencies sprang into action, Frank secretly contacted his Mafia friends for help. The Mafia believed they could free young Frank much more quickly through their underworld connections. Some of those they questioned died. Revealed here as never before is the extent to which Sinatra was adopted by the Mafia. They promoted his career and ‘watched his back’ and, in return, Sinatra danced to their tune. New information disclosed here shows that Sinatra also offered to spy for the CIA. Inside sources say Sinatra wanted the CIA to intercede to stop an investigation into his gaming licence in Las Vegas. But the CIA declined because they were already working with the Mob and were concerned Sinatra would learn of the Mafia’s connection to the CIA and leak it.

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THE FINAL WORD FROM THE LAST KING OF GANGLAND WITH A FOREWORD BY MARTINA COLE'We couldn't, we wouldn't, let anyone take a liberty. That was never an option at that time.'Eddie Richardson is the last brand-name gangster. Say the name and the world of violent criminality grabs you by the throat.The Richardson brothers, Eddie and Charlie, and their infamous 'Torture Gang', made money while their rivals Ronnie and Reggie Kray made fatal mischief. They fought each other, but now, in 2018, Eddie Richardson says: 'They tell me blood is thicker than water, but with Charlie it wasn't so. He was evil.'With his brother dead, Eddie Richardson feels free to detail the story of a vicious family feud that provoked extravagant acrimony. No Handcuffs unravels the mysteries of decades of crime and political incident. The story of a turbulent era, it rivals the most imaginative fiction in its portrayal of gangland life with all its chanciness and rawness and careless disregard for any obstacle on the way to its target, the big money.In an inspired collaboration with bestselling author Douglas Thompson, the mature Eddie Richardson is given a voice to reflect on his journey from the scrapyards of South London to the glitz and glamour of the West End nightclubs, to the flesh and tease of Soho, down Downing Street and through the door of Number 10 to the perils of espionage and international intrigue, and his elevation to demigod status in hard-men territory - and finally as a high-security inmate at Her Majesty's pleasure, but with a personal fridge kept well stocked with gourmet food. No Handcuffs resonates today for, if anything, greed and corruption are more perverse, more rampant. As Eddie Richardson points out: 'We wrote the handbook for them.'

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