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Books > Fiction > True stories > Crime
Just before Christmas 1908, Marion Gilchrist, a wealthy 82-year-old spinster, was found bludgeoned to death in her Glasgow home. A valuable diamond brooch was missing, and police soon fastened on a suspect - Oscar Slater, a Jewish immigrant who was rumoured to have a disreputable character. Slater had an alibi, but was nonetheless convicted and sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment in the notorious Peterhead Prison.
Seventeen years later, a convict called William Gordon was released from Peterhead. Concealed in a false tooth was a message, addressed to the only man Slater thought could help him - Arthur Conan Doyle. Always a champion of the downtrodden, Conan Doyle turned his formidable talents to freeing Slater, deploying a forensic mind worthy of Sherlock Holmes.
Drawing from original sources including Oscar Slater's prison letters, this is Margalit Fox's vivid and compelling account of one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in Scottish history.
When Benny Martinez walks into the offices of the Philadelphia
Daily News in 2008 to speak with reporter Wendy Ruderman, the paper
is on the brink of bankruptcy. What he tells Wendy and her
colleague Barbara Laker is too shocking to ignore: his career as a
confidential informant for a member of the Philadelphia Police
Department's narcotics squad has drawn him into a web of
corruption, and now Benny is afraid for his life. Busted is
Ruderman and Laker's riveting account of their investigation into
the acts committed by powerful rogue members of the narcotics
squad. By dint of perseverance, ingenuity, and good old
shoe-leather reporting, the women unraveled a tapestry of lies.
Starting with the discovery of fabricated search warrants, they
soon find that the scandal encompasses a systematic looting of
immigrant-owned businesses and allegations of brutal sexual
assault. When Ruderman and Laker produce a devastating series of
articles that blows the lid off the scandal, they not only win the
fight for justice. They also win a Pulitzer Prize for Investigative
Reporting, an unthinkable triumph for two city reporters at a
beleaguered local paper.
This is a story that is based on truth. Over forty years ago three
young lives were taken. They never had a chance for justice until
now. But what actually had happened is the wrong man has been
convicted of this heinous crime. The real murderer was never tried
or convicted. He walked through life with this lie and got away
with it. How do I know? He was my father. This is a journey inward
to find the disturbing truth about a man that was a mystery to all.
"America's best true-crime writer" (Kirkus Reviews) presents an
all-new collection of crime stories drawn from her private files
and featuring the riveting case of a fraudulent doctor whose
lifelong deceptions had deadly consequences. The inspiration behind
the upcoming Lifetime movie event Desperate Hours. Dr. Anthony
Pignataro was a cosmetic surgeon and a famed medical researcher
whose flashy red Lamborghini and flamboyant lifestyle in western
New York State suggested a highly successful career. But
appearances can be deceiving-and, for the doctor's wife, very
nearly deadly. Now, the motivations of the classic sociopath are
plumbed with chilling accuracy by Ann Rule. Along with other
shocking true cases, this worldwide headline-making case will have
you turning pages in disbelief that a trusted medical professional
could sink to the depths of greed, manipulation, and
self-aggrandizement where even slow, deliberate murder is not seen
for what it truly is: pure evil.
The Sunday Times Top 10 Bestseller 'There is time and then there is
Broadmoor time.' Broadmoor. Few place names in the world have such
chilling resonance. For over 150 years, it has contained the UK's
most violent, dangerous and psychopathic. Since opening as an
asylum for the criminally insane in 1863 it has housed the
perpetrators of many of the most shocking crimes in history;
including Jack the Ripper suspect James Kelly, serial killers Peter
Sutcliffe (the Yorkshire Ripper), John Straffen and Kenneth
Erskine, armed robber Charles Bronson, gangster Ronnie Kray, and
cannibal Peter Bryan. The truth about what goes on behind the
Victorian walls of the high security hospital has largely remained
a mystery, but now with unprecedented access TV journalist Jonathan
Levi and cultural historian Emma French paint a vivid picture of
life at Broadmoor, after nearly a decade observing and speaking to
those on the inside. Including interviews with the staff, its
experts and the patients themselves, Inside Broadmoor is the most
comprehensive study of the institution to-date. Published at the
dawn of a new era for the hospital, this is the full story of
Broadmoor's past, present and future and a dark but enlightening
journey into the minds of Britain's most dangerous and how they are
treated.
Although they account for only ten percent of all murders, those
attributed to women seem especially likely to captivate the public.
This absorbing book examines why that is true and how some women,
literally, get away with murder. Combining compelling storytelling
with insightful observations, the book invites readers to take a
close look at ten high-profile killings committed by American
women. The work exposes the forces that underlie the public's
fascination with female killers and determine why these women so
often become instant celebrities. Cases are paired by motive-love,
money, revenge, self-defense, and psychopathology. Through them,
the authors examine the appeal of women who commit murders and show
how perceptions of their crimes are shaped. The book details both
the crimes and the criminals as it explores how pop culture treats
stereotypes of female murderers in film and print. True crime
aficionados will be fascinated by the minute descriptions of what
happened and why, while pop culture enthusiasts will appreciate the
lens of societal norms through which these cases are examined.
These bald facts, horrific as they are, do not begin to scratch the
surface of the truth about Robert Black, a Scottish-born serial
killer who undoubtedly committed further murders for which he was
never tried, both in this country and on the Continent. In this
ground-breaking account, Robert Giles, who has spent years tracing
the killer's movements and sifting through all the evidence,
including transcripts of the trials, convincingly argues that Black
was an habitual serial killer over many years, and quite certainly
responsible for more than the four child murders for which he was
convicted. Co-written with Chris Clark, a former police
intelligence officer whose tireless work into the Yorkshire Ripper
produced convincing new evidence of other murders that went
unnoticed or unrecorded, The Face of Evil shows once and for all
that Robert Black was a serial killer whose crimes went far beyond
what is generally believed. In doing so, it paints a portrait of
human cruelty at its worst.
In February 1983, civil servant Dennis Nilsen was arrested after
body parts were found to be blocking drains at the house where he
lived. As the squad car drove him away, he confessed he had
strangled 15 young men. It wasn't just the crimes that stunned the
police, but the way Nilsen talked. He spoke as if he loved the
young men he killed. His words seemed bizarre. When newspapers
carried stories of how the 37-year-old lured men back to his flat
and why, the nation was shocked by his sheer evil. Yet some
psychiatrists considered him a man of rare, complex, and extreme
psychological problems. Moreover, they had never met a killer who
seemed so keen to understand his own psyche. Whilst on remand in
Brixton Prison, Nilsen filled 55 exercise books with thoughts.
During his subsequent thirty years in prison he has continued to
write, most notably on the first draft of a multi-volume
autobiography. The Home Office has now banned it, calling the work
pornographic and outrageous. Only one journalist has read the book.
Using exclusive access to Nilsen's writing and extensive
independent research, Russ Coffey explains what Nilsen says and how
much of it we can believe. This is a shocking glimpse into the mind
of a killer.
As Judge Robert Clive Jones enters the courtroom, plaintiff
Frank Romano takes a deep breath. Finally, after all this time, his
opportunity to seek justice has arrived. As Judge Jones bangs his
gavel, a trial to determine the responsibility for the largest
cheating scandal in Nevada Gaming History begins.
Several years earlier, beneath the neon lights of Las Vegas,
Romano became a partner in the American Coin Company. In the 1980s,
as the company grew to be the third largest slot company in Nevada,
Romano was content with his challenging and profitable work,
despite regularly being at odds with his partners over the
operating principles of the business. But in 1989, Romano's world
changed forever when American Coin was seized and closed by the
Gaming Control Board for rigging programs. In his gripping story of
white collar crime, Frank shares the incredible details of his fall
from grace and how he dedicated the rest of his life to recovering
his monetary losses and professional reputation.
"American Coin" provides an unforgettable glimpse behind closed
doors of Nevada's biggest gaming scandal as one man embarks on a
road to redemption lined with betrayal, deception, and murder.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLD DAGGER AWARD 'A tale of obsession ...
vivid and arresting' The Times One summer evening in 2009,
twenty-year-old musical prodigy Edwin Rist broke into the Natural
History Museum at Tring, home to one of the largest ornithological
collections in the world. Once inside, Rist grabbed as many rare
bird specimens as he was able to carry before escaping into the
darkness. Kirk Wallace Johnson was waist-deep in a river in New
Mexico when his fly-fishing guide first told him about the heist.
But what would possess a person to steal dead birds? And had Rist
paid for his crime? In search of answers, Johnson embarked upon a
worldwide investigation, leading him into the fiercely secretive
underground community obsessed with the Victorian art of salmon
fly-tying. Was Edwin Rist a genius or narcissist? Mastermind or
pawn?
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