The Sahara Desert, February 1962: the wreckage of a plane emerges from the sands revealing, too, the body of the plane’s long-dead pilot. But who was he? And what had happened to him?

Baker Street, London, June 1927: twenty-five-year-old Jessie Miller had fled a loveless marriage in Australia, longing for adventure in the London of the Bright Young Things. At a gin-soaked party, she met Bill Lancaster, fresh from the Royal Air force, his head full of a scheme that would make him as famous as Charles Lindbergh, who has just crossed the Atlantic. Lancaster wanted to fly three times as far – from London to Melbourne – and in Jessie Miller he knew he had found the perfect co-pilot.

By the time they landed in Melbourne, the daring aviators were a global sensation – and, despite still being married to other people, deeply in love. Keeping their affair a secret, they toured the world until the Wall Street Crash changed everything; Bill and Jessie – like so many others – were broke. And it was then, holed up in a run-down mansion on the outskirts of Miami and desperate for cash, that Jessie agreed to write a memoir. When a dashing ghostwriter Haden Clark was despatched from New York, the toxic combination of the handsome interloper, bootleg booze and jealousy led to a shocking crime. The trial that followed put Jessie and Bill back on the front pages and drove him to a reckless act of abandon to win it all back.

The Lost Pilots is their extraordinary story, brought to vivid life by Corey Mead. Based on years of research and startling new evidence, and full of adventure, forbidden passion, crime, scandal and tragedy, it is a masterwork of narrative nonfiction that firmly restores one of aviation’s leading female pioneers to her rightful place in history.

Indiana Captain Matt Leach was at the helm of the violent years between 1933 and 1935 that came to be known in the Midwest as the era of the Public Enemy. Matt Leach elevated outlaw John Dillinger to unprecedented celebrity with press coverage aimed at smoking out the fugitive. In return, Dillinger vowed to kill him-a threat which never came to fruition. Leach's use of publicity backfired, making him a pariah among his fellow policemen, many of whom voiced suspicion of his tell-all approach to crime fighting. Leach rose to captain of the 1933 Indiana State Police from humble origins as the son of immigrant parents. By 1937, the FBI ordered him fired for challenging their authority. After returning to private life and later enlisting in World War II, Leach planned a book to challenge the FBI's version of the Dillinger's final months. His tragic death in a car accident-prophetically occurring right after a meeting with publishers over his planned book about the outlaw-consigned him to his rightful place in the morbid, 1930s war on crime.

This fascinating book looks at the phenomenon of murder and poisoning in the nineteenth century. Focusing on the case of William Palmer, a medical doctor who in 1856 was convicted of murder by poisoning, it examines how his case baffled toxicologists, doctors, detectives and judges. The investigation commences with an overview of the practice of toxicology in the Victorian era, and goes on to explore the demands imposed by legal testimony on scientific work to convict criminals. In addressing Palmer's trial, Burney focuses on the testimony of Alfred Swaine Taylor, a leading expert on poisons, and integrates the medical, legal and literary evidence to make sense of the trial itself and the sinister place of poison in wider Victorian society. Ian Burney has produced an exemplary work of cultural history, mixing a keen understanding of the contemporary social and cultural landscape with the scientific and medical history of the period. -- .

Even in a genre well known for generating controversy, some true-crime and scandal books have wielded a particular power to unsettle readers, provoke the authorities, and generate renewed focus on a case. For crimes and scandals that have attracted a library of more dubious investigations, the cumulative effect of the literature has been equally contentious, clouding the "truth" with a trail of myths and inaccuracies. From high-profile publishing sensations such as Ten Rillington Place, Fatal Vision, and Mommie Dearest to the wealth of writing on the JFK assassination, the death of Marilyn Monroe, and the Black Dahlia murder, this work delves into that hard copy era when crime and scandal books had a cultural impact beyond the genre's film and TV documentaries, fueling outcries that sometimes matched the notoriety of the cases they discussed, and leaving legacies that still resonate today.

There are two parts to every crime story: how they did it and why they got caught.This book is about the second part, and how it changes the way we catch serial killers. No two stories about the capture of a serial killer are the same. Sometimes, the killers make crucial mistakes; other times, investigators get lucky. And the process of profiling, hunting, and apprehending these predators has changed radically over time, particularly in the field of criminal forensics, which has exploded in the last ten to 15 years. Laser ablation, video spectral analysis, cyber-sleuthing, and even DNA-based genetic genealogy are now crucial tools in solving murders, including the recent capture of the so-called Golden State Killer. This book in the new Profiles in Crime series tells the history of forensics through the "capture stories" of some of the most notorious serial killers, going back almost a century. The killers include: Rodney Alcala, a serial rapist and murderer sometimes called "Dating Game killer" for his appearance on that TV show. No one knows the exact number of his victims. Takahiro Shiraishi, the suicide killer from Zama, Japan, who dismembered nine victims and stored their bodies in his refrigerator. Aileen Wuornos, one of the rare female serial killers. She shot seven men in Florida and was turned in by an accomplice. Jeffrey Dahmer, the "Milwaukee Cannibal," and Bobby Joe Long, both identified by survivors Ted Bundy and David Berkowitz ("Son of Sam"), who both made mistakes Ludwig Tessnow, who killed several children in Germany, and was caught through new methods in forensic investigation that could distinguish human from animal blood

Representing over four decades of work, this monograph by historian Mark H. Haller includes his work on organized crime in Chicago, particularly the origins of John Landesco's now classic work titled Organized Crime in Chicago (1929), written for the Illinois Crime Survey. Essays on organized crime in both Philadelphia and Chicago, as well as vignettes on Al "Scarface" Capone, Arnold "The Brain" Rothstein, Meyer Lansky, and Max "Boo Boo" Hoff, provide readers with a lively selection of Haller's commentary. Finally, this book incorporates Haller's critique of the Mafia model of organized crime and his elaboration of the illegal enterprise model of gangsters and their role in the American subeconomy, including the historical importance of prohibition and 19th century gambling syndicates in urban America.

If Americans were asked to select the best known and most celebrated outlaws, from among the many bad men produced by the Wild West, chances are Frank and Jesse James would be the choice of most people. The infamous brothers from Missouri, sided with the Confederacy and rode with with maurading guerrillas during the Civil War. Having learned to shoot and kill without moral compunction, they quickly and easily transitioned from Rebel fighters to daring outlaws, making their living by stealing from others. The brothers and their gang, that often included Cole Younger, robbed stage coaches, banks and trains in Missouri and surrounding states. But was the bank robbery in Northfield, Minnesota, the bank robbery gone wrong, followed by an amazing and improbable escape through Minnesota, Dakota and Iowa, that changed the James brothers from ordinary outlaws to legendary characters. The long, hard ride home, was a journey that took them into both history and folklore. And from time to time, like galloping ghosts, they emerge with guns ablazing.

"You are about to enter a world of drug smuggling, drug greed, and drug murder." With those words, the West Palm Beach assistant district attorney began the capital murder trial of Judy "Haas" McNelis. The only woman on the U.S. Federal Marshal's 15 Most-Wanted List, Judy had risen to the height of infamy as head of the "Haas Organization," a reputed $267 million dollar-a-year marijuana smuggling empire. But the real story was not what it would seem. Long before the mountains of cash and the jet-set lifestyle of a marijuana smuggling "queen-pin," Judy was simply a divorcee with two young children and a penchant for growing pot. In the tradition of The Glass Castle, My Most-Wanted Marijuana Mom is a son's candid and dynamic memoir of growing up in an eccentric dysfunctional family as his brash free-spirited mother struggles to succeed in the male-dominated world of international marijuana smuggling. A studious guitar-playing kid striving for normalcy, David Michael is thrust into an extraordinary adventure where dealers and smugglers, daredevil pilots, federal agents and hit men-even an accused KGB spy-are the norm and all part of an unconventional upbringing that provides a revelatory glimpse into a bygone era.

"Big Bob" Bashara put on a respectable face. To his friends in Detroit's affluent suburb of Grosse Pointe, he was a married father of two, Rotary Club President, church usher and soccer dad who organized charity events with his wife, Jane. To his "slaves," he was "Master Bob," cocaine-snorting slumlord who operated a sex dungeon and had a submissive girlfriend to do his bidding. But Bashara knew he couldn't rule a household of concubines on his income alone. He eyed his wife's sizable retirement account and formulated a murderous plan.

"Just finished Don Stradley's book on Edwin Valero, "Berserk." Outstanding. Predictably so because 1) Don is a super writer, and 2) the story is chilling and amazing.-Steve Farhood, Showtime boxing analyst, and International Boxing Hall of Fame member "There's no telling what went on during the next few hours, or where his paranoia took him, but in that room something terrible happened. At 5:30 a.m. Valero appeared in the lobby. As calmly as one might order something from room service, he told the staff that he had just killed his wife." Within the dark pages of Berserk: The Shocking Life and Death of Edwin Valero, author Don Stradley uncovers the gritty details of the undefeated (27-0, 27 KO), troubled, boxer Edwin Valero. Edwin Valero's life was like a rocket shot into a wall. With a perfect knockout record in twenty-seven fights, the demonic Venezuelan boxer, known as "El Inca" and "El Dinamita," seemed destined for a clash with all-time great Manny Pacquiao. But the Fates had other ideas. Fueled by cocaine and booze and paranoia, Valero blazed into a mania that derailed his career in the ring and resulted in the brutal death of his young wife Jennifer-and soon afterward, his own. In chilling detail, Don Stradley captures one of the darkest and most sensational boxing stories in recent memory, which, until now, has never been fully told. Filled with firsthand accounts from the men who trained Valero and the reporters who covered him, as well as insights from psychologists and forensic experts, Berserk is a hell-ride of a book. Berserk is the first in the Hamilcar Noir series, from Hamilcar Publications. Hamilcar Noir is "Hard-Hitting True Crime" that blends boxing and true crime, featuring riveting stories captured in high-quality prose, with cover art inspired by classic pulp novels. Perfect Gift For Boxing and True Crime Fans! Berserk, combined with other books in the Hamilcar Noir series, makes a great gift for fans of stories about the darker side of boxing. Books in the Hamilcar Noir series also make for a great gift idea for true crime fans-whether they are a die-hard boxing fan or not, they will devour these quick reads and ask for more!

Through an Unlocked Door] is a unique look (I don't know of another book quite like it) at the crime of murder occurring in the homes of those who, through a matter of conscious decision or simply not paying attention, failed to secure their homes and to lock their doors, and because of this, were easily slaughtered. It is both an in-depth look at those killers who went out of their way to find the unlocked doors, and those who suffered because of it. Indeed, the issue of the unlocked home crosses all societal, economic, and cultural lines; and can be found in abundance throughout all 50 U.S states. And this book is an attempt to bring this ""hidden"" problem to light, so that those who have had an issue with securing their dwellings, will make the proper changes, and in doing so, will greatly reduce their chances of becoming a homicide victim.

Looking at the accounts of the time, historian Kristofer Allerfeldt provides a readable and informative analysis of how and why we arrived at our present understanding of organized crime in the Unites States. By going back to the original accounts of the events that inform our understanding of much of the subject, this work will question some of our most deeply held assumptions on crime and its role in US society. In a series of thematic sections it will examine how America alternately celebrated and condemned ambitious gangsters and blood-thirsty hoodlums as well as equally ambitious and corrupt law enforcers and politicians in this era of rapid change. It will look at why we remember such figures as Al Capone, but have largely forgotten his far more successful and innovative precursor, Mike MacDonald. It will question why history has condemned some public figures for connections with the mob, and yet eulogized others who seem only to have covered their far muddier tracks much better, or had the fortune to have commentators, then and now, prove they paid off the right people.

THE RIVETING TRUE STORY OF HOW THE FBI BROUGHT DOWN THE FEARSOME MIGUEL TREVINO, LEADER OF LOS ZETAS, MEXICO'S MOST VIOLENT DRUG CARTEL. Drugs, money, cartels: this is what FBI rookie Scott Lawson expected when he was sent to the border town of Laredo, but instead he's deskbound writing intelligence reports about the drug war. Then, one day, Lawson is asked to check out an anonymous tip: a horse was sold at an Oklahoma auction house for a record-topping price, and the buyer was Miguel Trevino, one of the leaders of the Zetas, Mexico's most brutal drug cartel. The source suggested that Trevino was laundering money through American quarter horse racing. If this was true, it offered a rookie like Lawson the perfect opportunity to infiltrate the cartel. Lawson teams up with a more experienced agent, Alma Perez, and, taking on impossible odds, sets out to take down one of the world's most fearsome drug lords. In Bloodlines, Emmy and National Magazine Award-winning journalist Melissa del Bosque follows Lawson and Perez's harrowing attempt to dismantle a cartel leader's American racing dynasty built on extortion and blood money. Throwing back the curtain on the inner workings of cartel kingpins and law enforcement agencies, del Bosque turns more than three years of research and her decades of reporting on Mexico and the border into a gripping narrative about greed and corruption. Bloodlines offers us an unprecedented look at the inner workings of the Zetas and US federal agencies, and opens a new vista onto the changing nature of the drug war and its global expansion.

A trunk dripping blood, discovered at a railway station in Stockton in 1906, launched one of the most famous murder investigations in California history-still debated by crime historians. In 1913, the dismembered body of a young pregnant woman, found in New York City's East River, was traced back to her killer and husband, who remains the only priest executed for homicide in the U.S. In 1916, a successful dentist, recently married into a prestigious family, poisoned his in-laws-first with deadly bacteria, then with arsenic-claiming the real murderer was an Egyptian incubus who took control of his body. Drawing on court transcripts, newspaper coverage and other contemporary sources, this collection of historical American true crime stories chronicles five murder cases that became media sensations of their day, making headlines across the country in the decades before radio or television.

This book examines the use of cryptography in both real and fictional crimes-a topic that is rarely broached. It discusses famous crimes, such as that of the Zodiac Killer, that revolve around cryptic messages and current uses of encryption that make solving cases harder and harder. It then draws parallels with the use of cryptography and secret writing in crime fiction, starting with Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle, claiming that there is an implicit principle in all such writing-namely, that if the cryptogram is deciphered then the crime itself reveals its structure. The general conclusion drawn is that solving crimes is akin to solving cryptograms, as the crime fiction writers suggested. Cases of cryptographic crime, from unsolved cold cases to the Mafia crimes, are discussed and mapped against this basic theoretical assumption. The book concludes by suggesting that by studying cryptographic crimes the key to understanding crime may be revealed.

The story of FIFA's fall from grace has it all: power, betrayal, revenge, sports stars, hustlers, corruption, sex and phenomenal quantities of money, all set against exotic locales stretching from Caribbean beaches to the formal staterooms of the Kremlin and the sun-blasted streets of Doha, Qatar.

In Red Card, investigative journalist Ken Bensinger takes a journey to FIFA's dark heart. He introduces the flamboyant villains of the piece - the FIFA kingpins who flaunted their wealth in private jets and New York's grandest skyscrapers - and the dogged team of American FBI and IRS agents, headed by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who finally brought them to book. Providing fresh insights on a scandal which has gripped the world, he shows how greed and arrogance brought down the most powerful institution in sporting history.

A wild, gritty, gripping, and at times blackly comic story, Red Card combines world-class journalism with the pace of a thriller. Red Card (filmed as Houses of Deceit) will be a major film, produced by Pearl Street Films, the production company owned by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.

The history of Louisiana is vibrant, culturally diverse, and interesting to persons from all over the world. But like most states, Louisiana holds mysterious and nefarious secrets about a murderous past. Bloodstained Louisiana profiles some of the most controversial (and some forgotten) homicide cases in the state's history. This macabre study demonstrates the murkiest depths of the killer imagination revolving around a cycle of continuing evil. Bloodstained Louisiana relies on sources from the deepest recesses of archives and various historical collections to present the stories of the gruesome side of the state's legacy. The work includes murders stemming from or involving social issues such as racism, demonization of gender, jealousy, abandonment, lust, and greed; all of the cases are chronologically listed to guide the reader through a shadowy maze of depravity and provides insight to the blackest parts of the human soul. More of a documentation than an amateur detective recitation, the reader will be able to draw their own conclusions after examining the cases in detail.

Christopher Berry-Dee is back. In Talking With Serial Killers: World's Most Evil, the bestselling author delves deeper still into the gloomy underworld of killers and their crimes. He examines, with shocking detail and clarity, the lives and lies of people who have killed, and shines a light on the motives behind their horrific crimes. Through interviews with the killers, the police and key members of the prosecution, alongside careful analysis of the cases themselves, the reader is given unprecedented insight into the most diabolical minds that humanity has to offer. Extending its sweep from lonesome outsiders to upstanding members of the community, Talking With Serial Killers: World's Most Evil shows that the world's most monstrous killers may be far closer than you think. . .

On a September night in 1958, three New Orleans college students decided to entertain themselves in the French Quarter by "rolling a queer" and went looking for a gay man to assault. They chose Fernando Rios, a tourist from Mexico, who died from the beating he received. In perhaps the earliest example of the "gay panic" defense, the three defendants argued that they had no choice but to beat Rios because he had made an improper advance. When the jury acquitted them, the courtroom cheered. The author examines the murder and the trial in detail, and chronicles a time and place in American history where such a crime was inevitable.

Sin City Gangsters: The Rise and Decline of the Mob in Las Vegas is a fast-paced account of how the mob created and controlled Las Vegas. It contains accounts of how the most powerful mobsters in the country built, bought, and controlled not only gambling casinos in Vegas, but also many important politicians, who did the mob's bidding. Some of the more notorious mobsters were Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, Moe Dalitz, Sam Giancana, Tony Accardo, and Nick Civella, as well as the men they chose to carry out their plans, such as Tony Spilotro, Lefty Rosenthal, and Donald Angelini. Sin City Gangsters devotes a chapter to Jimmy Hoffa, and how the Teamsters Pension Fund financed the mob's casinos. The book also offers fascinating accounts of the roles of Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley in Vegas. Another chapter is devoted to Howard Hughes, who arrived in the dead of night in a sealed, germ-free railroad car and did not leave his suite at the Desert Inn for years. During that time he bought one casino after another as if playing Monopoly. Following his exit and that of the mob, Vegas became the domain of Jay Sarno, Kirk Kerkorian, Steve Wynn, and Sheldon Adelson. They were visionaries who transformed Vegas into the entertainment capital of the world by building billion-dollars-plus resorts and hiring the most popular contemporary entertainers. Sin City Gangsters is the only book that charts Vegas from the first modest mob-owned casinos to the present billion-dollar-resorts; its cast of characters is an assembly of exceedingly ambitious risk takers who let nothing stand in their way of turning their dreams into stunning realities.

In December 1883, five outlaws attempted to rob the A.A. Castaneda Mercantile in the fledgling mining town of Bisbee in the Arizona Territory. The robbery was a disaster: four citizens shot dead, one a pregnant woman. The failed heist was national news, with the subsequent manhunt, trial and execution of the alleged perpetrators followed by newspapers from New York to San Francisco. The Bisbee Massacre was as momentous as the infamous blood feud between the Earp brothers and the cowboys two years earlier, and led to the only recorded lynching in Tombstone-John Heath, a sporting man, was thought to be the mastermind. But new research indicates he may have been innocent. This comprehensive history takes a fresh look at the event that marked the end of the Wild West period in the Arizona Territory.

Meet Brick and Wax, two bright eighteen-year-olds looking for a route out of poverty. When Baltimore was engulfed in riots in 2015 they helped loot pharmacies, stealing over $100 million worth of opiates. The plan: to use their gang connections and programming skills to set up a high tech drug delivery service. The result: the teens became America's youngest drug lords, in the process sparking bloody gang warfare and a nationwide wave of addiction and murder. Now mixing in deadly circles, Brick and Wax soon found their own lives were on the line . . . As gripping and compulsive as a thriller, Pill City takes us into the heat of the action as Brick and Wax outwit the FBI and DEA, gang members like Damage and Lyric live and die by their own brutal code, the cops battle to stop the carnage, and a high-school coach risks a bullet to get addicts into rehab. Even today the teens' identity has not been uncovered, and one is prospering in Silicon Valley. Award-winning criminal justice reporter Kevin Deutsch has interviewed all the key players and interweaves their stories to tell a gritty, hard-hitting story of survival in the Baltimore underworld.