Every day in the United States, people test their luck in numerous lotteries, from state-run games to massive programs like Powerball and Mega Millions. Yet few are aware that the origins of today's lotteries can be found in an African American gambling economy that flourished in urban communities in the mid-twentieth century. In Running the Numbers, Matthew Vaz reveals how the politics of gambling became enmeshed in disputes over racial justice and police legitimacy. As Vaz highlights, early urban gamblers favored low-stakes games built around combinations of winning numbers. When these games became one of the largest economic engines in nonwhite areas like Harlem and Chicago's south side, police took notice of the illegal business--and took advantage of new opportunities to benefit from graft and other corrupt practices. Eventually, governments found an unusual solution to the problems of illicit gambling and abusive police tactics: coopting the market through legal state-run lotteries, which could offer larger jackpots than any underground game. By tracing this process and the tensions and conflicts that propelled it, Vaz brilliantly calls attention to the fact that, much like education and housing in twentieth-century America, the gambling economy has also been a form of disputed terrain upon which racial power has been expressed, resisted, and reworked.

"A fascinating 'creative nonfiction' account of the greatest unsolved mystery in Swedish history." -Wall Street Journal "It's more than just a thrilling book...There's a lot of evidence that points to an international conspiracy." -CBS This Morning Saturday The author of the Millennium novels laid out the clues. Now a journalist is following them. When Stieg Larsson died, the author of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo had been working on a true mystery that out-twisted his Millennium novels: the assassination on February 28, 1986, of Olof Palme, the Swedish prime minister. It was the first time in history that a head of state had been murdered without a clue who'd done it-and on a Stockholm street at point-blank range. Internationally known for his fictional villains, Larsson was well acquainted with their real-life counterparts and documented extremist activities throughout the world. For years he'd been amassing evidence that linked their terrorist acts to what he called "one of the most astounding murder cases" he'd ever covered. Larsson's archive was forgotten until journalist Jan Stocklassa was given exclusive access to the author's secret project. In The Man Who Played with Fire, Stocklassa collects the pieces of Larsson's true-crime puzzle to follow the trail of intrigue, espionage, and conspiracy begun by one of the world's most famous thriller writers. Together they set out to solve a mystery that no one else could.

Separating fact from fiction, Anatomy of an Injustice - The Killing of Fr Niall Molloy re-examines the astonishing circumstances surrounding the death of a 52-year-old priest almost forty years ago. In July 1985, the discovery of Fr Niall Molloy's badly beaten body in the bedroom of his close friends and business associates, Richard and Therese Flynn, was the stuff of soap operas, not of a small rural village in the Irish midlands. The gentle-natured cleric came to a violent and bloody end during a weekend of extravagant wedding celebrations at the Flynn stately home, Kilcoursey House. For decades, the events of that tragic night fuelled rife speculation and gossip, as well as allegations of a cover-up by the State and Church, and today his death remains unsolved and shrouded in mystery. From an extraordinary criminal trial and acquittal, which conflicted with a subsequent inquest verdict, to a botched investigation and questions over motive, the savage beating of Fr Niall Molloy continues to beg more questions than answers. Anatomy of an Injustice - The Killing of Fr Niall Molloy builds on fresh revelations unveiled in a recent two-part TV documentary for RTE, 'The killing of Fr Niall Molloy', to detail and document the whole story before and after that fateful summer Sunday. In this new book, TV documentary producer, Sharon Lawless of Flawless Films, and Maresa Fagan, a journalist of 20 years standing, delve further into the case to test evidence, old and new, and follow the money trail. It forensically analyses all available facts and testimony given at the 1986 trial and inquest and also hears from criminal and medical experts about how Fr Molloy died and about what really might have occurred that night. This story of significant public interest also sheds light on the many injustices in the case and how the Molloy family were let down by the State and criminal justice system.

Introducing us to eleven ordinary women who came to commit extreme acts, Anna Motz - one of Britain's leading forensic psychotherapists - sheds light on women's capacity for violence. She takes the reader on a journey into psychotherapy, uncovering their motives and the fault lines in their psyche that led to their crimes. We meet Mary, who turned to arson after her son was taken into care, Maja, whose fantasy life led to her stalking an ex-boyfriend, and Dolores, whose terrible crime is unimaginable to most people. Always treating her patients with care and compassion, despite often struggling to process the details of their deeds, Anna Motz explores the dance between patient and therapist and the tortuous pathways to recovery and understanding. Deeply affecting, compelling and profound, A Love That Kills offers a rare glimpse inside the world of the forensic psychotherapist and asks us to consider vital questions about how society treats women who commit terrible crimes.

They were an elite group of renegade Fleet Street crime reporters covering the most notorious British crime between the mid-1930s and the mid-1960s. It was an era in which murder dominated the front and inside pages of the newspapers - the 'golden age' of tabloid crime. Members of the Murder Gang knew one another well. They drank together in the same Fleet Street pubs, but they were also ruthlessly competitive in pursuit of the latest scoop. It was said that when the Daily Express covered a big murder story they would send four cars: one containing their reporters, the other three to block the road at crime scenes to stop other rivals getting through. As a matter of course, Murder Gang members listened in to police radios, held clandestine meetings with killers on the run, made huge payments to murderers and their families - and jammed potatoes into their rivals' exhaust pipes so their cars wouldn't start. These were just the tools of the trade; it was a far cry from modern reporting. Here, Neil Root delves into their world, examining some of the biggest crime stories of the era and the men who wrote them. In turns fascinating, shocking and comical, this tale of true crime, media and social history will have you turning the pages as if they were those newspapers of old.

The true story surrounding the world's most notorious, alleged haunted house in Amityville, New York.

'It's a rollicking tale that brings to life the antic atmosphere of America in the 'Me' Decade' Wall Street Journal 'A madcap chase... this is a well-written chronicle of 28 months when the world went slightly mad' Sunday Times 'A suitably head-spinning account of LSD High Priest Dr Timothy Leary' Mail on Sunday On the moonlit evening of September 12, 1970, an ex-Harvard professor with a genius IQ studies a twelve-foot high fence topped with barbed wire. A few months earlier, Dr. Timothy Leary, the High Priest of LSD, had been running a gleeful campaign for California governor against Ronald Reagan. Now, Leary is six months into a ten-year prison sentence for the crime of possessing two marijuana cigarettes. Aided by the radical Weather Underground, Leary's escape from prison is the counterculture's union of "dope and dynamite," aimed at sparking a revolution and overthrowing the government. Inside the Oval Office, President Richard Nixon drinks his way through sleepless nights as he expands the war in Vietnam and plots to unleash the United States government against his ever-expanding list of domestic enemies. Antiwar demonstrators are massing by the tens of thousands; homemade bombs are exploding everywhere; Black Panther leaders are threatening to burn down the White House; and all the while Nixon obsesses over tracking down Timothy Leary, whom he has branded "the most dangerous man in America." Based on freshly uncovered primary sources and new firsthand interviews, THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA is an American thriller that takes readers along for the gonzo ride of a lifetime. Spanning twenty-eight months, President Nixon's careening, global manhunt for Dr. Timothy Leary winds its way among homegrown radicals, European aristocrats, a Black Panther outpost in Algeria, an international arms dealer, hash-smuggling hippies from the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, and secret agents on four continents, culminating in one of the trippiest journeys through the American counterculture.

From the hit TV series come two true-crime stories where the bonds of matrimony and love can tear you brutally apart

TILL MURDER DO US PART
(with Andrew Bourelle)

Kathi Spiars can't believe she's found such a good man to marry as Stephen Marcum. Twelve years later, she starts to suspect that he isn't who he says he is. As she digs into his past, she doesn't realise that learning the truth will lead to a lifetime of fear and hiding.

RAMP UP TO MURDER
(with Max DiLallo)

Brandi McClain, a young beautiful teenager, moves to Tucson, Arizona, where she quickly meets her new best friend and her new boyfriend. But her perfect life is about to turn on its head. In San Diego, investigator Terry Jensen hunts for a missing girl. It's a case that seems to plagued by dead ends. But once the truth emerges, it's more haunting than he could have imagined.

"I'm not going to let you go. It took longer than I'd bargained to get you unconscious. I'm planning to keep you here for a couple of years or so." When Isabel Eriksson wakes up she's not sure where she is. She's got a needle in her arm. Next to the bed a man is sitting and staring at her. He tells her that he intends to keep her locked up. Isabel realises that the only way for her to get out alive is to somehow make him release her and so a psychological game begins. Will Isabel remain in the bunker forever?

This factual story about how Christopher Evans and John Sontag came to be the most wanted men in California in 1893 is also the story of life in the San Joaquin Valley at the turn of the century, where harsh realities forced rash acts that had far-reaching repercussions. Wanted for murder and train robbery, Evans and Sontag were the focus of a statewide manhunt that reads like a Hollywood western: A U.S. marshal, Apache trackers, the California judicial system, and the one supreme power in California in the late 19th century--the Southern Pacific Railroad--all took a hand in creating their amazing story. The incredible history of this area of central California, now the richest agricultural area in the world, is recounted, from 25,000-acre wheat farms and the birth of the Caterpillar tractor to the development of its huge gold and silver deposits and natural gas and oil resources.

Eleven women went missing over the spring and summer of 1988 in New Bedford, Massachusetts, an old fishing port known as the Whaling City, where Moby Dick, Frederick Douglass, textile mills, and heroin-dealing represent just a few of the many threads in the community's diverse fabric. In Shallow Graves, investigative reporter Maureen Boyle tells the story of a case that has haunted New England for forty years. The Crimes: The skeletal remains of nine of the women, aged nineteen to thirty-six, were discovered near highways around New Bedford. Some had clearly been strangled, others were so badly decomposed that police were left to guess how they had died. The Victims: All the missing women had led troubled lives of drug addiction, prostitution, and domestic violence, including Nancy Paiva, whose sister was a hard-working employee of the City of New Bedford, and Debra Greenlaw DeMello, who came from a solidly middle-class family but fell into drugs and abusive relationships. In a bizarre twist, Paiva's clothes were found near DeMello's body. The Investigators: Massachusetts state troopers Maryann Dill and Jose Gonsalves were the two constants in a complex cast of city, county, and state cops and prosecutors. They knew the victims, the suspects, and the drug-and-crime-riddled streets of New Bedford. They were present at the beginning of the case and they stayed to the bitter end. The Suspects: Kenneth Ponte, a New Bedford attorney and deputy sheriff with an appetite for drugs and prostitutes, landed in the investigative crosshairs from the start. He was indicted by a grand jury in the murder of one of the victims, but those charges were later dropped. Anthony DeGrazia was a loner who appeared to fit the classic serial-killer profile: horrific childhood abuse, charming, charismatic, but prone to bursts of violence. He hunted prostitutes in the city by night and served at a Catholic church by day. Which of these two was the real killer? Or was it someone else entirely? Maureen Boyle first broke the story in 1988 and stayed with it for decades. In Shallow Graves she spins a riveting narrative about the crimes, the victims, the hunt for the killers, and the search for justice, all played out against the backdrop of an increasingly impoverished community beset by drugs and crime. Drawing on more than one hundred interviews, along with police reports, first-person accounts, and field reporting both during the killings and more recently, Shallow Graves brings the reader behind the scenes of the investigation, onto the streets of the city, and into the homes of the families still hoping for answers.

From the establishment of New York's police force in 1845 through the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 to the present day, this visual history of New York City is a peek behind the police tape at more than 150 years of crime. This 320-page chronological tour covers events that shocked the nation, from arson to gangland murders, robberies, serial killers, bombings, and kidnappings. They include headline-grabbing episodes such as architect Stanford White's shooting at Madison Square Garden, the Pierre Hotel Robbery of 1972, the bombing of Wall Street in 1920, the 1928 hit on mobster Arnold Rothstein at the Park Sheraton Hotel, and Kitty Genovese's 1964 stabbing, which was witnessed by a dozen bystanders who did not call the police. Lesser-known crimes that changed the way the NYPD pursued criminals are also profiled. Perfect for crime buffs, urban historians, and fans of photography and photojournalism, this riveting collection details New York's most startling and unsettling moments through behind-the-scenes stories and more than 500 photographs.

As one of al-Qaeda’s most respected bomb-makers, Aimen Dean rubbed shoulders with the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden.

As a double agent at the heart of al-Qaeda’s chemical weapons programme, he foiled attacks on civilians and saved countless lives, brushing with death so often that his handlers began to call him their spy with nine lives.

This is the story of how a young Muslim, determined to defend his faith, found himself fighting on the wrong side – and his fateful decision to work undercover for his sworn enemy. From the killing fields of Bosnia to the training camps of Afghanistan, from running money and equipment in Britain to dodging barrel bombs in Syria, we discover what life is like inside the global jihad, and what it will take to stop it once and for all.

One of the most recognized names in America, Amy Fisher--now thirty and a happily married mother and award-winning journalist--finally tells the true story in her own words and includes many never-before-seen photographs. Amy writes candidly of her childhood, her relationship with Joey Buttafuoco, the shooting, life in prison, parole, and how she has pieced her life back together again. It's both a chilling cautionary tale and an intensely personal and truly inspirational story of remose, rehabilitation, and redemption.

Lizzie Borden took an axe. Or did she? Chaney looks behind the myth at one of the most grisly and controversial murders in New England history.

Young mother Surinda du Preez stood transfixed, barely able to breathe. A single thought went through her head: I'm looking at the devil. She was staring straight into the eyes of a man whose alleged crimes had earned him the title: Modimolle monster. She was staring at Johan Kotze. It was 10 January 2012. "I've never seen anything like this, that a person can do this to another human being." - Renier van Rooyen, prosecutor. 3 January 2012 is a day the community of Modimolle in Limpopo, South Africa will never forget. On this day, Johan Kotze did the unthinkable. Kotze not only orchestrated the gang rape of his wife, before torturing her, but also murdered her nineteen-year-old son. His unthinkable actions earned him the name Modimolle monster, and have made him infamous. Love is War tells the sobering story of the workings of a twisted mind, and the weighty consequences of actions. Maughan takes a walk on the macabre side, through an in-depth analysis of Kotze's story. From his life before the horrific events, to coverage of the trial, Maughan leaves nothing uncovered. While the trial continues, and the authorities try to ascertain whether or not Kotze is sane, his now ex-wife tries to deal with the fragile remains of her life, and South Africa holds its breath in the hopes that justice will be served in what is certainly the most talked-about case of the year.

In 2011, Carmen Segarra took a job as a regulator at Goldman Sachs for the New York Fed. It was an opportunity, she believed, to monitor the big bank's behavior in order to avoid another financial crisis. Shocked to discover that Goldman did not have a conflict of interest policy, she immediately issued a report. But her superiors pressured her to modify the report, covering up her discovery. It was then that she realized the full extent of the collusion between Goldman and the Fed and began to record meetings and conversations with her superiors. When she refused to change her report, Segarra was dismissed from her job. Shortly thereafter she released her audio recordings, exposing the Fed's inefficiency in holding the bank accountable. In this hard-hitting expose, Segarra chronicles her experience blowing open the doors on the macro-level corruption, ineffectiveness, and illegal behavior of the big banks and the government bodies set up to regulate them. From the moment she became a whistleblower, countless employees of regulatory bodies and banks have come to Segarra to share testimonies of cover-ups they have witnessed. In Noncompliant, she reveals how common these practices are, and shows how the culture of corruption that is not only accepted but encouraged in these companies filters down to the individual employees. In the process of unraveling these connections, she explains to readers how, ultimately, this systemic corruption affects us all.

The arsons started on a cold November midnight and didn't stop for months. Night after night, the people of Accomack County waited to see which building would burn down next, regarding each other at first with compassion, and later suspicion. Vigilante groups sprang up, patrolling the rural Virginia coast with cameras and camouflage. Volunteer firefighters slept at their stations. The arsonist seemed to target abandoned buildings, but local police were stretched too thin to surveil them all. Accomack was desolate-there were hundreds of abandoned buildings. And by the dozen they were burning. The culprit, and the path that led to these crimes, is a story of twenty-first century America. Washington Post reporter Monica Hesse first drove down to the reeling county to cover a hearing for Charlie Smith, a struggling mechanic who upon his capture had promptly pleaded guilty to sixty-seven counts of arson. But as Charlie's confession unspooled, it got deeper and weirder. He wasn't lighting fires alone; his crimes were galvanized by a surprising love story. Over a year of investigating, Hesse uncovered the motives of Charlie and his accomplice, girlfriend Tonya Bundick, a woman of steel-like strength and an inscrutable past. Theirs was a love built on impossibly tight budgets and simple pleasures. They were each other's inspiration and escape...until they weren't. Though it's hard to believe today, one hundred years ago Accomack was the richest rural county in the nation. Slowly it's been drained of its industry-agriculture-as well as its wealth and population. In an already remote region, limited employment options offer little in the way of opportunity. A mesmerizing and crucial panorama with nationwide implications, American Fire asks what happens when a community gets left behind. Hesse brings to life the Eastern Shore and its inhabitants, battling a punishing economy and increasingly terrified by a string of fires they could not explain. The result evokes the soul of rural America-a land half gutted before the fires even began.

The "D. B. Cooper" case is the only unsolved act of air piracy in US history. On November 24, 1971, a polite, nondescript, and dark-complexioned man calling himself "Dan Cooper" hijacked Northwest Airlines Flight 305, Boeing 727, between Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington. At Seattle International Airport, he demanded and received $200,000 and four parachutes, released the passengers, and ordered the crew to take him to Mexico. Somewhere along the way, he jumped. He was never found or identified. Forty-five years later, the FBI gave up the hunt. This book looks at the case from the perspective of a mathematician and pilot. It uses previously unexamined data and original-source documents, combined with the tools of statistics, aeronautics, and meteorology, to show where and how the FBI could resume the search and possibly find out at last who "D. B. Cooper" really was.