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Books > Fiction > True stories > Crime
A TIME TO BETRAY
This exhilarating, award-winning memoir of a secret double life
reveals the heart-wrenching story of a man who spied for the
American government in the ranks of the notorious Revolutionary
Guards of Iran, risking everything by betraying his homeland in
order to save it.
Reza Kahlili grew up in Tehran surrounded by his close-knit family
and friends. But the enlightened Iran of his youth vanished
forever, as Reza discovered upon returning home from studying
computer science in the United States, when the revolution of 1979
ushered in Ayatollah Khomeini's dark age of religious
fundamentalism. Clinging to the hope of a Persian Renaissance, Reza
joined the Ayatollah's elite Revolutionary Guards. As Khomeini's
tyrannies unfolded, as fellow countrymen turned on each other, and
after the deeply personal horrors he witnessed firsthand inside
Evin Prison, a shattered and disillusioned Reza returned to America
to dangerously become "Wally," a spy for the CIA.
In "A Time to Betray," Reza not only relates his razor's-edge,
undercover existence from moment to heart-pounding moment as he
supplies vital information from the Iran-Iraq War, the bombing of
Pan Am Flight 103, the Iran-Contra affair, and more; he also
documents a chain of incredible events that culminates in a
nation's fight for freedom that continues to this very day, making
this a timely and vital perspective on the future of Iran and the
fate of the world.
The tragic story of Susan Powell and her murdered boys, Charlie and
Braden, is the only case that rivals the John Benet Ramsey saga in
the annals of true crime. When a pretty, blonde Utah mother went
missing in December of 2009 the media was swept up in the story.
Susan's husband, Josh, said he had no idea what happened to his
young wife, and that he and the boys had been camping. Over the
next three years bombshell by bombshell, the story would reveal
more shocking secrets, Josh's father, Steve, who was sexually
obsessed with Susan, would ultimately be convicted of unspeakable
perversion. Josh's brother, Michael, would commit suicide. And in
the most stunning event of them all, Josh Powell would murder his
two little boys and kill himself with brutality beyond belief.
'I read everything he writes. Every time he writes a book, I read
it. Every time he writes an article, I read it . . . he's a
national treasure.' Rachel Maddow Patrick Radden Keefe's work has
garnered prizes ranging from the National Magazine Award and the
National Book Critics Circle Award in the US to the Orwell Prize in
the UK for his meticulously reported, hypnotically engaging work on
the many ways people behave badly. Rogues brings together a dozen
of his most celebrated articles from the New Yorker. As Keefe says
in his preface: 'They reflect on some of my abiding preoccupations:
crime and corruption, secrets and lies, the permeable membrane
separating licit and illicit worlds, the bonds of family, the power
of denial.' Keefe brilliantly explores the intricacies of forging
$150,000 vintage wines, examines whether a whistleblower who dared
to expose money laundering at a Swiss bank is a hero or a fabulist,
spends time in Vietnam with Anthony Bourdain, chronicles the quest
to bring down a cheerful international black-market arms merchant,
and profiles a passionate death-penalty attorney who represents the
'worst of the worst', among other bravura works of literary
journalism. The appearance of his byline in the New Yorker is
always an event, and collected here for the first time readers can
see his work forms an always enthralling but deeply human portrait
of criminals and rascals, as well as those who stand up against
them.
This Sunday Times bestseller is a shocking and at times darkly
funny account of life as a prison officer in one of the country's
most notorious jails. 'Authentic, tough, horrifying in some places
and hilarious in others . . . the author's honesty and decency
shine through' - Jonathan Aitken ______________ Neil 'Sam' Samworth
spent eleven years working as a prison officer in HMP Manchester,
aka Strangeways. A tough Yorkshireman with a soft heart, Sam had to
deal with it all - gangsters and gangbangers, terrorists and
psychopaths, addicts and the mentally ill. Men who should not be
locked up and men who should never be let out. He tackles cell
fires and self-harmers, and goes head to head with some of the most
dangerous men in the country. He describes being attacked by
prisoners, and reveals the problems caused by radicalization and
the drugs flooding our prisons. As staffing cuts saw Britain's
prison system descend into crisis, the stress of the job - the
suicides, the inhumanity of the system, and one assault too many -
left Sam suffering from PTSD. Strangeways by Neil Samworth is a
raw, searingly honest memoir that is a testament to the men and
women of the prison service and the incredibly difficult job we ask
them to do. ______________ 'A frequently shocking read' - Daily
Express
This glittering, "wild romp of a story, boldly and beautifully
told" (Neal Thompson, author of The First Kennedys) explores the
darkly intertwined fates of infamous socialite Ann Woodward and
literary icon Truman Capote, sweeping us to the upper echelons of
Manhattan's high society-where falls from grace are all the more
shocking. When Ann Woodward shot her husband, banking heir Billy
Woodward, in the middle of the night in 1955, her life changed
forever. Though she claimed she thought he was a prowler, few
believed the woman who had risen from charismatic showgirl to
popular socialite. Everyone had something to say about the
scorching scandal afflicting one of the most rich and famous
families of New York City, but no one was more obsessed with the
tale than Truman Capote. Acclaimed for his bestselling nonfiction
book In Cold Blood, Capote was looking for new material and
followed the scandal from beginning to end. Like Ann, he too had
ascended from nobody to toast of the town, but he always felt like
an outsider, even among the exclusive coterie of high society women
who adored him. He decided the story of Ann's turbulent marriage
would be the basis of his masterpiece-a novel about the dysfunction
and sordid secrets revealed to him by his high society
"swans"-never thinking that it would eventually lead to Ann's
suicide and his own scandalous downfall. "A 20th-century morality
tale of enduring fascination" (Laura Thompson, author of The
Heiresses), Deliberate Cruelty is a haunting cross between true
crime and literary history that is perfect for fans of Furious
Hours, Empty Mansions, and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
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