Squarely in the heart of America, Salina, Kansas is a pretty safe place to have kids. At least, that's what they say. But some places in Kansas are safer than others. The Allens found out the hard way. In the case of the death of their oldest son, seventeen-year-old Destry Greer Allen, they did what nobody else would do to find out the truth about what really happened to him that late night in June of 2004. Originally ruled a textbook suicide, an independent investigation by the Allens discovered it was anything but. Seven years later, Destry's case is still open - an unsolved suicide. What happens when the system intended to protect citizens at the most vulnerable times in their lives not only turns its back, but goes out of its way to wrong them? What happens when the professionals, who citizens trust and depend on to take care of them, go after them instead, to teach them a lesson? The Allens found out.

Born in Balham, South London in 1940 Ron was destined to follow in his father's footsteps and become a painter and decorator. That was until a chance encounter with a young police cadet led him down a very different path. What followed was a very successful 30-year career in the Metropolitan Police and in this book Ron shares memories of his time in the Police force, giving us a real insight into old fashioned police work in the good old days. The story begins in April 1959 at St Ann's Road Tottenham and continues through the streets of London, taking the reader on a journey that is both reminiscent of those times, touched with humour and some personal memories of colleagues, friends and family. Published in loving memory.

Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers and so many sequels, all but invented the action adventure novel, and certainly he has few peers in all the years since. His stories are thrilling works of derring-do, foul deeds, close escapes, and glorious victories. In this sixth volume of Dumas's Celebrated Crimes contains, among other material, the famous Man in the Iron Mask. This unsolved puzzle of history was later incorporated by Dumas in one of the D'Artagnan Romances a section of the Vicomte de Bragelonne, to which it gave its name. But in this later form, the true story of this singular man doomed to wear an iron visor over his features during his entire lifetime could only be treated episodically. While as a special subject in the Crimes, Dumas indulges his curiosity, and that of his reader, to the full. Hugo's unfinished tragedy, Les Jumeaux, is on the same subject; as also are others by Fournier, in French, and Zschokke, in German. This book was not written for children. Dumas has minced no words in describing the violent scenes of a violent time. in others the author makes unwarranted charges. The careful, mature reader -- for whom the books are intended -- will recognize and allow for this fact.

The Pyramid of Lies by international financial journalist Duncan Mavin, is the true story of Lex Greensill, the Australian farmer who became a hi-flying billionaire banker before crashing back down to earth, exposing a tangled network of flawed financiers, politicians and industrialists. Lex Greensill had a simple, billion-dollar idea - democratising supply chain finance. Suppliers want to get their invoices paid as soon as possible. Companies want to hold off as long as they can. Greensill bridged the two, it's mundane, boring even, but he saw an opportunity to profit. However, margins are thin and Lex, ever the risk taker, made lucrative loans with other people's money: to a Russian cargo plane linked to Vladmir Putin, to former Special Forces who ran a private army, and crucially to companies that were fraudulent or had no revenue. When the company finally collapsed it exposed the revolving door between Westminster and big business and how David Cameron was allowed to lobby ministers for cash that would save Greensill's doomed business. Instead, Credit Suisse and Japan's SoftBank are nursing billions of dollars in losses, a German bank is under criminal investigation, and thousands of jobs are at risk. What Bad Blood did for Silicon Valley and The Smartest Guys in the Room did for Wall Street, The Pyramid of Lies will do for the world of shadow banking and supply chain finance. It is a world populated with some of the most outlandish characters in business and some of the most outrageous examples of excess. It is a story of greed and ambition that shines a light on the murky intersection between politics and business, where lavish fortunes can be made and lost.

FAMILY SECRETS & LIES By DJ Everette Local Author discovers murder, mystery and achievement in family tree Before Bonnie & Clyde in 1934-35, there was Gramma & Glenn during Prohibition from 1928-31. Gramma, also called "The Blonde Menace," the "Gungirl" and "Iron Irene, stole autos in Ohio, robbed fuel stations in West Virginia, Indiana and Illinois, stuck up banks in Texas, Missouri, and Arkansas and stole from retail stores and individuals across the west, kidnapping and murdering in states stretching as far as Arizona, it was said. In 1929 a Police Officer was killed and his partner badly wounded in a gun battle when Gramma and her gang were confronted for robbing a grocery store in Butler, PA. Irene's four year old son, the Author's Father, was in the car and observed the thefts, murder and getaway. He proudly announced to his family when his Mother dropped him off for safe keeping, the police and reporters "I Saw My Mom Kill A Cop " and "Mama is the brains of the outfit" After fleeing with her lover, Glenn, across the USA and being front page news in a year-long highly sensationalized trial, Gramma was the first woman to be executed in the State of PA. In spite of insurmountable odds and difficult challenges, Gramma's little son grew up to be a hero in the Korean conflict and NASA. The Author meets her Dad before he dies and he fills in all the answers to her lifelong questions. Take this unbelievable journey with the Author as she starts her paternal genealogy and journals the events in order to handle the trauma of what was being discovered. Discover facts found 80 years later that uncover an entirely different story than the media at the time produced and uncover the surprise ending.

This is the story of Annette Morales Rodriguez, a hard-working single mother of three.

It is also the story of Lara, a psychopathic killer who abducted another woman s fetus, killing both mother and baby.

Unbeknownst to Annette, Lara is a part of her: a dissociative identity, or split personality, formed to help Annette deal with the sexual abuse she endured as a child. Highly protective and driven to act solely in Annette s interests with no regard for the consequences to others, Lara lacks the moral judgment and remorse of a fully-developed personality. It is she who saw Annette s desire for and inability to have another baby and plotted to cut one from another woman s belly to give to her.

Lara confessed in gruesome detail. Annette, entirely amnesic throughout the course of events, has no recollection of the behavior Lara carried out. Dr. Anne Speckhard s jail interviews with Annette and Lara offer a fascinating glimpse inside a woman torn in two. Dr. Speckhard s analysis of Annette s behavior and her treatment once in police custody beg the questions: How do you separate the guilty from the innocent when they share the same body? and When is it acceptable to violate one s rights in the interest of public safety? Annette s story brings Dissociative Identity Disorder and the shortcomings of the American justice system to shocking light.

Covering figures ranging from Catherine Monvoisin to Vlad the Impaler, and describing murders committed in ancient aristocracies to those attributed to vampires, witches, and werewolves, this book documents the historic reality of serial murder. The majority of serial murder studies support the consensus that serial murder is essentially an American crime-a flawed assumption, as the United States has existed for less than 250 years. What is far more likely is that the perverse urge to repeatedly and intentionally kill has existed throughout human history, and that a substantial percentage of serial murders throughout ancient times, the middle ages, and the pre-modern era were attributed to imaginative surrogate explanations: dragons, demons, vampires, werewolves, and witches. Legends, Monsters, or Serial Murderers? The Real Story Behind an Ancient Crime dispels the interrelated misconceptions that serial murder is an American crime and a relatively recent phenomenon, making the novel argument that serial murder is a historic reality-an unrecognized fact in ancient times. Noted serial murderers such as the Roman Locuta (The Poisoner); Gilles De Rais of France, a prolific serial killer of children; Andres Bichel of Bavaria; and Chinese aristocratic serial killer T'zu-Hsi are spotlighted. This book provides a unique perspective that integrates supernatural interpretations of serial killing with the history of true crime, reanimating mythic entities of horror stories and presenting them as real criminals.

'Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible'In equal measure famous and infamous, Janet Malcolm's book charts the true story of a lawsuit between Jeffrey MacDonald, a convicted murderer, and Joe McGinniss, the author of a book about the crime. Lauded as one of the Modern Libraries "100 Best Works of Nonfiction", The Journalist and the Murderer is fascinating and controversial, a contemporary classic of reportage.

In February 2021, Joe Biden released the CIA report that concluded the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia 'was responsible' for the assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Saudi secret service lured him into the Saudi diplomatic mission in Istanbul on 2 October 2018, dismembered him, and packed him into five suitcases. Crime writer Owen Wilson has forensically gathered all the known facts about the slaughter, what we know happened exactly, and what prompted the most demonic conspiracy of the twenty-first century. Chilling to the core and informative about Middle Eastern politics.

A suspense filled tale of murder on the American frontier-shedding new light on a family of serial killers in Kansas, whose horrifying crimes gripped the attention of a nation still reeling from war. 'A carefully researched and horribly compelling examination of unimaginable evil intruding upon everyday life' The Observer In 1873 the people of Labette County, Kansas made a grisly discovery. Buried by a trailside cabin beneath an orchard of young apple trees were the remains of countless bodies. Below the cabin itself was a cellar stained with blood. The Benders, the family of four who once resided on the property were nowhere to be found. The discovery sent the local community and national newspapers into a frenzy that continued for decades, sparking an epic manhunt for the Benders. The idea that a family of seemingly respectable homesteaders-one among the thousands relocating farther west in search of land and opportunity after the Civil War-were capable of operating "a human slaughter pen" appalled and fascinated the nation. But who the Benders really were, why they committed such a vicious killing spree and whether justice ever caught up to them is a mystery that remains unsolved to this day. Set against the backdrop of postbellum America, Hell's Half-Acre explores the environment capable of allowing such horrors to take place. Drawing on extensive original archival material, Susan Jonusas introduces us to a fascinating cast of characters, many of whom have been previously missing from the story. Among them are the families of the victims, the hapless detectives who lost the trail, and the fugitives that helped the murderers escape. Hell's Half-Acre is a journey into the turbulent heart of nineteenth century America, a place where modernity stalks across the landscape, violently displacing existing populations and building new ones. It is a world where folklore can quickly become fact and an entire family of criminals can slip through a community's fingers, only to reappear in the most unexpected of places. "Dark and bloody, hard-nosed but lyrical, Hell's Half-Acre is a true-crime mass-murder mystery from the Old West. Susan Jonusas has stripped down a notorious story, researched it to hell and back, and rebuilt in prose so immediate and immersive that it feels like she must have been there. Beware the Benders, but all hail Susan Jonusas. This is a stunning debut from a great and powerful new voice in narrative non-fiction." Dan Jones, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Templars, The Plantagenets and Blood and Thrones

The idea that a person might suddenly snap and slaughter large numbers of people has become part of our cultural understanding through events such as the Columbine High School massacre and the D.C. Sniper case. But this image of the sudden turn from ordinary citizen, quiet neighbor, or non-descript teenager to mass murderer is generally false. People who go out one day and kill innocent people or supposed enemies have typically thought about it, planned it, and even mentioned it to others before they actually do it--and the act is usually the result of a buildup of stress and frustration. Here, Katherine Ramsland, a seasoned crime writer, examines true stories of mass murder and reveals the complexity behind the development of a mass killer. She provides common signals, based on actual cases, that will help readers identify warning signs and understand the various psychological factors that may lead a person to kill. Since the first recorded U.S. case of mass murder in 1949, massacres have been increasing each decade, with workplace violence taking the lead as the most common form. The psychology of the killers, however, differs from that of spree, serial, or situational murderers. The red flags of a developing mass killer are obvious and predictable, Ramsland argues, and people who learn to recognize them may be able to defuse a potentially violent situation before it occurs. Using details from various cases, the author examines the different kinds of mass murders, from visionary to family to workplace, and the distinct psychological dynamics of the different types of murders. This essential book exposes the inner world of mass murderers and dismantles the stereotypes we hold aboutthem.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER "As exciting as any spy novel" (Daily News, New York), The Princess Spy follows the hidden history of an ordinary American girl who became one of the OSS's most daring World War II spies before marrying into European nobility. Perfect for fans of A Woman of No Importance and Code Girls. When Aline Griffith was born in a quiet suburban New York hamlet, no one had any idea that she would go on to live "a life of glamour and danger that Ingrid Bergman only played at in Notorious" (Time). As the United States enters the Second World War, the young college graduate is desperate to aid in the war effort, but no one is interested in a bright-eyed young woman whose only career experience is modeling clothes. Aline's life changes when, at a dinner party, she meets a man named Frank Ryan and reveals how desperately she wants to do her part for her country. Within a few weeks, he helps her join the Office of Strategic Services--forerunner of the CIA. With a code name and expert training under her belt, she is sent to Spain to be a coder, but is soon given the additional assignment of infiltrating the upper echelons of society, mingling with high-ranking officials, diplomats, and titled Europeans. Against this glamorous backdrop of galas and dinner parties, she recruits sub-agents and engages in deep-cover espionage. Even after marrying the Count of Romanones, one of the wealthiest men in Spain, Aline secretly continues her covert activities, being given special assignments when abroad that would benefit from her impeccable pedigree and social connections. "[A] meticulously researched, beautifully crafted work of nonfiction that reads like a James Bond thriller" (Bookreporter), The Princess Spy brings to vivid life the dazzling adventures of a spirited American woman who risked everything to serve her country.

In December 1924, a 21-year-old millionaire orphan, William "Billy" McClintock, died of an unusually virulent form of typhoid fever. He was mourned by his financee, Isabelle Pope, who sought unsuccessfully to rally her love by marrying him on his deathbed. Shortly after Billy's funeral, questions arose as to the cause of death, with insinuations of foul play. After reaching his majority and inheriting his estate in April, McClintock had signed a will drafted by one of his guardians, lawyer William D. Shepherd--a will which left everything to Shepherd, but only if Billy died before his planned February 1925 wedding to Ms. Pope. Ultimately, Shepherd and his wife Julie were accused of killing not only Billy McClintock, but Billy's mother and a doctor friend of the family. This case caused a major sensation in Jazz Age Chicago, a society fascinated with murder and mayhem. When the body of Billy's mother was exhumed after sixteen years, it was found to contain enough mercury to have killed two people. The Shepherds were the only likely sources. Three physicians came forward to say that Shepherd had approached them about obtaining typhoid germs. Yet, Shepherd would beat the charges of Billy's murder; in fact, no one would ever be charged in the death of Billy's mother. Was there a murder--or two? Who stood to gain the most from these deaths? McConnell recreates a slice of life among Chicago's elite and the colorful characters who may or may not have sought their own piece of the fatal fortune--so-called because its inheritors almost always died within two years of receiving it.

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE, STARRING MICHAEL B. JORDAN, JAMIE FOXX, AND BRIE LARSON.

A NEW YORK TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, BOSTON GLOBE, ESQUIRE, AND TIME BOOK OF THE YEAR.

A #1 New York Times bestseller, this is a powerful, true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix America’s broken justice system, as seen in the HBO documentary True Justice.

The US has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. One in every 15 people born there today is expected to go to prison. For black men this figure rises to one in 3. And Death Row is disproportionately black, too.

Bryan Stevenson grew up poor in the racially segregated South. His innate sense of justice made him a brilliant young lawyer, and one of his first defendants was Walter McMillian, a black man sentenced to die for the murder of a white woman ― a crime he insisted he didn’t commit. The case drew Bryan into a tangle of conspiracy, political machination, startling racial inequality, and legal brinkmanship ― and transformed his understanding of mercy and justice forever.

At once an unforgettable account of an idealistic lawyer’s coming of age and a moving portrait of the lives of those he has defended, Just Mercy is an inspiring argument for compassion in the pursuit of justice.

RCMP Superintendent "Scotty" Gardiner's captivating memoir reveals what truly goes on behind the scenes in local and international criminal and civil investigations - from solving small-town break-ins to busting multi-national drug operations, and from foiling historical coin counterfeiting to making a controversial money-for-bodies deal with serial killer Clifford Olson.

IN THE MIND OF A MOUNTIE provides deep insight into the thought processes, self-discipline and integrity required to be an exemplary policeman. "There is no LUCK in investigation," Gardiner emphasizes. "Instead you must focus on PREPARATION, so you will recognize OPPORTUNITY."

With masterful storytelling, Scotty Gardiner's IN THE MIND OF A MOUNTIE brings vividly to life the role of a policeman and investigator in late 20th-century Canadian society.

-- ENDORSEMENTS FROM EXPERTS --
"A refreshing page-turner as Scotty leads from one crime investigation to the next, while offering shrewd insights into the nature and habits of career criminals and RCMP officers alike. His is a broadly sympathetic view of the human condition, seen through the eyes of a very smart and experienced RCMP officer."
- Geoff Machin, MD, PhD, FRCPC, Emeritus Prof. of Pathology, U. of Alberta

"A remarkably rich and personal memoir, full of stories that illustrate both the routine and complex in police work. The book is also a testament to how a combination of hard work, intellectual imagination, integrity, and self-discipline served Scotty well as a Mountie in postings across this vast country. It is an account of a life's work that needs to be told, especially in these times when the Force seems in disarray and those values compromised."
- John McLaren, Emeritus Prof. of Law, U. of Victoria

"A compelling story told in a most readable manner. Highly recommended for all ages - Scotty's life is the stuff of legends and deserves to be read widely."
- Hamish Simpson, former head of Glenlyon School, Pearson College, and Upper Canada College Preparatory School

A suspense filled tale of murder on the American frontier-shedding new light on a family of serial killers in Kansas, whose horrifying crimes gripped the attention of a nation still reeling from war. 'A carefully researched and horribly compelling examination of unimaginable evil intruding upon everyday life' The Observer In 1873 the people of Labette County, Kansas made a grisly discovery. Buried by a trailside cabin beneath an orchard of young apple trees were the remains of countless bodies. Below the cabin itself was a cellar stained with blood. The Benders, the family of four who once resided on the property were nowhere to be found. The discovery sent the local community and national newspapers into a frenzy that continued for decades, sparking an epic manhunt for the Benders. The idea that a family of seemingly respectable homesteaders-one among the thousands relocating farther west in search of land and opportunity after the Civil War-were capable of operating "a human slaughter pen" appalled and fascinated the nation. But who the Benders really were, why they committed such a vicious killing spree and whether justice ever caught up to them is a mystery that remains unsolved to this day. Set against the backdrop of postbellum America, Hell's Half-Acre explores the environment capable of allowing such horrors to take place. Drawing on extensive original archival material, Susan Jonusas introduces us to a fascinating cast of characters, many of whom have been previously missing from the story. Among them are the families of the victims, the hapless detectives who lost the trail, and the fugitives that helped the murderers escape. Hell's Half-Acre is a journey into the turbulent heart of nineteenth century America, a place where modernity stalks across the landscape, violently displacing existing populations and building new ones. It is a world where folklore can quickly become fact and an entire family of criminals can slip through a community's fingers, only to reappear in the most unexpected of places. "Dark and bloody, hard-nosed but lyrical, Hell's Half-Acre is a true-crime mass-murder mystery from the Old West. Susan Jonusas has stripped down a notorious story, researched it to hell and back, and rebuilt in prose so immediate and immersive that it feels like she must have been there. Beware the Benders, but all hail Susan Jonusas. This is a stunning debut from a great and powerful new voice in narrative non-fiction." Dan Jones, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Templars, The Plantagenets and Blood and Thrones