WINNER OF THE SUNDAY TIMES ALAN PATON AWARD

On 9 June 2003, a 43-year-old coloured man named Magadien Wentzel walked out of Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town. Behind him lay a lifelong career in the 28s, South Africa's oldest and most reviled prison gang, for decades rumoured to have specialised in rape and robbery. In front of him lay the prospect of a law-abiding future, and life in a household of eight adults and six children, none of whom earned a living. Jonny Steinberg met Wentzel in prison in the dying months of 2002. By the time Wentzel was released, he and Steinberg had spent more than 50 hours discussing his life experiences.

The Number is an account of their conversations and of Steinberg's journeys to the places and people of Wentzel's past. Wentzel had lived a bewilderingly schizophrenic life, wandering to and fro between three worlds: the arcane universe of prison gangs, steeped in a mythology of banditry and retribution, where he was known as JR; the fringes of South Africa's criminal economy, where he lived by a string of stolen names and learned the arts of commercial fraud; and his scattered family which eked out a living int the coloured ghettos of the Cape flats. The Number visits each of those worlds in turn. It is a tale of modern South Africa's historic events seen through the eyes of the country's underclass.

Surprisingly, perhaps, it is neither a story of passivity nor despair, but of beguiling ingenuity and cool cynicism. Most of all, the book is an account of memory and identity, of Wentzel's project to make some sense of his bewildering past and something worthy of his future. When Steinberg met him, Wentzel was embarking on a quest to retrieve the name he had been given at birth. He was also beginning the daunting task of gathering together the estranged children he had sired into a nuclear family. It was an eccentric and painful venture for a man with his past, but it has led him to construct an account of himself that begs to be told.

Venture back to the Hudson Valley of 1912 in this unique look at a salacious historical murder. The Grace murder was Walden's "Lizzie Borden" case, and author Lisa Melville offers a fascinating snapshot of a village's past as she chronicles one of the most infamous murders of its time. Murder was a rare occurrence in the small village of Walden, New York, 60 miles north of Manhattan. The Grace case was scandalous, involving sex, lies and a violent murder which rocked Walden, a small riverside community known for manufacturing knives. The "Lizzie Borden" case is still one of the most famous murder cases in America. The Grace case possessed similarly startling characteristics to the Borden case in the violence of the murder and family connection, but it also involved bigamy. Grace not only abandoned his first wife and three children, but he married a second woman and left her while she was pregnant with their child. He also stole her family's money to make his escape. Grace used this money to help finance a new life for himself in Walden, a life that included yet another wife. Despite the titillating facts of the murder, the Grace case has nearly been forgotten. Until now.

the best book on the Mafia in Sicily - its origins, its code of honour, its secrecy and its brutality. A chilling insight. - reveals how Mafia violence and corruption crept even into every aspect of Sicilian society, including the police and the church - and how this was only possible with the help of the American army, who gave the Mafia, by then all but destroyed by the Fascist government, the kiss of life when they occupied the island in 1943 - the perfect companion for any traveller to Sicily, and a gripping armchair read

Bullied at school, and growing up dreaming of revenge, Mark 'Chopper' Read determined to be the toughest in any company. He became a crime commando who terrorised drug dealers, pimps, thieves and armed robbers on the streets and in jail - but boasts never to have hurt an innocent member of the public. Streetfighter, gunman and underworld executioner, he has been earmarked for death a dozen times, but has lived to tell the tale. This is his story.

George N. Rumanes, who now lives in Los Angeles with his family, is a writer who works in the film industry. His second novel, The Man With The Black Worrybeads, a worldwide best seller, will be filmed in Hollywood, Greece and North Africa.

During the past seven years, Mr. Rumanes wrote five original camera ready screenplays and he is now finishing, Between the Palm and the Cypress Trees, his next novel.
THE SCREENPLAYS:
The Land of Gods and Lovers
Vector One
Mystery George
Malvasia
Two Ladies and the Mob

Do you believe in ghosts? In his years of travel writing and research, Dr. Robin Mead has found that people are almost equally divided between believers in ghosts and those who think ghost stories are just that--entertaining stories. In Haunted Hotels in America, you'll find a state-by-state guide to the lodgings that cheerfully admit to having an intangible guest or two. Like the spirits themselves, the stories are extraordinarily varied. Some are sad. Some are puzzling. A few are even funny. As you uncover these incredible mysteries, you'll also learn more about: Iconic ghosts who've established quite frightening reputations that span over a century The chilling hauntings that have inspired popular documentaries and Hollywood blockbusters Each hotel's storied history and its recent hauntings From the mischievous Victorian children that linger in the hallways of the Gingerbread Mansion Inn in Ferndale, California to "Old Seth" Bullock, the first sheriff of Deadwood, South Dakota, who still keeps a watchful eye on the Bullock Hotel that bears his name, Haunted Hotels in America is chock full of frights and delights. Ready to plan your next paranormal adventure? Let Haunted Hotels in America be your guide along the way.

Illuminates the life and image of one of New York City's most fashionable criminals-Celia Cooney Ripped straight from the headlines of the Jazz Age, The Bobbed Haired Bandit is a tale of flappers and fast cars, of sex and morality. In the spring of 1924, a poor, 19-year-old laundress from Brooklyn robbed a string of New York grocery stores with a "baby automatic," a fur coat, and a fashionable bobbed hairdo. Celia Cooney's crimes made national news, with the likes of Ring Lardner and Walter Lippman writing about her exploits for enthralled readers. The Bobbed Haired Bandit brings to life a world of great wealth and poverty, of Prohibition and class conflict. With her husband Ed at her side, Celia raised herself from a life of drudgery to become a celebrity in her own pulp-fiction novel, a role she consciously cultivated. She also launched the largest manhunt in New York City's history, humiliating the police with daring crimes and taunting notes. Sifting through conflicting accounts, Stephen Duncombe and Andrew Mattson show how Celia's story was used to explain the world, to wage cultural battles, to further political interest, and above all, to sell newspapers. To progressives, she was an example of what happens when a community doesn't protect its children. To conservatives, she symbolized a permissive society that gave too much freedom to the young, poor, and female. These competing stories distill the tensions of the time. In a gripping account that reads like a detective serial, Duncombe and Mattson have culled newspaper reports, court records, interviews with Celia's sons, and even popular songs and jokes to capture what William Randolph Hearst's newspaper called "the strangest, weirdest, most dramatic, most tragic, human interest story ever told."

In the early twentieth century so many dead bodies surfaced in the rivers around Aberdeen, Washington, that they were nicknamed the "floater fleet." When Billy Gohl (1873-1927), a powerful union official, was arrested for murder, local newspapers were quick to suggest that he was responsible for many of those deaths, perhaps even dozens-thus launching the legend of the Ghoul of Grays Harbor. More than a true-crime tale, The Port of Missing Men sheds light on the lives of workers who died tragically, illuminating the dehumanizing treatment of sailors and lumber workers and the heated clashes between pro- and anti-union forces. Goings investigates the creation of the myth, exploring how so many people were willing to believe such extraordinary stories about Gohl. He shares the story of a charismatic labor leader-the one man who could shut down the highly profitable Grays Harbor lumber trade-and provides an equally intriguing analysis of the human costs of the Pacific Northwest's early extraction economy.

In 1912, a prosperous Illinois farm family-Charles; his wife, Mathilda; their fifteen-year-old daughter, Blanche; and boarding schoolteacher Emma Kaempen-were brutally murdered, the crime concealed by arson, and the family's surviving son, handsome Ray Pfanschmidt, arrested. He was convicted by the press long before trial. In Lies Told Under Oath, author Beth Lane retells the story of the murders, the trial, the verdict, and the aftermath.

Using information culled from actual trial transcripts and newspaper accounts, Lane presents the day-to-day testimony as Ray's battle for his life surged through three courtrooms-the drama complicated by brilliant attorneys, allegations of perjury, charges of rigged evidence, jailhouse informants, legal loopholes, conflict over the large estate being inherited by the alleged murderer, and appeals to the state supreme court. The remaining family became divided over Ray's guilt while his fiancee staunchly stood by him.

"Lies Told Under Oath" provides a fascinating, historical account of the times and the people-when science was in its infancy, telephones meant shared party lines, bloody evidence was contested (or contrived), and automobiles competed with bloodhounds and buggies. It captures the essence of an emotional crime that rocked this small Illinois community.

When Disco Bloodbath was first published, it created a storm of controversy for its startlingly vivid, strikingly fresh, and outrageously funny depiction of the hedonistic world of the New York City club kids, for whom nothing was too outré -- including murder. Nominated for the Edgar Award for best true-crime book of the year, it also marked the debut of an audaciously talented writer, James St. James, who himself had been a club kid and close friend and confidant of Michael Alig, the young man convicted of killing the drug dealer known as Angel.

Now the book has been brought to the screen as Party Monster, with Macaulay Culkin playing killer Michael Alig and Seth Green as author/celebutante James St. James.