A mesmerizing narrative about the rise and fall of an unlikely international crime boss
In the 1980s, a wave of Chinese from Fujian province began arriving in America. Like other immigrant groups before them, they showed up with little money but with an intense work ethic and an unshakeable belief in the promise of the United States. Many of them lived in a world outside the law, working in a shadow economy overseen by the ruthless gangs that ruled the narrow streets of New York's Chinatown.
The figure who came to dominate this Chinese underworld was a middle-aged grandmother known as Sister Ping. Her path to the American dream began with an unusual business run out of a tiny noodle store on Hester Street. From her perch above the shop, Sister Ping ran a full-service underground bank for illegal Chinese immigrants. But her real business-a business that earned an estimated $40 million-was smuggling people.
As a "snakehead," she built a complex--and often vicious--global conglomerate, relying heavily on familial ties, and employing one of Chinatown's most violent gangs to protect her power and profits. Like an underworld CEO, Sister Ping created an intricate smuggling network that stretched from Fujian Province to Hong Kong to Burma to Thailand to Kenya to Guatemala to Mexico. Her ingenuity and drive were awe-inspiring both to the Chinatown community--where she was revered as a homegrown Don Corleone--and to the law enforcement officials who could never quite catch her.
Indeed, Sister Ping's empire only came to light in 1993 when the "Golden Venture," a ship loaded with 300 undocumented immigrants, ran aground off a Queens beach. It took New York's fabled "Jade Squad" and the FBI nearly ten years to untangle the criminal network and home in on its unusual mastermind.
THE SNAKEHEAD is a panoramic tale of international intrigue and a dramatic portrait of the underground economy in which America's twelve million illegal immigrants live. Based on hundreds of interviews, Patrick Radden Keefe's sweeping narrative tells the story not only of Sister Ping, but of the gangland gunslingers who worked for her, the immigration and law enforcement officials who pursued her, and the generation of penniless immigrants who risked death and braved a 17,000 mile odyssey so that they could realize their own version of the American dream. "The Snakehead" offers an intimate tour of life on the mean streets of Chinatown, a vivid blueprint of organized crime in an age of globalization and a masterful exploration of the ways in which illegal immigration affects us all.
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Donna Freed was six years old when her sister casually revealed that she and her siblings were all adopted, a subject her parents refused to discuss. The revelation fractured Donna's sense of identity. The death of her tricky yet treasured adoptive mother died left Donna feeling exposed, her life un-witnessed without a mother to look over her. When she became a mother herself, Donna felt compelled to track down her birth mother. Trawling through records of the now notorious Louise Wise Adoption Service, many previously redacted, she uncovered an explosive and salacious story, one of the biggest true crime investigations to grip the USA in the late 1960s.

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.

"Tragedy in Tin Can Holler" is a captivating must read true story of a family's past transgressions revealing a family member who was a serial killer that got away with murder during the great depression, incest and child abuse, lies and betrayals and domestic violence buried for decades! The vicious murder of the author's mother haunted her for 48 years, but discovering the truth about her mother's murder was just the tip of the iceberg. Her story is spell-bounding as she unveils the hidden secrets that shocked the residents of 3 counties in southeast Tennessee. This book has also been made into a documentary. This hard cover version has some new material.

"A Deadly Silence" tells a true story set in Annandale, an exclusive Pasadena neighborhood overlooking the Rose Bowl-an unlikely backdrop for a triple homicide. David Adkins and his girlfriend, Kathy Macaulay, had been dating for four years, but it hadn't been good lately. He could feel her pulling away, and he wasn't going to allow that to happen. Kathy and two of her friends, Heather Goodwin and Danae Palermo, were having a sleepover when David and two of his friends visited them.

Things turned ugly quickly, and David Adkins and one of his friends blasted them with a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun, brutally killing all three of the girls. A telephone call prompted Heather's parents, Darrell and Mimi Goodwin, to get there quickly. When the police arrived, Darrel entered the blood-spattered room and identified the bodies of his daughter and her friends.

Detectives Mike Korpal and Tim Sweetman-husband of author Adele Sweetman-were assigned to the intense investigation. "A Deadly Silence" reveals their investigative reasoning and privileged findings. At a highly publicized double-jury trial, jurors heard gripping taped confessions. No motive was given. Convicted, Hebrock told his story to Adele Sweetman from his cell in Pelican Bay Prison.

This gripping, true-crime account also examines victims' rights and parents' torment when personal tragedy is converted into melodrama as front page news.

Andrea Reynolds was Claus von Bulow's mistress from 1982 to 1987, and she helped him successfully appeal his conviction of attempted murder, for which he had been sentenced to thirty-two years in prison.

Von Bulow was convicted in 1982 of two counts of attempted murder of his wife, the immensely wealthy heiress Martha "Sunny" von Bulow. His wife was rich, beautiful, and American-and the case stirred up a firestorm of coverage in the tabloids and mainstream press.

But Reynolds, an aristocratic married to the famous television producer Sheldon Reynolds, believed in his innocence. She defied her husband by corresponding with the convict before slipping into a passionate love affair-risking everything for von Bulow.

"My Claus von Bulow Affaire" offers an insider's account of a controversial case that spawned two bestsellers and was made into an Oscar-winning film starring Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close. What's more, it provides a portrait of a largely vanished world, vividly depicting how rich and titled people on both sides of the Atlantic talked and thought, what they ate, how they dressed and made love, argued, and handled money.

Canzio Ricci survived a parachute jump behind enemy lines during WWII. Figuring he has won one roll of the dice, he is determined to do it his way on the next roll. Coming home after the war he becomes the smartest gangster on the east coast, living large, driving big cars, and having beautiful ladies on his arm. Never busted, never needed a lawyer, he outsmarted police chiefs, mayors, and other crew bosses. From cons and scams to loan sharkin in Vegas, its all there. Philadelphia reporter Sal Luca gives details of what this very wise guy got away with in CANZIO: A Sal Luca Gig.

Waco and Ruby Ridge were neither conspiracies nor flukes. They represent the worst-case scenario of problems that now plague federal law enforcement, including its militarisation, judicial rubberstamping of search and arrest applications, aggressive and violent arrest procedures, indifference to religious beliefs, the complicity of an overzealous media, and failed congressional investigations. In "No More Wacos", David B. Kopel and Paul H. Blackman use their expertise in law and criminology to outline the evidence in these cases and dozens of others to explain how and why such tragedies occur. Meticulously documented, this volume analyses all sides of this complex subject: flawed search warrants, authorities ignoring the difference between religious and criminal suspects, and intra-governmental deception, among other issues. Whenever problems are found, specific remedies are proposed - over one hundred solutions in all - both comprehensive and technical in nature. Each is offered in the hope of preventing future Wacos by properly placing federal law enforcement under the rule of law.

A New York Times Book of the Year, 2018 A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB PICK A dazzling love letter to a beloved institution - our libraries. After moving to Los Angeles, Susan Orlean became fascinated by a mysterious local crime that has gone unsolved since it was carried out on the morning of 29 April 1986: who set fire to the Los Angeles Public Library, ultimately destroying more than 400,000 books, and perhaps even more perplexing, why? With her characteristic humour, insight and compassion, Orlean uses this terrible event as a lens through which to tell the story of all libraries - their history, their meaning and their uncertain future as they adapt and redefine themselves in a digital world. Filled with heart, passion and extraordinary characters, The Library Book discusses the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives.

Using the Peruvian internal armed conflict as a case study, this book examines wartime rape and how it reproduces and reinforces existing hierarchies. Jelke Boesten argues that effective responses to sexual violence in wartime are conditional upon profound changes in legal frameworks and practices, institutions, and society at large.

Follow a trial lawyer's career through the demanding, often controversial, and suspenseful world of jury trials, tension-filled appeals and the different worlds of courtrooms, jail cells, corporate boardrooms, and law firms. Each of the cases in the nineteen chapters were selected from a total of his 150 jury trials to reflect issues of current importance, including refugees on the Mexican border, gargantuan gender battles inside one of the largest corporations in the world, sexual taboos on national television, accusations of terrorism, government agents who cheat, innocent prisoners in our jails, the constitutional right to speak and print the truth, bringing law to a war zone, poverty and murder on Native American Reservations, current problems of hunger in America, and more.