A veteran, Emmy Award-winning TV news anchor provides a unique insider glimpse into the newsroom revealing how murder cases are selected for TV coverage. Television news anchor Robert Jordan Jr. draws from forty-seven years of news experiences to provide an eye-opening look at how news programs decide which murders to cover and which ones to ignore. Jordan takes readers behind the scenes into the big city newsrooms of Chicago. Here split-second decisions are made on where to send limited resources when dozens of shootings and several murders are occurring on a daily basis. Using interviews from decision makers--such as assignment editors and producers--who work daily in the trenches of working newsrooms, the reader learns how they decide where to send reporters; when to dispatch live trucks; and how the stories will be treated as they are placed in the news programming. Why will one story get "breaking news" banners and be placed at the top of the broadcast while others may not make the air at all or may be given casual mention in later segments? Additionally, Jordan reveals the results of a ground-breaking questionnaire sent to producers and assignment editors at Chicago television stations to assess their rationales for covering murder stories the way they do. Finally, he examines how the explosion of social media platforms has changed the dynamic of reporting the news and why murders are the perfect stories for television, as news organizations struggle to survive.

Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, The Hillside Strangler . . . serial murderers are the most horrific of all criminals. Kate Kray, whose marriage to gangster Ronnie Kray offered her access to a gruesome underworld few would dare to enter, peers into the minds of the worst killers to reveal the awful truth of their abominable acts. The extreme nature of their violence and their shocking lack of remorse makes for uncomfortable yet fascinating reading. From obsessive sexual predators and extreme sadists to cannibals and head hunters, each type of psychopath is examined, their crimes told with grim frankness. Kate's connections allow her to ask uncomfortable questions few would dare to ask such men. Offering extraordinary insight into the motivations of violent perpetrators often portrayed as monsters, this book begs the question of whether such individuals can themselves be viewed as victims of a troubled past, or merely as exponents of pure evil.

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.

In a ranch south of Texas, the man known as The Executioner dumps five hundred body parts in metal barrels. In Brazil's biggest city, a mysterious prisoner orders hit-men to gun down forty-one police officers and prison guards in two days. In southern Mexico, a crystal meth maker is venerated as a saint while imposing Old Testament justice on his enemies. A new kind of criminal kingpin has arisen: part CEO, part terrorist, and part rock star, unleashing guerrilla attacks, strong-arming governments and taking over much of the world's trade in narcotics, guns and humans. Who are these new masters of death? What personal qualities and life experiences have made them into such bloodthirsty leaders of men? What do they represent and stand for? What has happened in the Americas to allow them to grow and flourish? Author of the critically acclaimed El Narco: Inside Mexico's Criminal Insurgency, Ioan Grillo has covered Latin America since 2001, and gained access to every level of the cartel chain-of-command in what he calls the new battlefields of the Americas. Moving between militia-controlled ghettos and the halls of top policy-makers, Grillo provides a new and disturbing understanding of a war that has spiralled out of control - one that people across the political spectrum need to confront now. Gangster Warlords is the first definitive account of the crime wars now wracking Central and South America and the Caribbean.

The hidden history of London gangs from their earliest days up to 1960.

In a society of strangers, there develops what can be called crimes of mobility -- forms of criminality rare in traditional societies: bigamy, the confidence game, and blackmail, for example. What they have in common is a kind of fraudulent role-playing, which the new society makes possible. This book explores the social and legal consequences of social and geographical mobility in the United States and Great Britain from the beginning of the 19th century on. Personal identity became more fluid. Lines between classes blurred. Impostors abound.

By the age of nine, I will have lived in more than a dozen countries, on five continents, under six assumed identities. I'll know how a document is forged, how to withstand an interrogation, and most important, how to disappear . . . To the young Cheryl Diamond, life felt like one big adventure, whether she was hurtling down the Himalayas in a rickety car or mingling with underworld fixers. Her family appeared to be an unbreakable gang of five. One day they were in Australia, the next in South Africa, the pattern repeating as they crossed continents, changed identities, and erased their pasts. What Diamond didn't yet know was that she was born into a family of outlaws fleeing from the highest international law enforcement agencies, a family with secrets that would eventually catch up to all of them. By the time she was in her teens, Diamond had lived dozens of lives and lies, but as she grew older, love and trust turned to fear and violence, and her family--the only people she had in the world--began to unravel. She started to realize that her life itself might be a big con, and the people she loved, the most dangerous of all. With no way out and her identity burned so often that she had no proof she even existed, all that was left was a girl from nowhere. Surviving would require her to escape, and to do so Diamond would have to unlearn all the rules she grew up with. Wild, heartbreaking, and often unexpectedly funny, Nowhere Girl is an impossible-to-believe true story of self-discovery and triumph.

Chosen by O, The Oprah magazine, as one of its top twenty best true crime books of all time. 'A real-life page turner more intriguing than anything on Netflix. The gripping story of a woman who turned detective to track down her brother's killer - nearly four decades after he was brutally murdered.' Matt Nixson, Mail on Sunday '[A story] almost too mad to make up, too good not to tell and which one day, no doubt, will be a film.' Ben Dirs, BBC World News '[A] moving debut... This engrossing, heartbreaking story is sure to appeal to true-crime fans'. Publishers Weekly The book that inspired the successful BBC podcast Paradise In July 1978, two bodies were discovered in the sea off Guatemala. They were found to be the remains of Chris Farmer and his girlfriend Peta Frampton, two young British graduates. Having been beaten and tortured, then thrown, still alive, into the sea, their bodies had been weighted down and dumped from the yacht on which they had been crewing. For nearly forty years, no one was charged with these brutal murders. This is the shocking and compelling story of how Chris's sister, Penny, and her family tracked down his and Peta's killer. For decades they painstakingly gathered evidence against Silas Boston, the yacht's American owner, working alongside police in the UK and the USA, as well as the FBI, until he was finally arrested and charged with two counts of murder in 2016. Astonishingly, Penny was able to track down Boston's son, whose bravery in testifying against his own father was the key to bringing down Chris and Peta's killer after so many years. Dead In The Water is the story of a murder almost unimaginable in its cruelty and one ordinary woman's unwavering determination to find justice for her brother.

It was called the trial of the century in a century whose end is now a decade in the past. But its impact has reverberated well into this one, as its subject continues to make headlines. In Simpson Agonistes, author Robert Metcalfe offers an original angle on the O. J. Simpson murder case and trial using Herodotus's lost perspective as a guide.

"Simpson Agonistes" revisits the Brentwood murders and their aftermath from two opposite perspectives. One is a modern, fact-based reinterpretation of pieces of the key evidence-the uncut left-hand glove and the thumps on Kato Kaelin's guesthouse wall-that have never been satisfactorily explained. The other perspective discusses what Herodotus would have had to say about this case as Metcalfe begins a study in nemesis or retributive justice.

He applies both methodologies to an analysis of what went wrong that fatal night to spoil an almost perfect crime, as well as changes to Simpson's story since. Simpson Agonistes presents a scenario that often reads like a tragedy or psychodrama, complete with a catharsis at its close.

'Beautifully told by David Grann, one of the best true-crime writers around... Nuanced and gripping' Evening Standard Now a major film starring Robert Redford, Sissy Spacek and Casey Affleck, The Old Man and the Gun is joined by two other riveting true-crime tales by the author of the bestselling Killers of the Flower Moon The Old Man and the Gun is the incredible story of a bank robber and prison escape artist who modelled himself after figures like Pretty Boy Floyd and who, even in his seventies, refuses to retire. True Crime follows the twisting investigation of a Polish detective who suspects that a novelist planted clues in his fiction to an actual murder. And The Chameleon recounts how a French imposter assumes the identity of a missing boy from Texas and infiltrates the boy's family, only to soon wonder whether he is the one being conned. In this mesmerizing collection, David Grann shows why he has been called a 'worthy heir to Truman Capote' and 'simply the best narrative non-fiction writer working today', as he takes the reader on a journey through some of the most intriguing and gripping real-life tales from around the world. Praise for Killers of the Flower Moon 'An extraordinary story with extraordinary pace and atmosphere' Sunday Times 'A marvel of detective-like research and narrative verve' Financial Times 'A riveting true story of greed, serial murder and racial injustice' Jon Krakauer 'A fiercely entertaining mystery story and a wrenching exploration of evil' Kate Atkinson 'A fascinating account of a tragic and forgotten chapter in the history of the American West' John Grisham And for The Lost City of Z (shortlisted for the 2009 Samuel Johnson Prize) 'Absorbing... a wonderful story of a lost age of heroic exploration' Sunday Times 'Marvellous... engrossing' Daily Telegraph 'At once a biography, a detective story and wonderfully vivid piece of travel writing... suspenseful... rollicking... fascinating' New York Times

Horse racing may be famously known as the 'sport of kings' but, in the pursuit of prize money and getting one over the bookies, it also has attained a notoriety for some underhand, corrupt and downright illegal practices. Horse racing in Wales is not exempt from these dodgy dealings and on many occasions has led the way in it's ingenuity to devise jaw-dropping cons and cunning deceptions. In The Scams, Scandals and Gambles of Horseracing in Wales, Brian Lee, the veteran and highly regarded Welsh racing correspondent has, for the first time, compiled a comprehensive collection of true stories that reveals Welsh racing's most notorious crooks, loveable rouges and most infamous scams, including: The Oyster Maid affair, when a great gambling coup engineered at Tenby in 1927 nearly put paid to horse racing in Wales and was said by the Queen Mother's jockey, Dick Francis, to have been "the most bitterly resented betting coup National Hunt racing has ever known". The astounding story of Am I Blue's when, in 2010, a four-year-old filly, owned and trained by Aberkenfig's Delyth Thomas, romped home at Hereford after being backed from 25-1 to 5-1, despite having woeful form.As one reporter put it: 'There was outrage in some quarters and amusement in others. ' The elaborate switching of horses and the cutting of the telegraph wires at Bath races in 1953 which saw well-know Cardiff bookie Gomer Charles jailed for 2 years for fraud after his syndicate place GBP100k worth of bets on a 'ringer' racehorse that won at 20-1. The Scandals and Gambles of Horseracing in Wales includes stories both from racing 'under rules' but also from point-to-point, known as racing 'between-the-flags', as well as flapping (unlicensed racing). The stories in this enthralling book, in which the reader will meet many of the rogues of the turf, are informative as well as fascinating and will appeal to not only horse racing fans but also readers of true crime.

Death came knocking...

In the heart of Indianapolis in the mid 1960's, through a twist of fate and fortune, a pretty young girl came to live with a thirty-seven-year-old mother and her seven children. What began as a temporary childcare arrangement between Sylvia Likens's parents and Gertrude Baniszewski turned into a crime that would haunt cops, prosecutors, and a community for decades to come...

Behind closed doors...

When police found Sylvia's emaciated body, with a chilling message carved into her flesh, they knew that she had suffered tremendously before her death. Soon they would learn how many others--including some of Baniszewski's own children--participated in Sylvia's murder, and just how much torture had been inflicted in one "HOUSE OF EVIL"

*With 8 pages of startling photos! *