This volume aims to explain the mechanisms for the "epidemic-like" rise in homicide rates Sao Paulo, Brazil during the late 20th century as well as their sharp decrease after 2000. The homicide rates increased 900 percent from 1960s-2000, and then dropped relatively quickly to 1970s levels over the next decade. While the author finds the Brazilian military government and rise of para-military police forces to be a major factor in the rise of homicide rates in Brazil, research on violent crime trends has demonstrated that it is generally due to the intersection of many factors (for example changes in policing, social or political structures, availability of weapons, economic influences) rather than a single cause. This work integrates individual, neighborhood, and structural dynamics at play in both the rise and drop in homicide rates, and provides a framework for understanding similar phenomena in other regions, particularly in the developing world. This book will be of interest to researchers in criminology and criminal justice, as well as political science, and international relations, particularly with an interest in South America. The methodology includes both qualitative and quantitative analysis.

Hours of Nail-Biting True Crime
You?ve read all the stories?but can you match the mobster with the way he met his end? Do you know how they caught the Boston Strangler? Can you define chickens, a Shotaro complex or Colombian neckties?
The Killer Book of True Crime is the ultimate collection of in-depth stories, trivia, quizzes, quotes and photos gruesome and interesting enough to make any crime buff shudder in horrified delight. Discover all the odd and intriguing facts and tidbits you?ve never heard, such as:
*??John Wayne Gacy's favorite movies
*??How America's most prolific burglar
was captured
*??Which city houses the world's largest
red light district
*??How a roach led to the capture of Albert Fish
*??An eyewitness account of the murder
of eight nurses
*??Where Al Capone really got the scar on his face
These and many more shocking tales and tidbits will have you double-checking your locks at night!

When the possibility of wiretapping first became known to Americans they were outraged. Now, in our post 9/11 world, it's accepted that corporations are vested with human rights, and government agencies and corporations use computers to monitor our private lives. David H. Price pulls back the curtain to reveal how the FBI and other government agencies have always functioned as the secret police of American capitalism up to today, where they luxuriate in a near-limitless NSA surveillance of all. Price looks through a roster of campaigns by law enforcement, intelligence agencies and corporations to understand how we got here. Starting with J. Edgar Hoover and the early FBI's alignment with business, his access to 15,000 pages of never-before-seen FBI files shines a light on the surveillance of Edward Said, Andre Gunder Frank and Alexander Cockburn, Native American communists and progressive factory owners. Price uncovers patterns of FBI monitoring and harassing of activists and public figures, providing the vital means for us to understanding how these new frightening surveillance operations are weaponised by powerful governmental agencies that remain largely shrouded in secrecy.

In the late 1950s the reputation of Brighton as a popular seaside resort took a sinister and notorious turn. After a series of drunken disturbances, suspicions were raised that the owner of the Astor Club, which became known globally as The Bucket of Blood', was bribing members of the town's CID to ignore licencing hours. The situation escalated to the point where Scotland Yard's Flying Squad was called in. Their investigation soon revealed that these bribes were the tip of a police corruption iceberg. Criminality among crooked cops had been going on for years. Provided money was paid, charges were dropped, previous convictions overlooked and evidence disappeared. Others were fitted up' unless they paid up. Police were party to burglaries, assisting in the fencing' of stolen property and protection payments from bookmakers, clubs and bars. During the scandal filled trial of the Chief Constable and CID ringleaders there was perjury, violent witness intimidation with one having his premises burnt to the ground. All this and more is described in this meticulously researched account of one of Britain's most publicised police corruption scandals written with insider knowledge.

The First Counterspy is the pulse-quickening and traumatic story of spy, counterspy, and an American family unwittingly caught in its web. Until this case, the FBI had never recruited civilian counterspies to catch a Soviet agent. The first two were Larry Haas, a leading aviation engineer at Bell Aviation, and Leona Franey, head librarian at Bell's technical library. The FBI pitted them against a Soviet agent, Andrei Ivanovich Schevchenko, operating legally as one of the highest Soviet officials in the United States during WWII, and illegally as the secret head of a wide-ranging spy network hidden within the American aviation industry. The First Counterspy lays out this exciting story and, later, the consequences of Schevchenko's deadly threat of vengeance against Haas, the counterspy who betrayed him. The threat was uttered in a mere fourteen seconds but generated lethal consequences that long outlived Schevchenko, tormented Larry Haas, killed his wife, and subjected his daughter, Kay (the co-author of this book), to decades of nearly fatal harassment. And thereby hangs a tale of spy vs. spy intrigue against the backdrop of the home front during World War II.

THE MULTI-AWARD WINNING INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER - AS READ ON BBC RADIO 4 Why would you kill your neighbour? Based on the best part of a decade embedded with the homicide units of the LAPD, this groundbreaking work of reportage takes us onto the streets, inside the homes and into the lives of a community wracked by a homicide epidemic. Through the gripping story of one particular murder - of an eighteen-year-old boy named Bryant Tennelle, gunned down one evening in spring for no apparent reason - and of its investigation by a brilliant, ferociously driven detective - a blond, surfer-turned-cop named John Skaggs - it reveals the true origins of such violence, explodes the myths surrounding policing and race and shows that the only way to reverse the cycle of violence is with justice.

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.

The true story of a man imprisoned for fifteen years on a minor cocaine trafficking offense recalls his tragic journey into the New York prison system, his struggle against depression, and his career as an artist, which eventually led to his early release.

A war hero, a mass murderer and a Gothic legend the world has never forgottenVlad the Impaler is one of history's most compelling and brutal characters, with a bizarre afterlife as a cult horror sensation. A hero to his countrymen, Vlad Dracula is a byword for dread. Not just for generations of Western fans of Gothic fiction and film, but also for an appalled and fascinated 15th-century readership, for whom contemporary accounts of Dracula's atrocities became the world's first horror bestsellers. Combining historical research and dramatic reconstruction with contemporary reference, here is Vlad the Impaler's dramatic career, from pampered captive of the Ottoman Sultans to exterminating angel of Christian vengeance. But in reality, was he the embodiment of unbridled cruelty or model ruler of an embattled realm? Prince Dracula also examines the role of psychological warfare and black propaganda in international politics, from the medieval torture chamber to the headlines of the modern age, and shows Vlad as an unwitting pioneer of the modern world. Plying a grisly course through medieval bloodbaths and contemporary horrors, Gavin Baddeley and Paul Woods leave no tombstone unturned in this extraordinary history.

The book behind the sensational Netflix series The Ted Bundy Tapes. Now the subject of a major motion picture, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, starring Zac Efron. He was a sadistic monster. A master manipulator. His grisly killing spree left at least 30 innocent young women dead. This is Ted Bundy in his own words. Readers can't get enough of Ted Bundy: Conversations with a Killer: 'Truly terrifying.' 'Absolutely chilling. This book really opened my eyes.' 'I enjoyed this short time inside the devil's mind.'

Pete Ashton is a detective tasked with smashing open the most dangerous drugs gangs blighting Britain's streets. He targets hardened criminals who have everything to lose, and who would not hesitate to put a bullet in his head if his cover is blown. Crack gangs, heroin dealers, speed freaks: he's infiltrated them all and put many of them behind bars. This is the story of a life lived in the shadows.

'An irresistible page-turner that reads like the most compelling, sleep defying fiction' TIME OUT One was an architect. The other a serial killer. This is the incredible story of these two men and their realization of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, and its amazing 'White City'; one of the wonders of the world. The architect was Daniel H. Burnham, the driving force behind the White City, the massive, visionary landscape of white buildings set in a wonderland of canals and gardens. The killer was H. H. Holmes, a handsome doctor with striking blue eyes. He used the attraction of the great fair - and his own devilish charms - to lure scores of young women to their deaths. While Burnham overcame politics, infighting, personality clashes and Chicago's infamous weather to transform the swamps of Jackson Park into the greatest show on Earth, Holmes built his own edifice just west of the fairground. He called it the World's Fair Hotel. In reality it was a torture palace, a gas chamber, a crematorium. These two disparate but driven men are brought to life in this mesmerizing, murderous tale of the legendary Fair that transformed America and set it on course for the twentieth century . . .

Considered by many to be the first work of the true crime genre, this ground-breaking book reconstructs the murder of the Clutter family from information provided by newspaper articles and interviews. 'Dick became convinced that Perry was that rarity, "a natural killer" - absolutely sane, but conscienceless, and capable of dealing, with or without motive, the coldest-blooded deathblows' On 15 November 1959, the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, a wealthy farmer, his wife and their two young children were found brutally murdered. Blood all over the walls, the telephone lines cut, and only a few dollars stolen. Heading up the investigation is Agent Al Dewey, but all he has are two footprints, four bodies, and a whole lot of questions. Truman Capote's detailed reconstruction of the events and consequences of that fateful night, In Cold Blood is a chilling, gripping mix of journalistic skill and imaginative power. 'The American dream turning into the American nightmare. A remarkable book' Spectator 'One of the most stupendous books of the decade' Sunday Express

The Landscape of Murder documents all the sites where murders occurred in London between January 1st, 2011 and December 31st, 2012. In total 209 murders were committed over this two year period. Most murders make the news for only a fleeting moment and the landscape in which they occur reverts back to normality very quickly after the forensic teams leave. Yet the scars remain, sometimes subtle, sometimes very open, whether a single solitary flower or the gathering of grieving family and friends. Sometimes nothing remains to show that a life has ended violently in a particular location. Antonio Zazueta Olmos seeks to give memory to what are mostly forgotten events, in unseen places where great violence has occurred. A violence that is mostly silent, private and unseen by the wider public. The project has taken him to parts of London he knew little or nothing about and in the process he has created an alternative portrait of London, one shaped by violence and inequality.

"An urgent read that illuminates real possibility for change." -John Carreyrou, New York Times bestselling author of Bad Blood For the first time, a story about the specialized teams of forensic psychologists, FBI agents, and other experts who are successfully stopping mass shootings-a hopeful, myth-busting narrative built on new details of infamous attacks, never-before-told accounts from perpetrators and survivors, and real-time immersion in confidential threat cases, casting a whole new light on how to solve an ongoing national crisis. It's time to go beyond all the thoughts and prayers, misguided blame on mental illness, and dug-in disputes over the Second Amendment. Through meticulous reporting and panoramic storytelling, award-winning journalist Mark Follman chronicles the decades-long search for identifiable profiles of mass shooters and brings readers inside a groundbreaking method for preventing devastating attacks. The emerging field of behavioral threat assessment, with its synergy of mental health and law enforcement expertise, focuses on circumstances and behaviors leading up to planned acts of violence-warning signs that offer a chance for constructive intervention before it's too late. Beginning with the pioneering study in the late 1970s of "criminally insane" assassins and the stalking behaviors discovered after the murder of John Lennon and the shooting of Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s, Follman traces how the field of behavioral threat assessment first grew out of Secret Service investigations and FBI serial-killer hunting. Soon to be revolutionized after the tragedies at Columbine and Virginia Tech, and expanded further after Sandy Hook and Parkland, the method is used increasingly today to thwart attacks brewing within American communities. As Follman examines threat-assessment work throughout the country, he goes inside the FBI's elite Behavioral Analysis Unit and immerses in an Oregon school district's innovative violence-prevention program, the first such comprehensive system to prioritize helping kids and avoid relying on punitive measures. With its focus squarely on progress, the story delves into consequential tragedies and others averted, revealing the dangers of cultural misunderstanding and media sensationalism along the way. Ultimately, Follman shows how the nation could adopt the techniques of behavioral threat assessment more broadly, with powerful potential to save lives. Eight years in the making, Trigger Points illuminates a way forward at a time when the failure to prevent mass shootings has never been more costly-and the prospects for stopping them never more promising.

There are a lot of criminals around - but, fortunately for the rest of us, a lot of them are really quite dense. Like the bungling burglar who logged on to his own Facebook page at his victim's house - and forgot to turn the computer off when he left, or the gormless getaway driver who wrote in his dairy 'Go Porsmouth sic] Robbery happens' and left it for police to find. The Daily Mirror's crime-fighter extraordinaire Andrew Penman has scoured the country for this hilarious collection of those who are not just bad, but also dim - very dim.

**SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER** On the Saturday morning of January 9, 1993, while Jean Claude Romand was killing his wife and children, I was with mine in a parent-teacher meeting... With these chilling first words, acclaimed master of psychological suspense, Emmanuel Carrere, begins his exploration of the double life of a respectable doctor, eighteen years of lies, five murders, and the extremes to which ordinary people can go. Discover the true story that is 'beyond the imagination of even the best crime writer' (Sunday Times) 'A disturbing look at the dark side of human nature that is powerfully written and beautifully told' Louis Theroux 'Mesmerising' Sunday Telegraph 'Stunning' Evening Standard 'Unputdownable' Washington Post 'A masterpiece' New York Times