What makes a racketeer? What drives men to operate outside the confines of a society that pretends to abhor racketeers yet pays homage to the individuals who flaunt society's conventions? Rise and Fall of a Racketeer, soars above the mundane and not only lets you peek inside the persona of one individual, but a multitude of other interesting men and women who make up the world of gangsterism. It takes the reader backstage to the way things really work; how power is used, and why. Travel to cities, steeped in romanticism and raucous nights, Miami, Bermuda, Las Vegas, Palm Beach, Myrtle Beach, and other places, inspired stirrings of culture and history-Charleston, and stoic, no nonsense cities, such as Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Youngstown, Ohio.

Ralph Daugherty is a computer programmer who was drawn to the Chandra Levy case based on coverage of the critical clues to her disappearance found on Chandra's computer. He has posted over 7,000 comments as rd on Chandra boards on the Internet and has set up his own board dedicated to Chandra Levy, Laci Peterson, and missing women at www.justiceforchandra.com.

He has now pulled together the reported facts with his analysis and questions, honed by discussions with hundreds of other posters since Chandra's disappearance. This complex mystery is a compelling story, and "Murder On A Horse Trail" tries to do justice to that story.

If movies teach us anything, it's that art theft involves glitz, glamour, and above all else, sophistication. Movies lie In reality, art robberies often involve people who don't know anything about the art they are stealing. This book looks at fifteen of the most fascinating and notorious art robberies. Prepared to be amazed at how shockingly idiotic some of them were

Meet Brick and Wax, two bright eighteen-year-olds looking for a route out of poverty. When Baltimore was engulfed in riots in 2015 they helped loot pharmacies, stealing over $100 million worth of opiates. The plan: to use their gang connections and programming skills to set up a high tech drug delivery service. The result: the teens became America's youngest drug lords, in the process sparking bloody gang warfare and a nationwide wave of addiction and murder. Now mixing in deadly circles, Brick and Wax soon found their own lives were on the line . . . As gripping and compulsive as a thriller, Pill City takes us into the heat of the action as Brick and Wax outwit the FBI and DEA, gang members like Damage and Lyric live and die by their own brutal code, the cops battle to stop the carnage, and a high-school coach risks a bullet to get addicts into rehab. Even today the teens' identity has not been uncovered, and one is prospering in Silicon Valley. Award-winning criminal justice reporter Kevin Deutsch has interviewed all the key players and interweaves their stories to tell a gritty, hard-hitting story of survival in the Baltimore underworld.

Shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction 2017 The gripping, fascinating account of a shocking murder case that sent late Victorian Britain into a frenzy, by the number one bestselling, multi-award-winning author of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher 'Her research is needle-sharp and her period detail richly atmospheric, but what is most heartening about this truly remarkable book is the story of real-life redemption that it brings to light' John Carey, Sunday Times Early in the morning of Monday 8 July 1895, thirteen-year-old Robert Coombes and his twelve-year-old brother Nattie set out from their small, yellow brick terraced house in east London to watch a cricket match at Lord's. Their father had gone to sea the previous Friday, leaving the boys and their mother at home for the summer. Over the next ten days Robert and Nattie spent extravagantly, pawning family valuables to fund trips to the theatre and the seaside. During this time nobody saw or heard from their mother, though the boys told neighbours she was visiting relatives. As the sun beat down on the Coombes house, an awful smell began to emanate from the building. When the police were finally called to investigate, what they found in one of the bedrooms sent the press into a frenzy of horror and alarm, and Robert and Nattie were swept up in a criminal trial that echoed the outrageous plots of the 'penny dreadful' novels that Robert loved to read. In The Wicked Boy, Kate Summerscale has uncovered a fascinating true story of murder and morality - it is not just a meticulous examination of a shocking Victorian case, but also a compelling account of its aftermath, and of man's capacity to overcome the past.

From 1937 Ireland to petty theft as a teenager in London, Sydney Gottfried grew into a high-life of international double-dealing. Owner of a casino and nightclub, his many deals involve fake scotch, violent Soho hookers, counterfeit money, mobsters, diamonds, Swiss banks and scams against the American public. Gottfried is resolutely crooked and his scams -- some explained in detail -- are at times darkly humorous. Yet the vicious gravitas of his lifestyle draws him tragically, inevitably, to bloody murder.

This is a chronology of a private investigation into the disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh, the London Estate Agent. It began on the 28th July 1999 and lasted for four years. The research revealed a direct link between Suzy and John West - the younger brother of Fred West. At first the research was given to the Metropolitan Police who began a new review into the case in 2000. The investigation has opened up a whole new perspective on the Cromwell Street murders and three new victims have been named together with a possible third. After twenty-five years the mystery of Suzy Lamplugh has finally been solved.

Virginia (Roberts) Giuffre's all-American childhood came to an abrupt end by sexual abuse at the age of 7. After her mother exiled her to a school for troubled youth, she ran away to a life on the streets. The FBI rescued her when she was 14 from a violent pedophile and her life seemed to return to normal with a job as spa attendant at Donald Trump's exclusive Mar-a-Lago in Florida. It was there that the teenager was approached by the elegant jet-setter Ghislaine Maxwell who said her millionaire partner Jeffrey Epstein would like to sponsor her to become a professional masseuse... This is the first book to tell Virginia's own extraordinary, tale as an abused penniless high-school drop-out and how she was able to outsmart her rich underage-sex predators and forced an end to their crimes.

La Bte du Gvaudan was a real wolf-like monster living in the Auvergne from 1764 to 1767. She killed about one hundred people. Prowling Catholic pre-Revolutionary France, she spread terror among the aristocrats and peasants of the beautiful Auvergne countryside. Her story beats most mystery novels in false trails, horror and atmosphere. The big difference is La Bte was real, not fiction, and leaves for ever the unanswered question, "What was she?" All efforts to stop her failed and she became infamous throughout France. The king - Louis XV - took a personal interest in her activities and how to destroy her. Many explanations - alien, prehistoric beast, mutant etc. - were put forward at the time and during the two centuries since but none have ever been widely accepted. A mass of evidence remains that La Bte did exist and was not just a legend. Compared with other monster mysteries she is unique, leaving graves, witnessed parish records, and archives of official documents, many of them included in this book, proving her real and guilty beyond doubt. Read Pourcher's book carefully and draw your own conclusions. Even if you arrive at a conventional solution to the mystery, doubts might linger as darkness falls. If twigs crack, don't whistle.

THE CHICAGO KILLER: The Hunt For Serial Killer John Wayne Gacy is the story of the capture of John Wayne Gacy, as told from the perspective of the former Chief of Detectives of the Des Plaines, Illinois Police Department, Joseph Kozenczak. The conviction of Gacy on 33 counts of murder is a record in the archives of the criminal justice system in the United States. Two additional bonus chapters give the reader a comprehensive insight into the use of psychics and the lie-detector in a serial murder investigation.

NOW A NETFLIX FILM STARRING EDDIE REDMAYNE AND JESSICA CHASTAIN 'A stunning book... should and does bring to mind In Cold Blood' New York Times After his arrest in 2003, registered nurse Charlie Cullen was quickly dubbed 'The Angel of Death' by the media. But Cullen was no mercy killer, nor was he a simple monster. He was a favourite son, husband, beloved father, best friend and celebrated caregiver. Implicated in the deaths of as many as 300 patients, he was also perhaps the most prolific serial killer in American history. Cullen's murderous career in the world's most trusted profession spanned sixteen years and nine hospitals. Chronicling Cullen's deadly career and the breathless efforts to stop him, The Good Nurse paints an incredibly vivid portrait of madness and offers an urgent, terrifying tale of murder, friendship and betrayal.

'Packed with insights and details that will both amaze and appal you' - Oliver Bullough, author of Butler to the World Across the world, HSBC likes to sell itself as 'the world's local bank', the friendly face of corporate and personal finance. And yet, a decade ago, the same bank was hit with a record US fine of $1.9 billion for facilitating money laundering for 'drug kingpins and rogue nations'. In pursuit of their goal of becoming the biggest bank in the world, between 2003 to 2010, HSBC allowed El Chapo and the Sinaloa cartel, one of the most notorious and murderous criminal organizations in the world, to turn its ill-gotten money into clean dollars and thereby grow one of the deadliest drugs empires the world has ever seen. How did a bank, which boasts 'we're committed to helping protect the world's financial system on which millions of people depend, by only doing business with customers who meet our high standards of transparency' come to facilitate Mexico's richest drug baron? And how did a bank that had been named 'one of the best-run organizations in the world' become so entwined with one of the most barbaric groups of gangsters on the planet? Too Big to Jail is an extraordinary story brilliantly told by writer, commentator, and former editor of The Independent, Chris Blackhurst, that starts in Hong Kong and ranges across London, Washington, the Cayman Islands and Mexico, where HSBC saw the opportunity to become the largest bank in the world, and El Chapo seized the chance to fuel his murderous empire by laundering his drug proceeds through the bank. It brings together an extraordinary cast of politicians, bankers, drug dealers, FBI officers and whistle-blowers, and asks what price does greed have? Whose job is it to police global finance? And why did not a single person go to prison for facilitating the murderous expansion of a global drug empire?

During the last few decades, financially and technologically corrupt practices, such as financial and technological crimes, frauds, forgeries, scandals, and money laundering, have been monitored in many countries around the globe. There is a general lack of awareness regarding these issues among various stakeholders including researchers and practitioners. Concepts, Cases, and Regulations in Financial Fraud and Corruption considers all aspects of financial and technological crimes, frauds, and corruption in individual, organizational, and societal experiences. The book also discusses the emergence and practices of financial crimes, frauds, and corruption during the last century and especially in the current technological advancement. Covering key topics such as financing, ethical leadership, tax evasion, and insider trading, this premier reference source is ideal for computer scientists, business owners, managers, researchers, scholars, academicians, practitioners, instructors, and students.

THE FIRST VICE LORD is the story of the life and death of Big Jim Colosimo and Chicago's infamous segregated red-light district--the Levee. For the first time, the true story is told of the colorful characters who peopled the Levee from the time of the Columbian Exposition to the Roaring Twenties, clearly the most colorful period in Chicago's history. The product of five years of research through Chicago daily newspapers, magazines, and periodicals, and books on the city's history, it documents the story as it occurred, with all of the sights, sounds, and smells of that lusty, unruly era. THE FIRST VICE LORD is the story of an immigrant Italian lad who grew up in the tenements of Chicago, where he worked first as a lowly street sweeper, then as a brothel operator and vice lord, and finally as the owner of the most famous restaurant of his day. His story is told against the backdrop of an open red-light district so famous it was known to the crown heads of Europe.