Murder is the most vile crime known to man. It can be triggered by love or money or sex. Those are the three big ticket items for homicide. But people are strange. They will kill for the most obscure and ridiculous of reasons. In 30 years covering murder, I have discovered each one has its own flavour. Cops and friends can be stunned by the evil lurking within a seemingly ordinary man or woman. In this collection of some of the most memorable cases I've reported on, there are serial killers, rich kid monsters, football stars and wives in pursuit of hormone-charged hijinks... The very rich and the very poor. Successful lawyers and hotel executives. Southern belles who could melt butter with a come hither wink and a sexy drawl. Daddy's girls with gleaming smiles, good marks and possessed by the devil. These are stories of American crimes and they stretch from coast to coast. You will find cheating husbands and wives so desperate for love that they'll kill for it. When the mob kills, it's never personal. It's strictly business. With the murderers in Cold Blooded Murder, it's ALWAYS personal.

MONEY, MURDER, AND MACHIAVELLIAN MAYHEM ... CONTAINS A NEW EPILOGUE Mafia Prince is the first person account of one of the most brutal eras in Mafia history, Little Nicky" Scarfo's reign as boss of the Philadelphia family in the 1980s,written by Scarfo's underboss and nephew, Crazy Phil" Leonetti.The youngest-ever underboss at the age of 33, Leonetti was at the crux of the violent breakup of the traditional American Mafia in the 1980s when he infiltrated Atlantic City after gambling was legalized, and later turned state's evidence against his own. His testimony led directly to the convictions of dozens of high-ranking men including John Gotti, Vincent Gigante, and the downfall of his own uncle, Nick Scarfo,sparking the beginning of the end of La Cosa Nostra (the insiders' term for the Mafia, translated as This Thing of Ours").

The inspiring true story of farmer Angus Buchan shows how faith can carry you through the darkest times in your life. Angus’s life changed completely when he accepted Jesus as Savior, going from an angry, hard-drinking man to a passionate servant of God. His bold faith carried him through droughts, family tragedy and financial crisis. Since his conversion, he’s traveled across the world in his ministry, set up a children’s home, written several books and inspired thousands of people with messages on TV, radio and during conferences. This book will inspire and deeply touch your heart and renew your confidence in the power of God and His care and provision for His children.

Independence Day weekend, 1960: a young police officer is murdered, shocking his close-knit community in Stamford, Connecticut. The killer remains at large, his identity still unknown. But on a beach not far away, a young Army doctor, on leave from his post at a research lab in a maximum-security prison, faces a chilling realisation. He knows who the shooter is. In fact, the man—a prisoner out on parole—had called him only days before. By helping his former charge and trainee, the doctor, a believer in second chances, may have inadvertently helped set the murder into motion. And with that one phone call, may have sealed a policeman’s fate. Alvin Tarlov, David Troy and Joseph DeSalvo were all born of the Great Depression, all with grandparents who’d left different homelands for the same American Dream. How did one become a doctor, one a police officer and one a convict? In Genealogy of a Murder, journalist Lisa Belkin traces the paths of each of these three men—one of them her stepfather. Her canvas is large, spanning the first half of the 20th century: immigration, the struggles of the working class, prison reform, medical experiments, politics and war, the nature/nurture debate, epigenetics, the infamous Leopold and Loeb case and the history of motorcycle racing. It is also intimate: a look into the workings of the mind and heart. Following these threads to their tragic outcome in July 1960, and beyond, Belkin examines the coincidences and choices that led to one fateful night. The result is a brilliantly researched, narratively ingenious story, which illuminates how we shape history even as we are shaped by it.

Shortlisted in Scotland's National Book Awards By the time she reached her fifties, Catherine had experienced period pain, childbirth, and early menopause, alongside love and laughter, a career in journalism, and raising two daughters. Like many of her peers, along the way she'd dieted, jogged, sweated, tanned, permed, and plucked-always attempting to conform to prevailing standards of "acceptable womanhood." But when a medical crisis comes along, she can no longer pummel her body into submission and is forced to take stock. From growing up on a farm where veterinarians were more common than doctors, and where illness was "a nuisance," she now faces the nuisance of a lifetime. One Body is the demystifying, relatable, often hilarious, and sometimes hair-raising story of how Catherine navigates her treatment and the emotions and reflections it provokes. And how she comes to drop the unattainable standards imposed on her body, and simply appreciate the skin she is in.

'This extraordinary tale of rivalry and celluloid . . . has fascinated cineastes for years.' Kathryn Hughes, Sunday Times 'Illuminating and thrilling.' The Spectator 'Absorbing, forensic and jaw-dropping.' Total Film In 1888, Louis Le Prince shot the world's first motion picture in Leeds, England. In 1890, weeks before the planned public unveiling of his camera and projector, Le Prince boarded a train in France - and disappeared without a trace. His body was never found. In 1891, Thomas Edison - inventor of the lightbulb and the phonograph - announced that he had developed a motion-picture camera. Le Prince's family, convinced that Edison had stolen Louis's work, proceeded to sue the most famous inventor in the world. The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures excavates one of the great unsolved mysteries of the Victorian age and offers a revelatory rewriting of the birth of modern pictures.

Nineteenth-Century Female Poisoners investigates the Essex poisoning trials of 1846 to 1851 where three women were charged with using arsenic to kill children, their husbands and brothers. Using newspapers, archival sources (including petitions and witness depositions), and records from parliamentary debates, the focus is not on whether the women were guilty or innocent, but rather on what English society during this period made of their trials and what stereotypes and stock-stories were used to describe women who used arsenic to kill. All three women were initially presented as 'bad' women but as the book illustrates there was no clear consensus on what exactly constituted bad womanhood.

This first installment in the New York Times bestselling Crime Files series is a chilling collection of shocking crimes and the ensuing struggles to bring the perpetrators to justice-from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Stranger Beside Me. Soon to be a Lifetime original movie. The "country's premier true crime author" (Library Journal) brings her clear-eyed, compassionate writing and investigative skills to this unputdownable anthology. Distinguished by the former Seattle police officer's razor-sharp eye for detail and her penetrating analysis of the criminal mind, the featured case in this collection is the twisted story of Randy Roth-a man who married, and murdered, for profit. Following are compelling tales of bloody vengeance, estranged relationships that turn deadly, and fateful encounters. With her trademark "unwavering voice" (Publishers Weekly), Ann Rule exposes the darkness that lurks among us.

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.

A little girl is smuggled out of a Jewish ghetto. Two courageous women. And an inspirational story of survival. In 1941 at the height of World War II, in a Polish ghetto, a baby girl named Rachel is born. Her parents, Jacob and Zippa, are willing to do anything to keep her alive. They nickname her Lalechka. Just before Lalechka's first birthday, the Nazis begin to systematically murder everyone in the ghetto. Her father understands that staying in the ghetto will mean certain death for his child. In both desperation and hope, Lalechka's parents decide to save their daughter, no matter the cost. Zippa smuggles her outside the boundaries of the ghetto where her Polish friends, Irena and Sophia, are waiting. She entrusts their beloved Lalechka to them and returns to the ghetto to remain with her husband and parents - unaware of the fate that awaits her. Irena and Sophia take on the burden of caring for Lalechka during the war, pretending she is part of their family despite the grave danger of being discovered and executed. Holocaust Child is based on the unique journal written by Zippa during the annihilation of the ghetto, as well as on interviews with key figures in the story, rare documents, and authentic letters. It is a story of hope in the face of terror.

'Both inspiring and disturbing, Sex Cult Nun unravels Jones' complicated upbringing, the trauma she endured as a result and her eventual path to liberation.' TIME 'A moving story about family, courage, religious oppression, and more, and readers will have their heads spinning.' SHONDALAND 'Her gripping memoir-like Educated-takes you inside a disturbing childhood and leaves you marvelling at the resilience of the human spirit' PEOPLE MAGAZINE Faith Jones was raised to be part of an elite army preparing for the End Times. Isolated on a farm in Macau, she practised devotions and read letters of prophecy written by her grandfather, the leader of the now infamous cult, The Children of God. A direct decedent of the founding family, Faith featured in international media coverage - she was celebrated as extraordinary and then published doubly as a sharp reminder that she was not. With indomitable grit, Faith created a world of her own, pilfering books and educating herself in secret. At the age of 23, she escaped, abandoning her history, her inheritance and her legacy. While her childhood friends succumbed to addiction, suicide and prostitution, Faith fought her way into Georgetown University and went on to establish a successful career in law. Sex Cult Nun is an enthralling coming-of-age story that gives fascinating insight into the closed and complex world of extreme belief. Exploring the issues of psychological and physical control, Faith draws on her hard-won insight to interrogate the binaries of good and evil, and shed light on the insidiousness of oppression. At its heart, this extraordinary story is a stark warning about the consequences of surrendering our rights and responsibilities.

'Not just a readable, pacey account of an extraordinary individual and his quixotic quest ... but also a troubling expose of the fragility of our entire financial system ... I loved it' Oliver Bullough, author of Moneyland For fans of Bad Blood and The Big Short, the story of how one reclusive trading prodigy manipulated Wall Street and amassed millions from his childhood bedroom - then short-circuited the global market. A real-life financial thriller, Flash Crash gives panoramic insight into our economic landscape - its weaknesses, its crooks and its exploitable loopholes - and uncovers the remarkable, behind-the-scenes narrative of a mystifying market crash, a globe-spanning investigation into international fraud, and the man - Navinder Singh Sarao - at the centre of it all. Depending on whom you ask, Sarao was a scourge, a symbol of a financial system run horribly amok, or a folk hero: an outsider who took on the tyranny of Wall Street and the high-frequency traders.

This is the opening line of a letter hidden under a carpet for a decade. The chilling words are followed by a confession to a murder committed nearly 13 years earlier. The chance discovery of the letter on 31 March 2012 reawakens a case long considered to have run cold, and a hunt begins for the men who kidnapped and killed Betty Ketani - and were convinced they had gotten away with it. The investigation spans five countries, with a world-renowned DNA laboratory called in to help solve the forensic puzzle. The author of the confession letter might have feared death, but he is very much alive, as are others implicated in the crime. Betty Ketani, a mother of three, came to Johannesburg in search of better prospects for her family. She found work cooking at one of the city's most popular restaurants, and then one day she mysteriously disappeared. Those out to avenge her death want to bring closure to Betty's family, still agonising over her fate all these years later. The storyline would not be out of place as a Hollywood movie - and it's all completely true. Written by the reporter who broke the story, Cold Case Confession goes behind the headlines to share exclusive material gathered in four years of investigations, including the most elusive piece of the puzzle: who would want Betty Ketani dead, and why?

Tom Hart Dyke has a bit of a thing about plants. You might call it an obsession. You might call him certifiable, in fact. But it's a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large ramshackle country estate and an obsession with plant collecting could want for only one thing - in Tom's case it's a walled garden containing examples of plants collected from every corner of the globe. Tom's infectious enthusiasm for anything with chlorophyll in it and the hugely ambitious World Garden project he has undertaken at his family home, Lullingstone Castle, in Kent have been documented in a 12-part television series for BBC 2. The first six parts ("Save Lullingstone Castle") were shown in spring 2006, and the second six episodes ("Return to Lullingstone Castle") in spring 2007 to coincide with hardback publication.Tom's attempts to set up the World Garden aren't exactly straightforward. You might imagine, for example, that the easiest way to start preparing the ground inside the walled Elizabethan garden which he transforms into the main part of the world garden would be to enlist the help of a few people and a lot of hard digging. Well not for Tom, who enlists instead two large pigs, who do indeed do a great job of turning over the earth and fertilising it with great organic manure. But the problem is that they keep escaping into the Hart Dyke family burial plot next door where they start digging up Tom's ancestors..."The World Garden" is created to bring together a truly amazing collection of plants from every continent and so to show the global origins of the plants we all grow in our gardens. It's already establishing itself as a tourist attraction of some note as well as an educational resource. This is a book for all those who bought Tim Smit's "Lost Gardens of Heligan". It's stuffed full of fascinating botanical information as well as the story of Tom's hapless struggle to overcome huge logistical nightmares. It's a riveting, hilarious story of English eccentricity in full bloom.