On a summer day in 1898, a family in Dover, Delaware, shared a box of chocolates they received in the mail from an anonymous sender. Within days, two of the seven family members were dead; the other five became ill but recovered. The search for the perpetrator soon moved from Delaware to California, where a suspect was quickly identified: Cordelia Botkin, lover of the husband of one of the poisoned women. This book chronicles the shoddy investigation that led to Botkin's indictment and the two sensational trials, adjudicated in the press, that found her guilty. National attention was drawn by the cross-country nature of the crime and the fact that the supposed perpetrator had never been in Delaware in her life. It was also a trial over what was viewed as the moral and sexual depravity of the two main participants, Botkin and Dunning (the husband), with most of that criticism directed at Botkin.

Shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize 2021 'To compare any book to a Sacks is unfair, but this one lives up to it . . . I finished it feeling thrillingly unsettled, and wishing there was more.' - James McConnachie, Sunday Times In Sweden, refugee children fall asleep for months and years at a time. In upstate New York, high school students develop contagious seizures. In the US Embassy in Cuba, employees complain of headaches and memory loss after hearing strange noises in the night. These disparate cases are some of the most remarkable diagnostic mysteries of the twenty-first century, as both doctors and scientists have struggled to explain them within the boundaries of medical science and - more crucially - to treat them. What unites them is that they are all examples of a particular type of psychosomatic illness: medical disorders that are influenced as much by the idiosyncratic aspects of individual cultures as they are by human biology. Inspired by a poignant encounter with the sleeping refugee children of Sweden, Wellcome Prize-winning neurologist Suzanne O'Sullivan travels the world to visit other communities who have also been subject to outbreaks of so-called 'mystery' illnesses. From a derelict post-Soviet mining town in Kazakhstan, to the Mosquito Coast of Nicaragua via an oil town in Texas, to the heart of the Maria Mountains in Colombia, O'Sullivan hears remarkable stories from a fascinating array of people, and attempts to unravel their complex meaning while asking the question: who gets to define what is and what isn't an illness? Reminiscent of the work of Oliver Sacks, Stephen Grosz and Henry Marsh, The Sleeping Beauties is a moving and unforgettable scientific investigation with a very human face. 'A study of diseases that we sometimes say are 'all in the mind', and an explanation of how unfair that characterisation is.' - Tom Whipple, The Times Books of the Year

A Certain Arrogance is a reticulation of eight essays on the history of international intelligence (primarily U.S. espionage), on Allen Dulles and John Foster Dulles and their manipulation of religious groups and individuals to achieve U.S. elitist goals, on the development of U.S. psychological warfare operations, and on the sacrifice of Lee Harvey Oswald in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
American Spymaster Allen Dulles, based in Switzerland, had abused religious (largely Protestant) individuals and institutions for U.S. intelligence through two World Wars and the subsequent "Cold War." His brother John Foster Dulles also used major religious groups (again, largely Protestant) from 1937 through 1959 to further both his own and the American establishment's political and economic goals.
One religious individual, Noel Field (American Quaker, Unitarian, and Marxist) was used by Allen Dulles to manipulate religious relief organizations in World War II and in the post war period. Dulles finally utilized Field to help destabilize Communist Eastern Europe. Dulles apparently collaborated in this plan with Jozef Swiatlo, a Communist/CIA double agent, who later surfaced in the Warren Commission's Kennedy assassination investigation of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Swiss based Albert Schweitzer College had major religious origins that were both social and political. Post war liberal Protestant movements in Europe, including the International Association for Religious Freedom, helped to create the college in Switzerland, the country at the center of Allen Dulles' fifty year spy program. In the United States, the college was supported by a powerful coalition of American religious liberalism, primarily the Unitarian Church, the Unitarian Service Committee, and the American Friends of Albert Schweitzer College.
Albert Schweitzer College's history strongly suggests that American espionage assets helped establish the college and then used it, possibly with the knowledge and even cooperation of some of its religious supporters in the Unitarian Church movement and those who worked for the college in Switzerland. One leading Unitarian who worked closely with both U.S. intelligence and the military in the '40s and '50s was President of the American Friends of Albert Schweitzer College, exactly when Lee Harvey Oswald applied. That same intelligence connected Unitarian worked with a second influential Unitarian to help control U.S. space programs, including the U 2 overflights, and in the '60s, that intelligence connected Unitarian fronted for a major CIA proprietary. Those who set policy for Albert Schweitzer College were, therefore, elite members of the establishment and allies of the Central Intelligence Agency. In 1959, Lee Harvey Oswald registered to attend Albert Schweitzer College and therefore became a direct link between the college and American intelligence.
Whoever masterminded the Oswald college action was knowledgeable about both the OSS's and the CIA's use of Quakers, officials of the World Council of Churchs, and Unitarians as contacts, assets, and informants (often as double agents) AND about the FBI's responsibility in tracking down and identifying Soviet illegals and double agents. Oswald was, therefore, a creature of someone in American counterintelligence who possessed precisely that double body of knowledge.
At the same time that Albert Schweitzer College was extending its international recruiting effort, both the Soviet and American Illegals and False Identity programs were operating. For those espionage groups, Lee Harvey Oswald initially looked like a candidate for their intelligence operations. But Oswald was a stunningly imperfect False Identity/Illegals prospect. A faulty False Identity operation had apparently been carried out using Lee Harvey Oswald and run by a branch of American intelligence.
Oswald's imperfections were certain to trip counterespionage a

I propose to open my mind as wide as possible to allow my readers the first ever glimpse at South Central from my side of the gun, street, fence and wall. After pumping eight blasts from a sawed-off shotgun at a group of rival gang members, twelve-year-old Kody Scott was initiated into the L.A. gang the Crips. He quickly matured into one of the most formidable Crip combat soldiers, earning the name 'Monster' for committing acts of brutality and violence that repulsed even his fellow gang members. When the inevitable jail term confined him to a maximum-security cell, a complete political and personal transformation followed: from Monster to Sanyika Shakur, Black nationalist, member of the New Afrikan Independence Movement and crusader against the causes of gangsterism. In a document that has been compared to The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice, Shakur makes palpable the despair and decay of America's inner cities and gives eloquent voice to one aspect of the Black experience today.

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Leonardo DiCaprio, this gripping true story of the origins of the Mafia in America follows the brilliant Italian-born detective who gave his life to stop it. Beginning in the summer of 1903, an insidious crime wave filled New York City, and then the entire country, with fear. The children of Italian immigrants were kidnapped, and dozens of innocent victims were gunned down. Bombs tore apart tenement buildings. Judges, senators, Rockefellers, and society matrons were threatened with gruesome deaths. The perpetrators seemed both omnipresent and invisible. Their only calling card: the symbol of a black hand. The crimes whipped up the slavering tabloid press and heated ethnic tensions to the boiling point. Standing between the American public and the Black Hand's lawlessness was Joseph Petrosino. Dubbed the "Italian Sherlock Holmes," he was a famously dogged and ingenious detective, and a master of disguise. As the crimes grew ever more bizarre and the Black Hand's activities spread far beyond New York's borders, Petrosino and the all-Italian police squad he assembled raced to capture members of the secret criminal society before the country's anti-immigrant tremors exploded into catastrophe. Petrosino's quest to root out the source of the Black Hand's power would take him all the way to Sicily--but at a terrible cost. Unfolding a story rich with resonance in our own era, The Black Hand is fast-paced narrative history at its very best.

The 1931 excavation season at Olynthus, Greece, ushered a sea change in how archaeologists study material culture-and was the nexus of one of the most egregious (and underreported) cases of plagiarism in the history of classical archaeology. Alan Kaiser draws on the private scrapbook that budding archaeologist Mary Ross Ellingson compiled during that dig, as well as her personal correspondence and materials from major university archives, to paint a fascinating picture of gender, power, and archaeology in the early twentieth century. Using Ellingson's photographs and letters as a guide, Kaiser brings alive the excavations led by David Robinson and recounts how the unearthing of private homes-rather than public spaces-emerged as a means to examine the day-to-day of ancient life in Greece. But as Archaeology, Sexism, and Scandal clearly demonstrates, a darker story lurks beneath the smiling faces and humorous tales: one where Robinson stole Ellingson's words and insights for his own, and where fellow academics were complicit in the theft.

Based on a true story, The Forgotten Child is a heart-breaking memoir of an abandoned newborn baby left to die, his tempestuous upbringing, and how he came through the other side. It's a freezing winter's night in 1954. A baby boy, a few hours old, is left by his mother, wrapped in nothing but two sheets of newspaper and hidden amongst the undergrowth by a canal bank. An hour later, a late-shift postman is walking wearily home when he hears a faint cry. He finds the newspaper parcel and discovers the newborn, white-cold and whimpering, inside. After being rushed to hospital and against all odds, the baby survives. He's baptised by the hospital chaplain as Richard. Everything feels as though it's looking up; Richard is put into local authority care and regains his health. However, after nearly five blissful years in a rural care home filled with loving friends, it soon unfolds that his turbulent start in life is only the beginning... Based on a devastating true story, this inspirational memoir follows Richard's traumatic birth, abusive childhood, and search for the truth.

Through an Unlocked Door] is a unique look (I don't know of another book quite like it) at the crime of murder occurring in the homes of those who, through a matter of conscious decision or simply not paying attention, failed to secure their homes and to lock their doors, and because of this, were easily slaughtered. It is both an in-depth look at those killers who went out of their way to find the unlocked doors, and those who suffered because of it. Indeed, the issue of the unlocked home crosses all societal, economic, and cultural lines; and can be found in abundance throughout all 50 U.S states. And this book is an attempt to bring this ""hidden"" problem to light, so that those who have had an issue with securing their dwellings, will make the proper changes, and in doing so, will greatly reduce their chances of becoming a homicide victim.

Nine days that set the course of a nation... Johannesburg, Easter weekend, 1993. Nelson Mandela has been free for three years and is in slow-moving power-sharing talks with President FW de Klerk when a white supremacist shoots Mandela's popular young heir apparent, Chris Hani, in the hope of igniting an all-out civil war. Will he succeed in plunging South Africa into chaos, safeguarding apartheid for perhaps years to come? Or can Mandela and de Klerk overcome their differences and mutual suspicion and calm their followers, plotting a way forward? In The Plot to Save South Africa, acclaimed South African journalist Justice Malala recounts the riveting story of the next nine days - never before told in full - revealing rarely seen sides of both Mandela and de Klerk, the fascinating behind-the-scenes debates within each of their parties over whether to pursue peace or war, and their increasingly desperate attempts to restrain their supporters despite mounting popular frustrations. Flitting between the points of view of over a dozen characters on all sides of the conflict, Justice Malala offers an illuminating look at successful leadership in action... and a terrifying reminder of just how close a country we think of today as a model for racial reconciliation came to civil war.

New England is notorious for its dark tourism with tragic and treacherous attractions, both historical and recent, that re-create death, suffering, and the outright macabre. History buffs and paranormal enthusiasts will discover engaging stories, from historic homes and cemeteries to serial killers and infamous haunted locales. Featuring a balance of old favorites and brand-new finds, full visitor information is provided, including where to park, where to eat, and even where to find a clean restroom! Learn about more than 100 sinister sites found throughout the region. New England has a darker side-it awaits you.

When Hissene Habre, the deposed dictator of Chad, was found guilty of crimes against humanity in 2016, it was described as 'a watershed for human rights justice in Africa and beyond'. For the first time, an African war criminal had been convicted on African soil. Having followed the trial from the very beginning and interviewed many of those involved, journalist Celeste Hicks tells the remarkable story of how Habre was brought to justice. His conviction followed a heroic 25 year campaign by activists and survivors of Habre's atrocities, which succeeded despite international indifference, opposition from Habre's allies, and several failed attempts to bring him to trial in Europe and elsewhere. In the face of such overwhelming odds, the conviction of a once untouchable tyrant represents a major turning point, with profound implications for African justice and the future of human rights activism globally.

When Maximilian Potter went to Burgundy to report for Vanity Fair on a crime that could have destroyed the Domaine de la Romanee Conti-the tiny, storied vineyard that produces the most expensive, exquisite wines in the world-he soon found a story that was much larger, and more thrilling, than he had originally imagined. In January 2010, Aubert de Villaine, the famed proprietor of the DRC, received an anonymous note threatening the destruction of his priceless vines by poison-a crime that in the world of high-end wine is akin to murder-unless he paid a one million euro ransom. Villaine believed it to be a sick joke, but that proved a fatal miscalculation; the crime was committed and shocked this fabled region of France. The sinister story that Potter uncovered would lead to a sting operation by top Paris detectives, the primary suspect's suicide, and a dramatic trial. This botanical crime threatened to destroy the fiercely traditional culture surrounding the world's greatest wine. Like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, SHADOW IN THE VINEYARD takes us deep into a captivating world full of fascinating characters, small town French politics, an unforgettable narrative, and a local culture defined by the twinned veins of excess and vitality and the deep reverent attention to the land that run through it.

Today you'd call Ballantyne suburban, but back then, at the start of the summer of 1966, it was country - just a cluster of houses, some of them shacks, on or near Ballantyne Road, in the Town of Chili, NY. And while June 25 started like any other day it would end in a nightmare. In The Devil at Genesee Junction, veteran crime writer, Michael Benson, returns to his formerly rural hometown to take on the double homicide of his friends Kathy Bernhard and George-Ann Formiciola that took place that night. The two girls were missing for a month and then found in the bushes horribly mutilated. The double homicide changed the author's childhood suddenly, and drastically. He went from living in a rural playland, to being encased in fear, wondering who among them was the werewolf who cut up Kathy and George-Ann. This heinous crime was never resolved, and didn't go away. In recent years, the author has teamed up with a victim's mom, and a local private investigator to delve deep into the 6/66 murders, developing along the way some strong new leads and shocking details. Together they have heated up this icy cold case, and their investigation has led them in a startling new direction.

The gruesome 1947 murder of hopeful starlet Elizabeth Short holds a permanent place in American lore as one of our most inscrutable true-crime mysteries. In a groundbreaking feat of detection hailed as "extensive" and "convincing" (Bustle), skilled legal sleuth Piu Eatwell cracks the case after seventy years, rescuing Short from tabloid fodder to reveal the woman behind the headlines. Drawing on recently unredacted FBI and LAPD files and exclusive interviews, Black Dahlia, Red Rose is a gripping panorama of noir-tinged 1940s Hollywood and a definitive account of one of the biggest unsolved murders of American legal history.

On a summer evening in 2002, ten-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman took a break from playing video games and left the house to go to buy some sweets, but they never came home. For weeks after they were declared missing, an image of these smiling young girls dressed in their matching Manchester United kit, taken just a couple of hours before they went missing, was plastered across the British press as a nationwide search began to take place. Hoards of volunteers stepped forward, the Cambridgeshire police began an exhaustive investigation and candlelight vigils were held as the local community and the rest of the country hoped for their safe return. When the bodies were discovered in a ditch, the final ray of hope for their safe return was extinguished as it became clear that both girls had been murdered. The nation was shocked and sickened at the news and so began a national outpouring of grief for these two innocent girls who had tragically lost their lives in such a terrible way. And, in a terrible twist, Ian Huntley, a man who having given such vocal support for the search had become spokesperson for the community, was found guilty. Twenty years on, Huntley is still one of the most reviled men in the country. Beyond Evil is an in-depth study of this shocking case as it unfolded, written by investigative journalist Nathan Yates, who witnessed the murder hunt first-hand and even interviewed Huntley and former girlfriend Maxine Carr in what is still remembered as one of the most terrible cases of abduction and murder.

*A must-read for all True Crime fans* Why are Scotland Yard murder detectives considered among the finest in the world? And why is so little known about how they truly work? ? Take a look at what lies behind that success with someone who knows. DI Steven Keogh spent over half of his 30-year police career as a Scotland Yard detective, helping to hunt down terrorists and some of the worst murderers in London. Step inside the mind of an investigator in a never-before-seen look into what it takes to catch killers and bring them to justice. In a journey from crime scene to trial, you will witness the emotional highs and lows of cracking real-life murder cases and discover why people kill, while debunking the myths that surround this detective work. Are you ready to challenge everything you thought you knew about the world of murder investigations?

A #1 Wall Street Journal, Amazon Charts, USA Today, and Washington Post bestseller. #1 New York Times bestselling author Gregg Olsen's shocking and empowering true-crime story of three sisters determined to survive their mother's house of horrors. After more than a decade, when sisters Nikki, Sami, and Tori Knotek hear the word mom, it claws like an eagle's talons, triggering memories that have been their secret since childhood. Until now. For years, behind the closed doors of their farmhouse in Raymond, Washington, their sadistic mother, Shelly, subjected her girls to unimaginable abuse, degradation, torture, and psychic terrors. Through it all, Nikki, Sami, and Tori developed a defiant bond that made them far less vulnerable than Shelly imagined. Even as others were drawn into their mother's dark and perverse web, the sisters found the strength and courage to escape an escalating nightmare that culminated in multiple murders. Harrowing and heartrending, If You Tell is a survivor's story of absolute evil-and the freedom and justice that Nikki, Sami, and Tori risked their lives to fight for. Sisters forever, victims no more, they found a light in the darkness that made them the resilient women they are today-loving, loved, and moving on.

Here is the true story of Bonnie Parker (1910-1934) and Clyde Barrow (1909-1934), a young sociopathic Southern couple gunned down by authorities after a two-year crime spree that left twelve people dead. This history cuts through hype and mythology and examines the outlaws' liberal and dysfunctional sex life, their astonishing ability to elude a 1000-man posse, the contradictory accounts of the mythic ambush that resulted in their deaths and the extraordinary growth of Bonnie and Clyde legend.

The "New York Times" bestselling, authoritative account of the life of Charles Manson, filled with surprising new information and previously unpublished photographs: "A riveting, almost Dickensian narrative...four stars" ("People").
More than forty years ago Charles Manson and his mostly female commune killed nine people, among them the pregnant actress Sharon Tate. It was the culmination of a criminal career that author Jeff Guinn traces back to Manson's childhood. Guinn interviewed Manson's sister and cousin, neither of whom had ever previously cooperated with an author. Childhood friends, cellmates, and even some members of the Manson family have provided new information about Manson's life. Guinn has made discoveries about the night of the Tate murders, answering unresolved questions, such as why one person near the scene of the crime was spared.
"Manson" puts the killer in the context of the turbulent late sixties, an era of race riots and street protests when authority in all its forms was under siege. Guinn shows us how Manson created and refined his message to fit the times, persuading confused young women (and a few men) that he had the solutions to their problems. At the same time he used them to pursue his long-standing musical ambitions. His frustrated ambitions, combined with his bizarre race-war obsession, would have lethal consequences.
Guinn's book is a "tour de force of a biography..."Manson" stands as a definitive work: important for students of criminology, human behavior, popular culture, music, psychopathology, and sociopathology...and compulsively readable" (Ann Rule, "The New York Times Book Review").

Many nefarious characters have passed through Maine on their way to infamy, including the pirates Dixie Bull and Blackbeard (Edward Teach), and gangster Al Brady, who was gunned down by G-men in the streets of Bangor. The rogues and scoundrels assembled in this book, however, are either Maine natives or notorious individuals whose mischief, misdeeds, or mayhem were perpetrated in the Pine Tree State.

Detectives and CSI crews may work for weeks, months, sometimes years searching and piecing together forensic evidence to find the vital clues in solving a crime. With the use of planetary positions, houses, fixed stars and Arabic parts, forensic astrology gives investigators a head-start in discovering valuable information that can hasten crime solving.

In "Forensics by the Stars," author B. D. Salerno, an astrologer for more than twenty years, provides insight into the fascinating world of solving crimes and understanding both natural and manmade disasters by applying astrological science to interpreting event charts and revealing the clues they contain.

Providing interesting insights, "Forensics by the Stars" analyzes the murder of Marilyn Monroe, the Lindbergh kidnapping, several missing persons cases, and a number of natural and manmade disasters. Salerno explains how to interpret the event horoscopes and astrologic charts to help understand the outcome of certain events. Like threads of carpeting, blood spatter, or fingerprints, forensic astrology can reveal an astonishing amount of detail about an event.