In the early hours of Thursday, 8 August 1963, sixteen masked men ambushed the Glasgow-Euston mail train at Sears Crossing in Buckinghamshire. Making off with a record haul of GBP2.6 million, the robbers received approximately GBP150,000 each (over GBP2 million in today's money). While twelve of the robbers were jailed over the next five years, four were never brought to justice - they evaded arrest and thirty-year prison sentences, and lived out the rest of their lives in freedom. In stark contrast to the likes of Ronnie Biggs, Buster Edwards and Bruce Reynolds, they became neither household names nor tabloid celebrities. Who were these men? How did they escape detection for so long? And how, almost sixty years later, are their names not common knowledge? In No Case to Answer, Andrew Cook gathers and examines decades of evidence and lays it out end-to-end. It's time for you to draw your own conclusions.

'Goodbye! There's my good girl.' The German got hold of Papa's arm roughly and said, 'Come on!' They got in the car and sped away, leaving the two breathless girls standing on the street corner, staring at where the car had been. 'What on earth was all that about? Why has my Daddy gone with that German?' It made no sense. It made no sense at all. France, 1940: The British have retreated, evacuating their forces from Dunkirk. Nell and her girls stand on the beach on a clear day and see the outline of Dover Castle but it will be four and a half long years before they return to Britain. Jeanne, her sisters and their mother Nell are left to fend for themselves in occupied France when her father is arrested by the Nazis and taken to an internment camp.Proudly British, they have also been raised speaking French. Nell is determined to keep going, keep food on the table and see her girls continue in education. She takes in washing, teaches English and tries growing vegetables but the soil is too poor. They apply for Red Cross Parcels but are told, as they are not behind barbed wire, they don't qualify.Yet amid the struggles come great friendships and pleasure in the smallest things; the rare treat of a piece of cake or tart, a Christmas tree decorated with cotton or singing in church. Jeanne's sisters are distinct personalities, one bookish and quiet, the other outgoing. Letters from her interned husband Tom Sarginson and occasional visits to see him only temporarily eases the pain of being parted. Nell falls in love with a kindly German soldier. When liberation comes in 1944 Nell and the girls' excitement is tempered by a shocking event in their then home village of Rieux-en-Cambresis. There follows an exhilarating and frustrating stay in newly liberated Paris and the shock of arriving back in the war weary Britain of late 1944. Nell and the Girls is a remarkable, dramatic and heartwarming true story of a family told from the viewpoint of young Jeanne Sarginson, later Gask.

ERIN BROCKOVICH meets SILENT SPRING in this astounding true story of a lawyer who spent two decades building a case against one of the world's largest chemical companies, uncovering a shocking history of environmental pollution and heartless cover-up. The story that inspired the motion picture from Participant Media/Focus Features, starring Mark Ruffalo, Anne Hathaway, Bill Pullman and Tim Robbins, directed by Todd Haynes. In 1998, Robert Bilott was a 33-year-old Cincinnati lawyer on the verge of making partner when his career and life took an unforeseen turn. He was taken by surprise when he received a call from a man named Earl Tennant, a farmer from West Virginia with a slight connection to Robert's family. Earl was convinced the creek on his property, where his cattle grazed, was being poisoned by run-off from a neighbouring factory landfill. His cattle were dying in hideous ways, and he hadn't even been able to get a water sample tested by local agencies, politicians or vets. As soon as they heard the name DuPont - the area's largest employer - he felt they were reluctant to investigate further. Once Robert saw the thick, foamy water that bubbled into the creek, the gruesome effects it seemed to have on livestock, and the disturbing frequency of cancer and lung problems in the surrounding area, he was persuaded to fight against the type of corporation his firm routinely represented. With all the cards stacked against him, Rob happened upon a stray reference in a random memo to a chemical called PFOA - a substance he'd never heard of that is used in the manufacture of Teflon. From that one reference, he ultimately gained access to 110,000 pages of DuPont documents, some of them fifty years old, that reveal decades of medical studies proving the harmful - more often than not fatal - effects of PFOA in animals and humans. And yet PFOA sludge had still been dumped into rivers and landfill, endangering many lives. The case of one farmer soon spawns a class-action suit and the shocking realisation that virtually every person on the planet has been exposed to PFOA and carries the chemical in his or her blood. This is the unforgettable story of the lawyer who worked tirelessly for twenty years to get justice for all those who had suffered because of this chemical.

'People often say that non-fiction books read like fast-moving thrillers, but this one genuinely does... This is a splendid book - and highly recommended.' Daily Mail A remarkable piece of investigative journalism into one of the most pervasive and troubling mysteries of recent memory. 01:20am, 8 March 2014. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, carrying 239 passengers, disappeared into the night, never to be seen or heard from again. The incident was inexplicable. In a world defined by advanced technology and interconnectedness, how could an entire aircraft become untraceable? Had the flight been subject to a perfect hijack? Perhaps the pilots lost control? And if the plane did crash, where was the wreckage? Writing for Le Monde in the days and months after the plane's disappearance, journalist Florence de Changy closely documented the chaotic international investigation that followed, uncovering more questions than answers. Riddled with inconsistencies, contradictions and a lack of basic communication between authorities, the mystery surrounding flight MH370 only deepened. Now, de Changy offers her own explanation. Drawing together countless eyewitness testimonies, press releases, independent investigative reports and expert opinion, The Disappearing Act offers an eloquent and deeply unnerving narrative of what happened to the missing aircraft. An incredible feat of investigative journalism and a testament to de Changy's tenacity and resolve, this book is an exhaustive, gripping account into one of the most profound mysteries of the 21st century.

'[A] pacy, frictionless read' Sunday Telegraph 'Cinematic. . . an entertaining and persuasive study of the royal family' Publisher's Weekly 'Patterson treats the princess as a person and tells the story from a mother's perspective' Kirkus ______________________________ Twenty-five years after her tragic death, James Patterson tells the heartbreaking true story of Princess Diana's life as a mother and a global icon. At the age of thirteen, she became Lady Diana Spencer. At twenty, Princess of Wales. At twenty-one, she earned her most important title: Mother. As she fell in love, first with Prince Charles and then with her sons, William and Harry, the world fell in love with the young royal family - Diana most of all. With one son destined to be King and one needing to find his own way, she taught them lessons about royal tradition and also real life. 'William and Harry will be properly prepared,' Diana once promised. 'I am making sure of this.' Even after her tragic death, the strength of her love for her sons remains an enduring inspiration, not only for the two princes, but for the entire world. ______________________________ Praise for James Patterson 'The master storyteller of our times' Hillary Rodham Clinton 'One of the greatest storytellers of all time' Patricia Cornwell 'Truly astonishing' Bob Woodward

In the tradition of 'Agent Zigzag' comes a breathtaking biography of WWII's 'Scarlet Pimpernel' as fast-paced and emotionally intuitive as the best spy thrillers. This celebrates unsung hero Robert de La Rochefoucauld, an aristocrat turned anti-Nazi saboteur, and his exploits as a British Special Operations Executive-trained resistant When the Nazis invaded France during the Second World War and imprisoned his father, Robert de La Rochefoucauld - a scion of one of the oldest aristocratic families in France - escaped to England and trained in the dark arts of anarchy and combat. Under the guidance of SOE spies, he learned to crack safes, plant bombs and kill enemies with his bare hands. Then, back in France, he organised Resistance cells, killed Nazi officers and interfered with German missions. He survived unbearable torture and escaped Nazi confinement on not one but two occasions, to live well into his eighties. The adventures of de La Rochefoucauld offer rare insight into a unique moment in history, revealing brand new information about a network of commandos who battled evil and bravely worked together to change the course of history.

Having spent years interviewing imprisoned criminals - including notorious serial killers - he discovered that the lack of remorse these people showed was in many ways even more terrifying than the crimes they had committed. Yet in the course of these conversations, the author also had the chance to interview his subjects' psychiatrists and, in doing so, uncovered a terrible truth: a monster can be hidden behind a friendly face. Some of these experts, he found, proved to have more in common with their patients than he would ever have expected. This book examines horrific crimes committed by some of the most remorseless and merciless people ever to have lived. If it reveals a mindset wholly alien to most people, it also, shockingly, demonstrates that some of the people who treat these psychopaths have their own demons. Talking with Psychopaths and Savages will inevitably shift the reader's view of psychopaths, and in doing so, reveals that horror can be much closer to us than we think.

No criminal sparked as much fear and loathing among the public and law enforcement as underworld crime boss, Kenny Noye; a man with a central role in some of the most high-profile crimes of a generation. From the GBP125 million (current value) Brink's Mat gold bullion raid to the death of Covert Police Operative John Fordham, and road rage victim Stephen Cameron, the multimillionaire villain became universally known as 'Public Enemy: No 1'. He had spent more than a third of his life in jail, but for two years, with near unlimited resources, and underworld connections around the globe, Noye played a game of hide and seek with Scotland Yard, MI5, INTERPOL, The FBI, and other national police forces as he fled the UK after the death of twenty-one-year-old Stephen Cameron in a road rage incident in May 1996. From South America to Africa, from Cuba to Holland, France to Aruba, and beyond, Noye evaded capture despite the best efforts of some of the most powerful agencies and global security services. From dining with unwitting FBI officers on cruise ships to sitting on Castro's presidential seat in Havana, Noye's 'Grand Tour on the Run' was as unbelievable as it was unprecedented. It was life on the run but not as we know it. Back in the UK, the family of Stephen Cameron grieved under the weight of the life of impunity and privilege that Noye was covertly leading but the takedown was as dramatic and extraordinary as the secrets of Noye's life under the radar. The police would ultimately get their man. His downfall would be placed at the door of an informant. Was it his lover or a gangland rival? Or was it the secret services? When the Spanish police ultimately swooped down with their English counterparts and arrested the affluent and charming 'Mick the Builder' - they were armed with a secret weapon of their own - Stephen Cameron's fiance. With unique access to Noye, and key witnesses, the secret battle of wits between the underworld's 'Governor' and law enforcement is reported in chilling detail. The reader is given a 360' vista of one of the most expensive manhunts in British policing history. The authors deliver a compelling account of a major criminal, who shunned the effective discomfort of bunkers and safe houses to live a life on the run brimming with luxury, women, sun, sea, and Bacardi - and all while hiding in plain sight.

"Gods of Mischief" is the harrowing, no-holds-barred true story of a bad guy turned good who busted open one of the most violent motorcycle gangs in history.
George Rowe's gritty and high-octane story offers not only a clear window into the violent world of the motorcycle outlaw but a gripping tale of self-sacrifice and human redemption that would be the stuff of great fiction - if it weren't all true.
After witnessing the Vagos, one of the most dangerous biker gangs in the country, brutally and senselessly beat his friend to near death over a pool game, Rowe decided to pay back his Southern California hometown for the sins of his past by bringing down the gang that was terrorizing it. He volunteered as an undercover informant and vowed to dismantle the brotherhood from the inside out, becoming history's first private citizen to voluntarily infiltrate an outlaw motorcycle gang for the U.S. government. Along the way, Rowe lost everything: his family, his business, his home - even his identity.

Jackson is aggressive, confrontational and often volatile. His mother, Kayla, is crippled with grief after tragically losing her husband and eldest son. Struggling to cope, she puts Jackson into foster care. Cathy, his carer, encourages Jackson to talk about what has happened to his family, but he just won't engage. His actions continue to test and worry everyone. Then, in a dramatic turn of events, the true reason for Jackson's behaviour comes to light ...

The incredible story of a 1958 murder that ended with the last woman to ever be executed in California-a murder so twisted it seems ripped from a Greek tragedy. Deborah Larkin was only ten years old when the quiet calm of her California suburb was shattered. Thirty miles north, on a quiet November night in Santa Barbara, a pregnant nurse named Olga Duncan disappeared from her apartment. The mystery deepens when it is discovered that Olga's mother in-law-a deeply manipulative and deceptive woman-had been doing everything in her power to separate Olga and her son, Frank, prior to Olga's disappearance. From a forged annulment to multiple attempts to hire people to "get rid" of Olga, to a faked excoriation case, Elizabeth seemed psychopathically attached to her son. Yet she denied having anything to do with Olga's disappearance with a smile. But when Olga's brutally beaten body is found in a shallow grave, apparently buried alive, a young DA makes it his mission to see that Elizabeth Duncan is brought to justice. Adding a wrinkle to his efforts is the fact that Frank-himself a defense attorney-maintained his mother's innocent to the end. How does a young girl process such a crime along with the fear and disbelieve that rocked an entire community? Decades later, Larkin is determined to revisit the case and bring the story of Olga herself to light. Long overshadowed by the sensationalism and scandal of Elizabeth and Frank, A Lovely Girl seeks to reveal Olga as a woman in full. Someone who was more than the twisted family that would ultimately ensnare her. As we follow the heart-pounding drama of the case through Larkin's young eyes-her father was the court reporter-A Lovely Girl is by turns page-turning yet poingnant, and makes the reader reexamine how we handle fear, how we regard mental illness, and how we understand family as we carve our own path in a dangerous world.

SILENT NIGHT brings to life one of the most unlikely and touching events in the annals of war. In the early months of WWI, on Christmas Eve, men on both sides left their trenches, laid down their arms, and joined in a spontaneous celebration with their new friends, the enemy. For a brief, blissful time, remembered since in song and story, a world war stopped. Even the participants found what they were doing incredible. Germans placed candle-lit Christmas trees on trench parapets and warring soldiers sang carols. In the spirit of the season they ventured out beyond their barbed wire to meet in No Man's Land, where they buried the dead in moving ceremonies, exchanged gifts, ate and drank together, and joyously played football, often with improvised balls. The truce spread as men defied orders and fired harmlessly into the air. But, reluctantly, they were forced to re-start history's most bloody war. SILENT NIGHT vividly recovers a dreamlike event, one of the most extraordinary of Christmas stories.

Escape to the sunlight and colour of a wild island in the south Aegean. When Jennifer moves alone into the Honey Factory on a tiny Greek island, bringing a laptop, her hiking boots and plans for a peaceful life, she has no idea what surprises are in store. Diving into an exciting new life with a fisherman, she learns something every day. Joining the dancing at local festivals and helping at a cafe on the beach, surviving winter storms and finding a canine companion, she is faced with both challenges and rewards, and discovers that to become an island woman she must live small and think big.

Hollywood Confidential is the first truly in-depth look at the sexy, humorous, violent, and tragic history of the mob in Hollywood from the 1920s, when Joe Kennedy decided to buy a motion picture company, to the 1980s when the last vestiges of mob influence were revealed through investigations of former Screen Actors Guild President Ronald Reagan and his union backers. The revelations continue into the 1980s when the major studios were no longer important, the independents were on the rise, and it was no longer possible to buy, bribe, or blackmail in a meaningful way. There were deals and bad guys, but the mob as it existed was finished in Hollywood.

THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER A Divorced Woman. A Dangerous Man. A Devastating Affair. 'You're right. It is totally extraordinary. My life is like a film; you couldn't make it up ... But there's something I have to tell you,' he confided, as he leaned across the table towards me. 'I'm not normal.' Carolyn Woods was living happily in a quiet Cotswolds village when an attractive stranger abruptly arrived in her life. Introducing himself as Mark Conway, he exuded confidence and to her surprise Carolyn quickly became captivated by this mysterious man. A rich Swiss banker (who later confessed to being a spy), he offered Carolyn companionship and introduced her to an exciting, glamorous world. In fact, some things were so astonishing she began to question her new lover. Was all as it seemed? The truth was even harder to believe. For a start, his real name was Mark Acklom, he was wanted by Interpol, and he was rich but for one reason only... A true-crime story that reads like a thriller, Sleeping with a Psychopath is a blow-by-blow account of the power of manipulation and a testament to the human will to survive.

THE STORY OF ONE OF THE MOST BIZARRE MASS MURDERS EVER RECORDED. AND THE GIRL WHO ESCAPED WITH HER LIFE.
In the fall of 2010, in the all-American town of Apple Valley, Ohio, four people disappeared without a trace: Stephanie Sprang; her friend, Tina Maynard; and Tina's two children, thirteen-year-old Sarah and eleven-year-old Kody. Investigators began scouring the area, yet despite an extensive search, no signs of the missing people were discovered.
On the fourth day of the search, evidence trickled in about neighborhood "weirdo" Matthew Hoffman. A police SWAT team raided his home and found an extremely disturbing sight: every square inch of the place was filled with leaves and a terrified Sarah Maynard was bound up in the middle of it like some sort of perverted autumn tableau. But there was no trace of the others.
Then came Hoffman's confession to an unspeakable crime that went beyond murder and defied all reason. His tale of evil would make Sarah's survival and rescue all the more astonishing--a compelling tribute to a young girl's resilience and courage and to her fierce determination to reclaim her life in the wake of unimaginable wickedness.

Discover the extraordinary role of plants in modern forensics, from their use as evidence in the trials of high profile murderers such as Ted Bundy to high value botanical trafficking and poaching. We are all familliar with the role of blood splatters or fingerprints in solving crimes, from stories in the media of DNA testing or other biological evidence being used as the clinching evidence to incriminate a killer. This book lifts the lid on the equally important evidence from plants at a crime scene, from the incriminating presence of freshwater plants in the lungs of a drowning victim, to rare botanical poisons in the evening gin and tonic, to exotic trafficked flowers and drugs. In Planting Clues, David Gibson explores how plants can help to solve crimes, as well as how plant crimes are themselves solved. He discusses the botanical evidence that proved important in bringing a number of high-profile murderers such as Ian Huntley (the 2002 Shoham Murders), and Bruno Hauptman (the 1932 Baby Lindbergh kidnapping) to trial, from leaf fragments and wood anatomy to pollen and spores. Throughout he traces the evolution of forensic botany, and shares the fascinating stories that advanced its progress.

'An elegant, densely textured work, like a tapestry ... A welcome contribution to polar studies.' Sarah Wheeler, Spectator '[MacInness] handles the whole thing with masterly skill...takes us to the heart of the hope, love, anguish and grief' The Times The men of Captain Scott's Polar Party were heroes of their age, enduring tremendous hardships to further the reputation of the Empire they served by reaching the South Pole. But they were also husbands, fathers, sons and brothers. For the first time, the story of the race for the South Pole is told from the perspective of the women whose lives would be forever changed by it, five women who offer a window into a lost age and a revealing insight into the thoughts and feelings of the five heroes. Kathleen Scott, the fierce young wife of the expedition leader, campaigned relentlessly for Scott's reputation, but did her ambition for glory drive her husband to take unnecessary risks? Oriana Wilson, a true help-mate and partner to the expedition's doctor, was a scientific mind in her own right and understood more than most what the men faced in Antarctica. Emily Bowers was a fervent proponent of Empire, having spent much of her life as a missionary teacher in the colonies. The indomitable Caroline Oates was the very picture of decorum and everything an Edwardian woman aspired to be, but she refused all invitations to celebrate her son Laurie's noble sacrifice. Lois Evans led a harder life than the other women, constantly on the edge of poverty and forced to endure the media's classist assertions that her husband Taff, the sole 'Jack Tar' in a band of officers, must have been responsible for the party's downfall. Her story, brought to light through new archival research, is shared here for the first time. In a gripping and remarkable feat of historical reconstruction, Katherine MacInnes vividly depicts the lives, loves and losses of five women shaped by the unrelenting culture of Empire and forced into the public eye by tragedy. It also reveals the five heroes, not as the caricatures of legend, but as the real people they were.

'An extremely well-written and detailed account' - Adam Hibbert, former head of Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team

'A triumph . . . Babes in the Wood should be required reading for all budding detectives' - Malcolm Bacon, former DI

On 9 October 1986, nine-year-olds Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway went out to play on their Brighton estate. They would never return home; their bodies discovered the next day concealed in a local park. This devastating crime rocked the country.

With unique access to the officers charged with catching the killer, former senior detective Graham Bartlett and bestselling author Peter James tell the compelling inside story of the investigation as the net tightens around local man Russell Bishop. The trial that follows is one of the most infamous in the history of Brighton policing – a shock result sees Bishop walk free.

Three years later, Graham is working in Brighton CID when a seven-year-old girl is abducted and left to die. She survives . . . and Bishop’s name comes up as a suspect. Is history repeating itself? Can the police put him away this time, and will he ever be made to answer for his past horrendous crimes? Both gripping police procedural and an insight into the motivations of a truly evil man, Babes in the Wood by Graham Bartlett with Peter James is a fascinating account of what became a thirty-two year fight for justice.

August 1939. On her summer break from her studies at the Royal Academy of Music, the exquisitely talented young South African pianist, Olda Mehr, and her parents, leave London to visit relatives in Eastern Europe. A dreamy holiday descends into nightmare when Germany invades Poland, and the Mehrs find themselves, as Jews, caught up in Hitler's Holocaust. For Olda, Gestapo torture and the threat of the gas chamber are relieved by letters from her boyfriend, the artist-musician-doctor, Bennie Hermer, now a captain in the South African army fighting in North Africa. After the Allied disaster at Tobruk, Ben is imprisoned in the dusty, dysentery-ridden POW camp at Benghazi.

A charming, original and uncommonly sensitive portrait of Picasso and his beloved dachshund, Lump

One spring morning in 1957, veteran photojournalist David Douglas Duncan paid a visit to his friend and frequent photographic subject Pablo Picasso, at the artist's home near Cannes. As a co-pilot alongside Duncan in his Mercedes Gullwing 300 SL was the photographer's pet dachsund, Lump. Photographer and dog were close companions, but Duncan's nomadic lifestyle and his other dog - a giant jealous Afghan hound who had tormented Lump - made their life in Rome difficult. When they arrived at Picasso's Villa La Californie that historic day, Lump decided that he had found paradise on earth, and that he would move in with Picasso, whether the artist welcomed him or not.

This is the background for a totally original book that offers an uncommonly sensitive portrait of Picasso. Lump was immortalized in a Picasso portrait painted on a plate the day they met, but that was just the beginning. In a suite of forty-five paintings reinterpreting Velasquez’s masterpiece ‘Las Meninas’, Picasso replaced the impassive hound in the foreground with jaunty renderings of Lump.

Today, as a gift from the artist to his hometown as a youth, all of those historic canvases are now the centerpiece exhibition in the Picasso Museum of Barcelona. Fourteen of the paintings are reproduced here in full colour, juxtaposed with Duncan’s dramatic and intimate black-and-white photographs of Picasso and Lump, bringing full circle the odyssey of a lucky dachshund who found his way to becoming a furry, super-stretched icon of modern art.

Buoyed by the runaway success of his bestselling A General History of the Pirates (1724), Captain Charles Johnson went on to publish a much-expanded edition of the work to include a further 80 accounts of some of the most extraordinary British criminals of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries entitled A General History of the Lives and Adventures of the Most Famous Pirates, Highwaymen, Murderers, Street-Robbers, &c. (1734). He added further pirate biographies but expanded the cast to include a ferocious band of ruthless and vicious highwaymen, murderers, and wider criminals. Johnson's volumes, featuring fictional accounts based on factual sources, are significant as the forerunners of the real-life criminal biography genre, and for their influence on such early novels as Defoe's Moll Flanders and Fielding's Jonathan Wild but equally resonate right through to the present day inspiring the fiction of Ben Aaronovich and Jake Arnott. Originally published in folio size complete with fine engravings, this new collection of rogues includes the very best of these original decorative plates but also presents a series of related illustrations, playbills, and portraits from the British Library collections.