A victim of violent abuse at the hands of his stepfather, Lenny spent much of his teenage life in borstal as he began to follow a life of crime. However, it was his ability as a fighter that was to turn his life around. Lenny McLean inspired fear in many, but respect from all, as he became a bare-knuckle fighting legend. His fame became even greater in later life, appearing in Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels just as his autobiography was reaching the top of the bestsellers chart. Lenny's untimely death from cancer in 1998 marked the beginning of the end of the old Cockney way of life and interest in his story has only increased since his passing, inspiring documentaries as well as a feature film, My Name is Lenny. In these unedited conversations between Lenny and his 'book man' Peter Gerrard, featuring many anecdotes that did not appear in The Guv'nor, we get to see the man behind the public image. As he looks back on his life, these transcripts reveal Lenny's humour and charm as well as the volatility that made him one of the most notorious figures ever to emerge from the East End.

A doctor removes the normal, healthy side of a patient's brain instead of the malignant tumor. A man whose leg is scheduled for amputation wakes up to find his healthy leg removed. These recent examples are part of a history of medical disasters and embarrassments as old as the profession itself. In Medical Blunders, Robert M. Youngson and Ian Schott have written the definitive account of medical mishap in modern and not-so- modern times.

Youngson and Schott cover the gamut of medical accidents, from famous quacks to curious forms of sexual healing, from blunders with the brain to drugs worse than the diseases they are intended to treat. In Medical Blunders, we find shamefully dangerous doctors, human guinea pigs, masturbation treated as a disease requiring treatment, and the legendary surgeon who was himself a craven morphine addict. The resulting picture is one which depicts medical mistakes that are incredible, misguided, arrogant, cruel, or stupendously wrong-headed.

Exploring the line between the comical and the tragic, the honest mistake and the intentional crime, Medical Blunders illustrates once and for all that doctors are subject to the same political, social, historical, and personal pressures as the rest of humanity.

In the tradition of Krakauer's Into the Wild, The Golden Spruce tells an astonishing true story of a furious man's obsessive mission against an industrial juggernaut, the struggle of the Haida people to save their world, and the mysterious golden tree that binds them all together.
When a kayak and camping gear are found on an uninhabited Alaskan island just north of the Canadian border, they re-ignite a mystery surrounding a shocking act of protest that made international news. On a winter night in 1997, a logger-turned-activist named Grant Hadwin plunged into the frigid waters of the Yakoun River in the Queen Charlotte Islands, towing a chainsaw behind him. When he was done, a unique spruce tree -- 50 meters tall and covered with luminous golden needles -- was teetering on its massive stump.
The tree, which baffled scientists, was sacred to the Haida on whose land it had stood for over 300 years. It was also beloved by local loggers who singled it out for protection in the midst of vast clear cuts. Since the 1970s, the mist-shrouded archipelago -- one of the continent's most pristine and vibrant ecosystems -- has been a battleground with government officials and logging companies squaring off against the Haida and environmental groups. The loss of the mythic golden spruce united loggers, natives and environmentalists in sorrow and outrage. But while heroic efforts were made to revive the tree, Grant Hadwin, the tree's confessed killer, disappeared under suspicious circumstances.
John Vaillant's article on the death of the golden spruce was published in 2002 in "The New Yorker, and this book has grown out of it, dramatizing the destruction of a deeply conflicted man and thewilderness he loved; in so doing, it traces the rise, fall and rebirth of the Haida nation, and exposes the logging industry -- the most dangerous land-based job in North America -- from a point of view never explored in contemporary non-fiction.

"To look at this seedling -- if one could see it at all -- and believe that it had every intention of growing into one of the towering columns that blot out so much of the northwestern sky, would have seemed far-fetched at best. In its first year, the infant tree would have been about two inches tall and sporting a half dozen or so pale green needles. It would have been appealing in the same abstract way that baby snapping turtles are, its alien appearance transcended by the universal indicators of wild babyhood: utter helplessness and primordial determination in equal measure. Despite its bristling ruff and a stem as straight as a sunbeam, the seedling was still as vulnerable as a frog's egg; a falling branch, the footstep of a human or an animal -- any number of random occurrences -- could have finished it there and then.
Down there, in the damp darkness of the under story, the sapling's wonderful flaw was a well-kept secret. With each passing year, it dug its roots deeper into the riverbank, strengthening its grip on life and on the land. In spite of the odds, it became one of a handful of young trees that would survive to shoulder their way into the sunlight, competing with giants a dozen feet wide and hundreds of feet tall. In the end, it would be the sun that exposed this tree's secret for all to see and, by the middle of the 1700s, it would have been abundantly clear that something extraordinary was growing on the banks of theYakoun. It was a creature that seemed more at home in a myth or a fairy tale: a spruce tree with golden needles.
--excerpt from The Golden Spruce

The career of Donald "D.J." Vodicka encompassed the rapid expansion of the prison system. For sixteen years, he was a prison guard in California's highest security prisons, serving meals to gang leaders, serial killers in lockdown cells, and patrolling exercise yards filled with violent felons while unarmed and outnumbered 1000-to-2. He belonged to an elite unit called the Investigative Services Unit (Internal Affairs), responsible for solving horrific crimes inside the walls. He was a decorated veteran officer. He became the largest "whistle-blower" to uncover a group of rogue prison guards who called themselves "The Green Wall."The Green Wall" is a real-life drama of one man's courage to do the right thing against the California State Prison System. It is an unblinking look at what can go wrong when only one person is willing to stand up and speak for what is right, against almost insurmountable odds. Vodicka's televised state senate testimony exposed a scandal that led to resignations, transfers, sudden retirements, and reforms of the system that are still underway. The story is a classic tale of the triumph of personal integrity in the most dishonest place imaginable.

Massacres, mayhem, and mischief fill the pages of Outlaw Tales of Alaska. Pan for gold with dry gulchers and claim jumpers. Duck the bullets of murderers, plot strategies with con artists, hiss at lawmen turned outlaws. A refreshing new perspective on some of the most infamous reprobates of the Last Frontier. From Unimak Island to Fairbanks, and beyond, the Last Frontier was populated by characters as tough and as dangerous as any in the lower forty-eight. Take the legendary Blue Parka Bandit--whose generosity earned him Robin Hood status among some, and whose flair for escapes kept folks on edge even after his arrest. Or Fred Hardy who, in 1902, achieved the dubious distinction of being the first convicted murderer hung by the feds in the Territory of Alaska. That's not to mention "Kultuk," whose murderous exploits spread fear through the hearts of trappers in his rugged domain.

Here is the story, in his own words, of how Cesare Mori, with the support of Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini, took on the might of the Sicilian Mafia. It was a struggle that earned Mori much criticism of his methods from the liberal media, but much praise not only from Mussolini himself but from the people of Sicily who had for decades lived in fear of this criminal secret society which had become the scourge of ordinary Sicilians.

There was nothing of a flashy nature about the Mafia in Sicily. Operating in a non-industrialised society, the Mafioso in Sicily made their wealth not from drugs, prostitution and gambling, but from the theft of horses and livestock, kidnapping, and the extortion of money from simple town and country folk and large landowners alike, and like their American colleagues the Sicilian Mafia enforced their rule through violence and murder.

However, with the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943, the U.S. Military enlisted the help of the American Mafia in re-establishing Mafia activity in Sicily, with the aim of undermining Fascist rule - a tactic that not only had far reaching consequences for Sicily, but for the whole of Italy for decades to come.

In another time or place Cesare Mori's struggle against the Mafia would have been remembered alongside Elliott Ness, but it is now a story largely forgotten, because, like much else, it was an achievement of the Mussolini era, and as such is to be written out of history.

Cesare Mori's story of his struggle against the Mafia not only deserves to be told, but it provides an insight into Sicilian society and a rural way of life that has for the most part now disappeared.

Between Good and Evil is Roger Depue's retrospective look at a life spent apprehending criminals - mostly serial killers - as a small-town police chief, Swat team member, Behavioural Sciences Unit chief and developer of revolutionary law enforcement programmes that were the precursor to VICAP. The book also charts a spiritual odyssey that culminated in Depue becoming a Brother of the Missionaries of the Holy Apostles. While a seminarian, he counseled maximum security inmates. Following his time in the clergy, he re- entered law enforcement and today heads up the world's most elite forensics think tank, The Academy, which was the basis for the Chris Carter-created Fox TV show Millennium.

"The boat was eerily quiet and hot as an oven. Shirts came off and men were either in skivvy shirts or bare from the waist up. Every body glistened with sweat—some from the heat and some from just raw fear. Click . . . BANG! Click . . . BANG! Two more [depth charges], still very close. A couple of lightbulbs shattered. . . ."

In this riveting personal account, an authentic American hero relives the perils and triumphs of eight harrowing patrols aboard one of America's most successful World War II submarines. Courageous deeds and terror-filled moments—as well as the endless hard work of maintaining and operating a combat sub—are vividly recalled in James Calvert's candid portrait. From rigorous training and shakedown cruises off the coast of New England, to tense patrols within shouting distance of Japan's major cities, the progress of the newly commissioned USS Jack parallels Calvert's own growth from callow ensign to charter member of one of the sharpest attack teams in the fleet.

In June 1943, the Jack made its first patrol into Japanese waters, and Calvert began to build a reputation as a crack TDC operator—the crew member who set the torpedo's course based on the approach officer's readings. With Calvert at the TDC and his much admired skipper Tommy Dykers at the periscope, the Jack had five hits and four confirmed kills on its first patrol. The Jack's fame grew. Despite recurring engine trouble, and the notorious failure of American torpedo detonators early in the war, the sub continued to take its toll on enemy shipping. At one point, Calvert hit an enemy vessel at 5,000 yards, roughly three times the maximum distance recommended for accurate torpedo shooting. The ship earned its nickname, "Jack the Pack," when a besieged Japanese admiral radioed for help, saying that he was under attack by a "wolf pack."

Telling his story with sensitivity and great affection for his shipmates, Calvert combines an intimate knowledge of the nitty-gritty technical details of submarine warfare with the fast-paced action and nail-biting tension of a Tom Clancy novel. He relives long and terrifying hours spent hundreds of feet beneath the ocean's surface, punctuated by the relentless click-BANG of exploding depth charges. He recounts the perilous nighttime cat-and-mouse games that Dykers played with convoy escorts, accompanied on the bridge by a crewman renowned for his night vision—and the disconcerting habit of singing "Nearer My God to Thee" whenever the situation got tense. And a lively account of a completely unauthorized tour of Tokyo before the official surrender recalls an escapade that nearly cost Calvert his career.

Advance praise for Jim Calvert's Silent Running

"I am just one of many who experienced life on a submarine during World War II. Silent Running is a story sincerely told—free of any revisionism or cynicism—and I commend Vice Admiral Calvert for sharing this dramatic personal account of that difficult and exciting time." —President George Bush

"Hardened old sub vet that I am, I still felt the need for two weeks R&R after reliving Jim's only too realistic war patrolling adventures." —C. W. Nimitz, Jr., Rear Admiral, USN (Ret.)

"I believe it is the best personal account yet written on U.S. submarine operations in the Second World War. . . . [Calvert] writes with lucidity and a rare candor. We get an extraordinary sense of what it was like, feeling the tensions and emotions, sharing the successes and disappointments.

. . . This is a true story with real people, always gripping and sometimes tender. It is exciting to read and hard to put down. —J. L. Holloway, Admiral, USN (Ret.) President, Naval Historical Society Chief of Naval Operations, 1974-1978

"I knew Jim Calvert throughout the war, and in this book he has told the submarine story in a way that catches the flavor and tang of the real thing. This is the way it really was." —Frederick B. Warder, Rear Admiral, USN (Ret.) Legendary WWII skipper of the Seawolf

Demonic possession. Exorcism. Haunted Houses. Satanic Rituals. For most people this is the stuff of nightmares, horror movies, folklore, and superstition. For New York City police Sergeant Ralph Sarchie, it's as real--and dangerous--as midnight patrol . . . A sixteen-year NYPD veteran, Ralph Sarchie works out of the 46th Precinct in New York's South Bronx. But it is his other job that he calls "the Work": investigating cases of demonic possession and assisting in the exorcisms of humanity's most ancient--and most dangerous--foes. Now he discloses for the first time his investigations into incredible true crimes and inhuman evil that were never explained, solved, or understood except by Sarchie and his partner. Schooled in the rituals of exorcism, and an eyewitness to the reality of demonic possession, Ralph Sarchie has documented a riveting chronicle of the inexplicable that gives a new shape to the shadows in the dark.
In "Deliver Us from Evil," he takes readers into the very hierarchy of a hell on earth to expose the grisly rituals of a Palo Mayombe priest; a young girl whose innocence is violated by an incubus; a home invaded by the malevolent spirit of a supposedly murdered nineteenth-century bride; the dark side of a couple who were literally, the neighbors from hell; and more. Ralph Sarchie's revelations are a powerful and disturbing documented link between the true-crime realities of life and the blood-chilling ice-grip of a supernatural terror.

The Linden Triangle: Linden Avenue and Linden Place, Hempstead, Long Island. At this blighted intersection, seemingly forgotten by the middle and upper class communities that surround it, the dream of suburban comfort and safety has devolved into a nightmare of flying bullets and bloodshed. Here, a war between the Bloods and Crips has torn a once-peaceful neighborhood apart.The book tells the true story of one year in the life of a suburban village-turned-war-zone. Written by Kevin Deutsch, award-winning criminal justice reporter for Newsday, it follows two warring gangs and the anti-violence activists and police desperate to stop them. As the body count climbs and conflict spreads to New York City, young men wielding military grade weaponry wage a prolonged battle over pride, respect, revenge and their legacies.Based on immersive reporting and more than 250 interviews with gang members, their families, drug addicts, police and others, The Triangle is the first insider account of a New York Bloods/Crips gang war from the only journalist ever given access to the crews' secretive realm. Triangle is a chilling investigation of a world in which teenagers shoot their childhood friends over drug debts; where gang rape is used as a form of retaliation; and once-promising students are molded into cold-blooded assassins. With gang and drug-related violence responsible for as many as half of all non-domestic homicides in the United States, The Triangle will make a significant contribution to the national conversation about gangs, chronicling the effects of armed gang conflicts not just on Long Island and New York City but throughout America.

We are enamored with stories about cops, but rarely do we get a chance to walk in the shoes of one while reading about the personal and spiritual battles waged when one is fighting crime. Jim's narrative will pull you into the moment of each crisis. These stories are the material of movies but they happened in real life. Jim will weave his experiences into the truth taught in Scripture. Whether or not you are part of the law enforcement community, you will be entertained by the adventures. Regardless of your relationship with Christ, you will be challenged to do something with the claims made by Jesus. There is engaging action in this book, but the serious purpose is that it will serve as a challenging devotional guide and bring you closer to Christ.

Evoking "Into the Wild "and "The Monkey Wrench Gang," "Dead Run" is the extraordinary true story of three desperado survivalists, a dangerous plot, a brutal murder, and a treacherous manhunt.

On a sunny May morning in 1998, three friends in a stolen truck passed through Cortez, Colorado on their way to commit sabotage of unspeakable proportions. Evidence suggests their mission was to blow up the Glen Canyon dam. Had they succeeded, the structure's collapse would have unleashed a 500-foot-high inland tsunami, surging across the American Southwest and pulverizing everything in its path--crashing through the Grand Canyon, overflowing Hoover Dam, washing away downstream communities and crippling the water supply of Las Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, Los Angeles, and San Diego.

Instead, the truck was pulled over by an unsuspecting small town cop and the outlaws opened fire. After shooting him twenty times, they blasted their way past dozens of police cars and vanished into 10,000 square miles of the harshest wilderness terrain on the North American continent. The pursuit that ensued pitted the most sophisticated law enforcement technology on the planet against three self-trained survivalists. Seventy-five local, state, and federal police agencies; dozens of swat teams; U.S. Army Special Forces and more than five hundred officers from across the country followed the fugitives into a landscape only they could survive.

Nine years later the last of the fugitives was finally accounted for, but what really happened to them remained shrouded in mystery. The first in-depth account of this sensational case, "Dead Run" is replete with overbearing local sheriffs, Native American trackers, posse's on horseback, suspicion of police cover-ups, rumors of vigilante justice, and the blunders of the nation's most exalted crime-fighters pursuing outlaws against the unforgiving backdrop of the Utah wilderness.

More than a thrilling crime story, "Dead Run" is also an examination of the seductive allure of outlaw culture in the West and how it continues to inform national attitudes toward guns, authority and unfettered freedom. Exhaustively researched, "Dead Run" offers a stunning portrayal of an enduring Wild West landscape, where the American spirit is most boldly and confusingly, even tragically, lived.

On Nov. 28, 1969, Betsy Aardsma, a 22-year-old graduate student in English at Penn State, was stabbed to death in the stacks of Pattee Library at the university's main campus in State College. For more than forty years, her murder went unsolved, though detectives with the Pennsylvania State Police and local citizens worked tirelessly to find her killer. The mystery was eventually solved-after the death of the murderer. This book will reveal the story behind what has been a scary mystery for generations of Penn State students and explain why the Pennsylvania State Police failed to bring her killer to justice.More than a simple true crime story, the book weaves together the events, culture, and attitudes of the late 1960s, memorializing Betsy Aardsma and her time and place in history.