True stories Books

Frank G. Tinker, Jr., a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, Class of 1933, flew in combat with Soviet airmen during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Flying with the Spanish Republican Air Force, he was the top American ace during the Spanish Civil War. This...

This book focuses on the role of Glenn H. Curtiss in the origins of aviation in the United States Navy. A self-taught mechanic and inventor, Curtiss was a key figure in the development of the airplane during the early part of the century. His...

In January 1944 sixteen black enlisted men gathered at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois to begin a cram course that would turn them into the U.S. Navy's first African-American officers on active duty. The men believed they could set...

A memoir of extraordinary scope, William Lloyd Stearman's reminiscences will attract those interested in early aviation, World War II in the Pacific, life as a diplomat behind the Iron Curtain, the Vietnam War, and the ins and outs of national security...

A teenager on a Maryland farm when World War II began, Betty Lussier went to England to help the British fight off an impending invasion. Armed with a private pilot's license, she joined the Air Transport Auxiliary and was soon ferrying planes and pilots...

With all that has already been written about President Abraham Lincoln's assassination, one of the little known stories is the case of the only successful conspirator, John Harrison Surratt, the son of Mary Surratt, who was hanged for her part in the...

Regarded as the standard biography of World War II naval hero Adm. Raymond A. Spruance, this work is now available in trade paperback for the first time. Spruance, victor of the battles of Midway and the Philippine Sea and commander of the Fifth Fleet in...

This compelling story of a Vietnam Medal of Honor recipient and his family was widely praised when the original edition of the book was published in 1984. In this updated edition, Jim and Sybil Stockdale continue their story to let readers know what has...

This well-documented and hard-hitting biography of the thirteenth commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps succeeds in converting John A. Lejeune from a near mythical figure in corps history to a flesh and blood officer who helped build the service from a...

An engaging memoir of a naval officer who went south to fight for the Confederacy.

"Mightily absorbing . . . There is candor in this book, and humor and an exhilarating sense, once common to us but now strange, that Americans who fought that war could do just about anything, and without getting wordy or pretentious about it or...

Sailing Upwind is more than just another memoir of a distinguished former naval officer's highly diverse career. This book by Admiral James "Sandy" Winnefeld is also intended to offer useful reflections regarding how he accepted and managed risk along...

On the morning of March 19, 1945, about fifty miles off the coast of Japan, the aircraft carrier USS Franklin was bombed by Japanese aircraft. Two heavy bombs penetrated the hangar deck killing everyone inside. The planes on the flight deck were knocked...

An intrepid reporter's fast-paced investigation into the extraordinary life of Viktor Bout, the much-mythologised Russian fixer known as the 'Merchant of Death'.Viktor Bout was a warlord's warlord, according to MI6, the US National Security Council and...

Andy Atkinson and Cheryl Henry met on a blind date arranged by friends and hit it off immediately. On their second date at Bayou Mama’s, they left together to visit a spot known as "Lovers' Lane." Within hours, Andy was found tied to a tree with his...

In Great at Heart Gavin Long finally gets the biography he richly deserves.While Charles Bean is the subject of several major biographies, this is the first life story of his acolyte, war correspondent and editor and principal author of the official...

For readers of THE TEACHER'S PET and MISSING WILLIAM TYRELL. It's the maxim that every true-crime lover knows: One infant's death in a family is a tragedy. Two is suspicious. And three must be murder. But in 2003 the widely accepted mantra of Meadow's...

Marta dreamed of an extraordinary life: she wanted to conquer the world, she wanted to write. But the Second World War and Holocaust destroyed everything. Marta's Notebooks tells the story of the one thing Marta wrote, decades after the war, when she was...

Champion swimmer, trailblazer and film idol - the adventurous life of our first Hollywood superstar, by the bestselling author of Sister Viv, Mrs Kelly, Hudson Fysh, Banks and Banjo Born into a daring, musical family in 1886, Annette Kellerman was a...

‘Grimly fascinating … engrossing’ Daily Mail NINE HISTORIC CRIMES. ONE FAMILIAR OBSESSION. In early modern England, murder truly was most foul. Trials were gossipy events packed to the rafters with noisome spectators. Executions were public proceedings...

From the Arizona Congressman, a "powerful" and "searing" (PW) chronicle of the eternal bonds forged between the Marines of Lima Company, the hardest-hit unit of the Iraq WarAt first, they were “Lucky Lima.” Infantryman Ruben Gallego and his brothers in...

SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE from director Ridley Scott, starring Lady Gaga and Adam Driver.The sensational true story of murder, madness, glamour, and greed that shook the Gucci dynasty, now fully updated with a new afterword. On March 27, 1995,...

A heartbreaking true story of a broken family and the foster carer who wants to keep them together… The Watsons are no strangers to sibling placements but when Casey takes the call from her supervising social worker one frosty January morning, she can...

One young woman missing, two found murdered -- the gripping true story of Australia's longest-running homicide investigation ** Winner of the Ned Kelly Award for True Crime**In the early hours of January 27, 1996, after an evening spent celebrating at...

“So richly detailed, you can almost smell the gunsmoke and the sweat of the saddles.”—Hampton Sides, New York Times bestselling authorFrom Spur Award-winning author Mark Lee Gardner, his classic dual biography of Billy the Kid and Sheriff Pat Garrett,...

The true story of a 6-year-old boy with a dreadful secret. Oskar’s school teacher raises the alarm. Oskar’s mother is abroad and he has been left in the care of ‘friends’, but has been arriving in school hungry, unkempt, and with bruises on his arms,...

the highest Commonwealth military decoration for gallantry is the Victoria Cross, and this book examines the history of the award, telling the stories of those New Zealanders (or those with strong New Zealand associations) who have won it. this...

Profiles in courage - the definitive history of the Victoria Cross and New Zealand, fully updated in this new edition. For 150 years the highest Commonwealth military decoration for gallantry has been the Victoria Cross. These are the extraordinary...

Trevor Haken - corrupt cop turned supergrass and now inspiration for UNDERBELLY 3 - tells his story in this explosive book. Detective Sergeant trevor Haken was one of the infamous Golden Mile's most crooked cops. Now he lives in hiding, in a hell of his...

From ABC Books' Australiana range comes GREAT AUSTRALIAN FLOOD STORIES, stories of humour, survival and courage in the face of one of our country's most powerful natural forces: flood. 'I tried to follow the road but the rushing waters pushed me into a...

Andy Bell is a police constable with a problem. It's not that his chief hates his guts. It's not that he's an undercover cop living in a brothel and sleeping with the enemy in hopes of cracking a dope ring. It's not even that most of her friends are...

On a Sunday evening Ricky Conway, mother of two and estranged wife of a serving police officer, was found deceased in her Canberra suburban home. Police suspected Ricky had committed suicide, as the day before she had tried but failed. But one...

Do women kill? Yes they do, but often for very different reasons from men ... Do women kill? Yes they do, but often for very different reasons from men ...Meet the women who have murdered - they've killed children, husbands, lovers, relatives and...

It was against all Mogs! The incredible true story of a modern day Australian family shipwrecked on the tiny island of Mogmog in Micronesia. 'It all ended with a shipwreck. ten years of planning, dreaming, plotting and scheming - gone in one night. Who...

Finally the Tony Mokbel story can be told. the inspiration for Channel Nine's FAt tONY & CO, the new crime series from the producers of UNDERBELLY.An epic tale of family, crime and betrayal set against the backdrop of Melbourne's bullet-riddled...

Roberta Williams' revealing life story - from abuse to prison, Carl to the paparazzi. Now, in the wake of Carl's brutal murder at the hands of a fellow inmate in Barwon Prison, Roberta is once again compelled to live her life in the public eye, all the...

The hilarity of M*A*S*H meets the satire of Catch 22 in one distinctive Australian voice. 'We need to send our survey party there!' (pointing to map) 'But Colonel, we cain't do it. that's the most insecure area in the whole country!' 'Insecure? Goddamn...

'I often wonder how many people can pinpoint the exact moment that their lives were changed irrevocably: smashed, redefined, uncategorised and forever divorced from the normal comprehension of their peers.' In Melbourne, in the spring of 1980,...

Olive Weston was born in townsville in 1926. A cream-skinned tomboy, she joined the Girl Guides, Junior Red Cross and VADs. Her ambition was to be a medical missionary working in New Guinea, where her grandfather owned gold mines. However, when the...

“Les Standiford’s account of the decades-long attempt to solve the murder of Adam Walsh is chilling, heartbreaking, hopeful, and as relentlessly suspenseful as anything I’ve ever read. A triumph in every way.” —Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River“The...

John "Red" Shea, 40, was a top lieutenant in the South Boston Irish mob run, led by James "Whitey" Bulger. An ice–cold enforcer with a red–hot temper, Shea was a legend among his peers in the 1990s South Boston, as much as John Gotti, Bugsy Siegel, and...

A riveting investigation of the brutal murders of two Dartmouth professors –– a book that, like In Cold Blood, reveals the chilling reality behind a murder that captivated the nation.On a cold night in January 2001, the idyllic community of...

A Mafia boss tells all .... to his former neighbour Anthony 'Gaspipe' Casso, boss of New York's Lucchese crime family, was a Mafia superstar, responsible for more than fifty murders. Now serving thirteen life sentences at a federal prison in Colorado,...

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER Most people think I save dogs, but really they saved me. Niall Harbison is a dog hero based in Thailand. He spends his days feeding, caring for and rescuing the many street dogs he comes across. With every rescue there’s a...

*A gripping debut thriller from the host of the #1 podcast CRIME JUNKIE* THE NO.1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERIf you liked I’LL BE GONE IN THE DARK and SHARP OBJECTS, you will love this!'A stunning debut from a fresh new voice in the thriller space'—Karin...

The incredible true story of Ana Montes, the most damaging female spy in US history, drawing upon never-before-seen material and to be published upon her release from prison, for readers of Agent Sonya and A Woman of No Importance.'This spy tale reads...

A 5-year-old boy, Ethan, is brought to Casey in the middle of the night after the sudden death of his young mother after a drug overdose. Estranged from her parents, Ethan’s mum had been abused by her ex-partner, and began taking drugs to cope. Ethan is...

The Remarkable Story of How One Man Defied the Odds At 18, Paul Wood thought he had lost everything. He had committed an act he knew would send him to prison for many years. To a young man like Paul, it might as well have been for the rest of his life...