True crime Books

A Case of Bad Timing and Poor JudgmentThe machine-gun murdersof seven men on the morning ofFebruary 14, 1929, by killers dressed as cops became the gangland"crime of the century." Or so the story went. Since then it has been featuredin countless...

Who would have thought that an acting career that began as a teenage star in the "Annette" series on the "The Mickey Mouse Club," Walt Disney's "Zorro," "The Roy Rogers Show," and "That's My Mom" would lead to the role of confidante and assistant to...

Meticulously documented, lavishly detailed, exhaustively researched, and written with an eye for the truths that have remained largely hidden, The Complete Public Enemy Almanac"" provides a reliable source of information about the violent and lawless era...

After Capone is the first book-length work to present the complete, never-before-told story of Frank "the Enforcer"Nitti-born Francesco Raffele Nitto-the driving force behind the Chicago mob's operations in the years that followed Al Capone's...

George "Bugs" Moran was the last of Chicago's spectacular North Side gang leaders, a colorful and violent dynasty that began with Dean O'Banion in 1920. In The Man That Got Away, author Rose Keefe provides the first in-depth look at the enigmatic...

Based on information compiled from police and court documents, contemporary news accounts, and interviews with O'Banion's friends and associates, Guns and Roses traces O'Banion's rise from Illinois farm boy to the most powerful gang boss ...

Lester Joseph Gillis -- better known to the public and press of the 1930s as Baby Face Nelson -- was one of a succession of public enemies beginning with John Dillinger and progressing to Bonnie and Clyde, Ma Barker, Machine Gun Kelly, and Pretty Boy...

Return again to the scene of the crime and visit the secret hideouts of Nazi saboteurs, anarchist plotters, charlatans, fakers, gangsters, and even a love-sick matron dubbed the "Torso Killer." See up close the murdering matrimonial bluebeard Johann Hoch...

What really goes on behind prison walls and in the hearts and minds of inmates?Few know better than Phyllis Taylor who, inspired by Oprah Winfrey's Toronto Lifeclass featuring six incarcerated women, left a comfortable and prestigious career teaching...

Was justice served?For three years during the Second World War, 12,000 Nazis were held in a prisoner-of-war camp at the edge of Medicine Hat, an isolated city of 12,000 people on the bald Canadian prairie. The camp and the townsfolk lived cheerfully...

Discover the most fascinating crimes committed between two of the greatest wars ever fought, from America's first train robbery by the Reno brothers in 1866, to alleged killings at the H. H. Holmes Murder Castle in 1893, to the Rumrich Nazi spy case in...

The mystery of how an ordinary Minnesota girl came to be, briefly, one of the most wanted domestic terrorists in the United StatesBehind every act of domestic terrorism there is someone's child, an average American whose life took a radical turn for...

The explosive history of weaponised mail over hundreds of years.This book unfolds the gripping history of weaponised mail, offering the first-ever comprehensive exploration of this sinister phenomenon. Spanning two centuries, Murder by Mail unveils the...

At Trickle Creek in northern Alberta, Wiebo Ludwig thought he'd buffered his tiny religious community from civilization, but in 1990 civilization came calling. A Calgary oil company proposed to drill directly in view of the farm's communal dining room...

Investigating the way Hollywood scoops up notorious criminals and turns them into legends, this entertaining who's-who guide provides thumbnail sketches of such killers as Ma Barker, Black Beard, Al Capone, John Wesley Hardin, and Charles Starkweather...

An anthology of writings in Italian which examine the origins, nature and culture of the Sicilian mafia. Separate chapters are devoted to the culture from which the mafia emerged, the economic and business activities in which it is now engaged, its...

Thieves-in-law' (vory-v-zakone in Russian) are career criminals belonging to a criminal fraternity that began in the 1930s in the Soviet prison camps. For reasons that the book attempts to explain, thieves-in-law became exceptionally prevalent in the...

Geary's inimitable tongue-in-cheek take on last century's most infamous serial killer.

Updated with an Epilogue examining new evidence about the actual perpetrators.Using newly declassified information, Dick Russell builds on four decades of painstaking research inOn the Trail of the JFK Assassins, offering one of the most comprehensive...

'Bob Whiting came to the city as a stranger in a strange land in 1962 and stayed for five decades - he knows the dark alleys, the good whisky bars, the crooked politicians and the crooks, the baseball players, the bookies...better than anyone...

Discover the truth of what happens when true believers go too far with the shocking stories of the world's most known and horrific cults like The Order of the Solar Temple and the NXIVM Cult.Cults have been around for centuries, and many have been dubbed...

Take a deep dive into the rise and fall of some of the most notorious serial killers of the '80s, including Jeffrey Dahmer, Joseph James DeAngelo, Dennis Lynn Rader, and the Night Stalker.Neon leg warmers, big hair, rock band T-shirts, and mix tapes -...

Skid Dogs is araw and riveting debut memoir about coming of age during the casual oppression of '90s rape culture and the passionate tumult of teenage friendships."I can't remember the last time I read a book so brave. Maybe never." -Ani DiFranco"I fell...

The riveting story of how the murder of prostitute Vivian Gordon brought about the downfall of the mayor of New York City and an end to the dominance of Tammany Hall."Propulsive. . . . Unlike the sensationalist reporters of the era, Wolraich manages to...

The Incredible True Story of the Most Hunted Man in Pacific Coast Historyand the Woman He LovedBefore the 1920s found theirroar, a charismatic gambling addict named Roy Gardner dominated news headlines with daring train robberies and escapes from...

A fascinating pop-history dive into the stories behind the incredibly impactful crimes - both infamous and little-known - that have shaped the legal system as we know it.When asked why true crime is so in vogue, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and New...

Told with unflinching honesty and a touch of gallows humor,Clay and Bonesis the personal memoir of the first female forensic sculptor in the FBI.Lisa Bailey never considered a career working in death until she saw the FBI job posting for a forensic...

Jack Ruby changed history with one bold, violent action: killing accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald on live TV two days after the November 22, 1963, murder of President John F. Kennedy. But who was Jack Ruby-and how did he come to be in that...

Established in the wake of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947-8 by the Australian army officer Major-General Walter Cawthorne, then Deputy Chief of Staff in the Pakistan Army, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for years remained an...

Whether investigating a gruesome triple-murder, a fairy tale marriage gone horribly wrong, or a brilliant con artist, Michael Lista has proven himself one of the most gifted storytellers of his generation. In his belief that crime reporting thrives the...

Did Chicago's first black female mayor commit egregious misconduct against two Christian businessmen? Based on a true story, this book takes readers through two federal investigations, the U.S. Attorney's Office, the FBI, demons, angels, and spiritual...

For years, a small unit of France's national police known as 'The Office in Charge of the Fight Against Crimes Against Humanity' has been discreetly chasing down war criminals.As the head of the thirty-person team, Colonel Eric Emeraux has investigated...

"The narrative unfolds like a high-stakes crime novel."-Kirkus ReviewsIn 1898, a group of schoolboys in Bridgeport, Connecticut discovered gruesome packages under a bridge holding the dismembered remains of a young woman.Finding that the dead woman had...

Originally published by Thomas Dunne Books in 2016; hardcover sold 3,000 copies The remarkable story of a series of murders that occurred in a remote corner of the Arctic in 1941 About people, technology, and the loss of connection to our natural...

From Serial to The Jinx to Making a Murderer, true crime fever is sweeping America. But how does crime-and punishment-differ in other cultures? True Crime Japan offers a close-up look at this little-documented aspect of...

"We were invisible. We had to be. We took an oath of absolute secrecy. We never even told our immediate families who we were. We went about our lives in New York City. Just like you. We were your accountants, money managers, lawyers, executive...

What drives serial killers to commit their horrific crimes? Are sex crimes really motivated by sexual desire? Why do some killers stop killing, while others escalate?The science of personality theory has advanced dramatically in recent years, shedding...

"A thoughtful, compelling reexamination of an intriguing story of fatal obsession and its enduring mysteries."-Kirkus Reviews "Well-researched and a page turner..."-Library Journal The disappearance of atwenty-one-year-old woman from a Massachusetts...

Carlos Monzon was one of Argentina's most celebrated figures. A renowned boxing champion and movie actor who enjoyed affairs with beautiful women, he also harbored a secret life of drug use, alcohol, and domestic violence. When his estranged wife was...

Co-op advertising available for booksellers willing to carry other titles in the Hamilcar Noir series. On November 12 2019 the first two volumes in this hard-hitting true crime series publish together. Berserk: The Shocking Life and Death of Edwin Valero...

In (Low)life, Charles Farrell lets the public in on his gripping, harrowing, rich, and often amusing life that transverses his path from a teenage jazz prodigy, to mob-involved boxing fight-fixer, to his business partnership with the legendary Floyd...

"A gritty, engrossing, and concise account of a boxer's meteoric career and tortured personal life."-Kirkus Reviews "If I wake up, I know I'm a success. The day I don't wake up, I know I'll be home. I have one foot on this earth and one foot has crossed...

Joseph Di Prisco's anticipated memoir brings the hustler, gambler, criminal, bookmaker, and confidential informer-Joe's father-back to life, and reveals the fascinating and unsettling truths that simultaneously bound and separated father and son. On the...

Can Modern DNA Science Crack this Cold Case?The 1978 murder of actor and American icon Bob Crane remains one of the most high-profile unsolved celebrity murders of all time. Thirty-eight years after his brutal murder in Scottsdale, Arizona, millions...

You Can't Win, the beloved memoir of real lowdown Americana by criminal hobo Jack Black, was first published in 1926, then reprinted in 1988 by Adam Parfrey's Amok Press, featuring an introduction by William S. Burroughs.After its Amok Press edition went...

This is an educational book about a real life story and contains some upsetting themes. It should be introduced in an environment where children can talk and learn in a supportedway. For children with the cognitive age of 4+.Breck is a 14-year-old boy...

The first historical account of the development of prison gangs world-widePower on the Inside is the first book to examine the historical development of prison gangs worldwide, from those that emerged inside mid-nineteenth-century Neapolitan prisons to...