Art Crime

How do you catch a killer who thinks murder is art? Michael Fisher sees himself as an artist rather than a killer and poses his victims to resemble famous paintings. Detective Nick Kelly is called to attend the latest crime scene and finds himself at the centre of a media storm. But while the rest of the police department feels under pressure, Nick relishes the attention. Karen Kelly, Nick’s soon to be ex-wife, watches in horror as this brutal game of cat and mouse plays out. But Karen has secrets of her own.

Bishop Juan Gerardi, Guatemala's leading human rights activist, was bludgeoned to death in his garage on a Sunday night in 1998, two days after the presentation of a groundbreaking church-sponsored report implicating the military in the murders and disappearances of some 200,000 civilians.

A troubled Mary Ann Walker takes a nosedive off a bridge. Seattle's police department macho man John LaMoia takes the call, along with the beauteous cop psychologist Daphne Matthews. They suspect her boyfriend, known to beat Mary Ann. Her seething brother, Ferrell, is convinced the boyfriend did the deed. But the case somehow becomes too slippery to close.

A friend in his cigar club asks Antoine Verlaque to visit Rene Rouquet, a retired postal worker who has found a rolled-up canvas in his apartment. As the apartment once belonged to Paul Cezanne, Rouquet is convinced he's discovered a treasure. But when Antoine arrives at the apartment, he finds Rene dead, the canvas missing, and a mysterious art history professor standing over the body. When the painting is finally recovered, the mystery only deepens.

Art is being systematically stolen from the collection on the most luxurious cruise ship at sea. The collective value is way beyond the sum people kill for. CSCI is approached to work invisibly because unlike INTERPOL or any other international crime unit, art police, valuers, insurance investigators, or experts, they are unknown to the thieves. They must remain unseen or the crime will stop, the thieves will vanish and the art lost for good.

Over the course of his 27 years with the DEA, Ed Follis bought eight-balls of cocaine in a red Corvette, negotiated multimillion-dollar deals onboard private King Airs, and developed covert relationships with men who were not only international drug traffickers but - in some cases - operatives for al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Shan United Army, or the Mexican federation of cartels. Follis was, in fact, one of the driving forces behind the agency's radical shift from a limited local focus to a global arena.

Arthur Fellig’s ability to arrive at a crime scene just as the cops did was so uncanny that he renamed himself “Weegee”, claiming that he functioned as a human Ouija board. Weegee documented better than any other photographer the crime, grit, and complex humanity of midcentury New York City. In Flash, we get a portrait not only of the man (both flawed and deeply talented, with generous appetites for publicity, women, and hot pastrami) but also of the fascinating time and place that he occupied....

“A powerful memoir of one man’s struggle for freedom, 15 to Life tells in vivid prose the story of Anthony Papa, a painter and a casualty of the War on Drugs. This journey of a soul shows the power of art to transcend the violence of prison, and all that is possible when the human spirit refuses to be contained. Papa’s account should be required reading for New York lawmakers and all Americans who care about civil liberties.” (Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking)

Criminal exploits, secret agent intrigue, and clever disguises fill the pages of Francois Eugene Vidocq’s memoirs. A legendary figure in history, Vidocq is known as the first detective and an inspiration to great writers such as Honore de Balzac, Victor Hugo and Edgar Allen Poe. As a player in the criminal underworld, Vidocq is a master of disguises and an accomplished thief, eventually turning his unlawful talents toward catching criminals as the first French chief of secret police.

Cinema emerged alongside the rules that ushered in boxing’s modern age and the “squared circle” proved the ideal stage for cinematic display. The public had its first taste of the new medium in 1894 through a heavyweight bout, recognized today as the world’s first feature film. Smash Hit: Race, Crime, and Culture in Boxing Films uses twenty films as the basis of a hard-nosed exploration as to how the genre held a bloody mirror to twentieth century America’s most prominent social anxieties, elucidating two conjoined mediums that serve as bellwether to an ever-shifting cultural zeitgeist.

Taking on a case that sounded simple, Morgan Stark and Felicity O’Brien are tasked to retrieve two high-value paintings, but it quickly becomes more complicated. Using past connections, the ex-mercenary and the former jewel thief go undercover as part of J.J. Slash's growing crime empire.

Thieves of Baghdad immerses the listener into the rich culture, the colorful characters, the double-dealing, and the derring-do, to sort out once and for all what actually happened during the chaos of the Baghdad invasion, exactly how the thefts took place, and how the most notable objects were retrieved. We hear Bogdanos and his team going on raids and negotiating recoveries, blowing open safes, and mingling in the marketplaces, often encountering an assortment of rogues and villains.

Mann is only 13, yet he has already had to deal with more than most go through in a lifetime. His family is still reeling from the tragic shooting death of his little brother, Jason, each person coping with grief in his or her own way.

Steadfast in fighting crime, but operating outside the police force - and sometimes even the law - is the private detective. Driven by his own moral code, he is a shadowy figure in a trench coat standing on a street corner, his face most likely obscured by a tilted fedora, a lit cigarette dangling from his hand. The hard-boiled detective is known by his dark past, private pain, and powers of deduction. He only asks questions - never answers them. In his stories he is both the main character and the narrator.

Madame Katerina, Detective 'Nine Nails' McGray's most trusted clairvoyant, hosts a séance for three of Edinburgh's wealthiest families.The following morning everyone is found dead, with Madame Katerina being the only survivor. When questioned she alleges a tormented spirit killed the families for revenge. McGray, even though he believes her, must find a rational explanation that holds up in court, else Katerina will be sentenced to death.

Webster Fillmore Goodhue has found temporary work as one of the mop-up crew for the Los Angeles County crime division. In other words, he cleans up grisly crime scenes for the cops. When the daughter of a recent Malibu suicide victim asks for his help cleaning up after her brother has gotten into a little trouble, every cell in Web's brain is telling him to turn her down. But she's very attractive, and before he knows it, he's well on his way to getting his face kicked in.

Susan Ronald reveals in this stranger-than-fiction-tale how Hildebrand Gurlitt succeeded in looting in the name of the Third Reich, duping the Monuments Men and the Nazis alike. As an "official dealer" for Hitler and Goebbels, Hildebrand Gurlitt became one of the Third Reich's most prolific art looters. Yet he stole from Hitler, too, allegedly to save modern art. Hitler's Art Thief is the untold story of Hildebrand Gurlitt, who stole more than art - he stole lives, too.

A year after the private detective uncovered a criminal ring disguised as a mink farm in the Ozarks, O’Keefe is back home and back in trouble. A high school crush of O’Keefe’s turns up dead, but the details don’t add up. His pal, Mike Harrigan, has put his trust in the wrong people and now stands accused of crimes that could put him in the slammer. And O’Keefe? The mafia has put a price on his head. In their search for the truth, O’Keefe and his team will have to venture into the criminal underworld of their city, each step forward bringing them closer to the edge.

Springtime on the Cornish coast and Porthpella’s artistic community are throwing open their doors, welcoming visitors to the annual Arts Trail. And this year, celebrity artist Harrison Loveday is the guest of honour. However, the light mood soon darkens when there’s a dramatic death at the opening-night party, and after threatening messages start appearing around the village, fear takes over. Before long, Porthpella is shocked by a second brutal murder, and whisperings of a ‘serial killer’ start to circulate.

During his decades-long crime coverage in Central Florida, journalist Frank Stanfield covered every atrocity that man or nature could unleash. Vampires, Gators, and Wackos: A Florida Newspaperman’s Life recounts some of the frequently craven, and at times downright stupid, crimes Stanfield covered during his time in the field. He somehow made it through without winding up more mental than the crackpots he tracked. However, his unvarnished, no-holds-barred account of news events reveals just how crazy-making a case can be when you are dead set on nailing the truth.