Police True Crime

Appointed to conquer the "crime capital of the world", the first police chief of Paris faces an epidemic of murder in the late 1600s. Assigned by Louis XIV, Nicolas de La Reynie begins by clearing the streets of filth and installing lanterns throughout Paris, turning it into the City of Light. The fearless La Reynie pursues criminals through the labyrinthine neighborhoods of the city. He unearths a tightly knit cabal of poisoners, witches, and renegade priests.

For several years, a prolific predator haunted Bristol. Avon and Somerset Police had tried all their usual tactics to catch the ‘Clifton Rapist’, and public pressure was mounting. In 1979, a daring new plan was introduced. A small group of young female officers – some aged just 18 – put their lives on the line, walking the quiet residential roads late at night, acting as bait. Drawing on in-depth research and first-hand interviews with the women at the heart of the operation, Decoy is a dramatic retelling of one of the most groundbreaking agent provocateur stings in British history.

After being summarily thrown out of the DEA Task Force, Office Patrick MacKenna finds himself once again pushing a marked police car around on street patrol in the city of Syracuse, New York. The middle-aged cop is reevaluating his law enforcement career while solely taking care of his three children when he receives a call from the captain of the new Abused Persons Unit asking him to come on board. Mac deliberately passed on a transfer request to APU—but now he has a feeling that if he doesn’t take the captain up on her offer, he may never get back to wearing a gold shield again.

It's the run-up to Christmas, 1998. On the Isle of Mull, Sergeant Ivor Punch is losing himself in his vinyl collection, a tragic anniversary and too much single malt whisky. But news of a missing child soon brings him back to his senses. And as word spreads of more strange disappearances, an aircraft vanishing from the sky and a famous classical musician gone with it, it seems a sinister plot holds the island in its grip. Punch thought he knew the secrets of this place, its people and stories.

After laterally transferring from the sleepy bedroom hamlet of the Town of Camillus Police Department, Officer Patrick MacKenna has a whole different learning curve to contend with.... He rarely if ever had to pull his gun at CPD, but now he has a hard time leaving it in the holster. Drug dealers, gang bangers, robberies, shootings, and stabbings just keep adding up in his daily log as he tries to assimilate to the fast pace life of a city cop in an urban setting.

Four children were abducted and murdered outside of Detroit during the winters of 1976 and 1977; their bodies eventually dumped in snow banks around the city. J. Reuben Appelman was six years old at the time the murders began and had evaded an abduction attempt during that same period, fueling a lifelong obsession with what became known as the Oakland County Child Killings. There were few credible leads and equally few credible suspects. That's what the cops had passed down to the press, and that's what the city of Detroit and J. Reuben Appelman had come to believe.

They called it Satan's Circus, a square mile of Midtown Manhattan where vice ruled, sin flourished, and depravity danced in every doorway. At the turn of the 20th century, murder was so common in the vice district that few people were surprised when the loudmouthed owner of a shabby casino was gunned down on the steps of its best hotel.

Beautiful, shrewd, and lethal, Daria Villalobos is on a mission. Determined to be the first woman to take the reins of her father's notorious organization, she hatches a plot to eliminate Veranda, framing a rival to take the fall. Veranda Cruz is on a mission of her own. Intent on destroying the powerful Villalobos criminal empire, Veranda battles her department and her personal demons as she takes on Daria.

Manhattan, 1923. Scandalous flapper Dot King is found dead in her Midtown apartment, a bottle of chloroform beside her and a fortune in jewels missing. Dot’s headline-making murder grips the city. It also draws a clutch of lovers, parasites, and justice seekers into one of the city’s most mesmerizing mysteries.

On October 28, 2007, 23-year-old Stacy Peterson disappeared without a trace. Her husband, Bolingbrook police officer Drew Peterson, became a media sensation, sparking questions about what really happened to his third wife, Kathleen Savio. While he was still married to Kathleen Savio, 47-year-old Drew began dating 17-year-old Stacy Cales.

Babes in the Wood by Graham Bartlett with Peter James takes us to the heart of a murder case that shocked the nation. Both gripping police procedural and an insight into the motivations of a truly evil man, it is a unique account of what became a 32 year fight for justice. 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 small clearing in a local park. This devastating crime rocked their close-knit community and the whole country.

When Baltimore Police Sergeant Wayne Jenkins said he had a monster, he meant he had found a big-time drug dealer - one who he wanted to rob. This is the story of Jenkins and the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF), a super group of dirty detectives who exploited some of America’s greatest problems: guns, drugs, toxic masculinity, and hypersegregation. In the upside-down world of the GTTF, cops were robbers and drug dealers were the perfect victims, because no one believed them.

When Ella Watson, a woman of wealth and status, is brutally stabbed to death in broad daylight, it sends a shockwave through the Lake District community. Later that day, Keira Bradley meets the same fate. But whereas Ella’s murder is a tragedy, Keira’s death on the notorious Beacon Estate is just another statistic in a dangerous place.

From number one best seller Mark Billingham comes a twisting, unbearably gripping DI Tom Thorne and Nicola Tanner thriller inspired by a dramatic real-life case. How do you catch a killer who is yet to kill? We all know the signs. Cruelty, lack of empathy, the killing of animals. Now, pets on suburban London streets are being stalked by a shadow, and it could just be the start. DI Tom Thorne knows the psychological profile of such offenders all too well.

In 1984, Jean Road, a 49-year-old mother of three, awakes at home in Bath, Somerset, and wonders where her 17-year-old daughter Melanie can be. Her bed hasn’t been slept in. Just then, Jean and her husband, Tony, hear someone shouting through a loudspeaker: ‘Does anyone know Melanie?’ Jean runs to the police car outside only to discover that her daughter has been murdered in a nearby street as she walked home from a club in the early hours. Britain’s biggest manhunt begins.

David Parrish was in disbelief when he learned that 19-year-old Jon Bowie's body had been found hanged from a backstop at the local high school's baseball field and the death declared a suicide. David had known Jon and his twin brother since they were boys. He had coached them on the baseball field and welcomed them into his home for sleepovers with his own sons. However, when David learned how Jon's body was found, he felt compelled to find the facts behind this incomprehensible tragedy.

The Real Death in Paradise is cosy crime...in the sun, recounting the idyllic two years ex-DCI Richard Preston spent as one of the twelve young police officers sent to the tropical paradise and infamous tax-haven of the Cayman Islands. But when faced with the reality of life in the Caribbean - including foiling a turtle egg kidnap, a rum smuggling ring and corrupt police officers - Richard soon found out that the truth was far more interesting than he ever could have imagined.

CASE FILE #18–June 2008. Katherine Alford was found dead in her car at a local beauty spot. The devoted mother had received an urgent phone call late in the evening, and asked a neighbor to babysit for ten minutes. She never returned. Gus Freeman and his team uncover failings in the initial police investigation, but every eyewitness they re-interview can’t offer fresh clues, they only add to the mystery. Who did Katherine dash out of the house to meet?

How much do you really know about the FBI? Do you know who the FBI is? Do you know what the FBI does? This manual debunks FBI myths and misconceptions for those who read, watch, and write crime dramas about the FBI or have always wanted to be a Special Agent. Like most people, you've probably learned about the FBI from popular culture - reading books and watching TV shows and movies, along with, of course, the news. You might be surprised to learn that a lot of what you've been reading and watching is inaccurate.

Armed-encounters expert and police trainer Brian McKenna shares his expertise in a series of gripping stories involving real-life police shootouts. Step into the shoes of police officers who have run toward the sound of gunfire, who have faced attacks by deadly assailants, and who have lived to share the tale. But this book is more than just stories about courageous cops. Each story is followed by McKenna’s expert analysis of its important learning points, especially concerning how and why the officers use force and the legal aspects of self-defense and the defense of others.