True Crime Memoir

Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative flows like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction.

Although happily ensconced in a loving second marriage and a new family of quadruplets, Sheila Blackthorne Bellush never truly escaped the enslavement of her ex-husband, multimillionaire Allen Blackthorne, a handsome charmer - and a violent, controlling sociopath who terrorized her for a decade after their divorce. When Sheila was slain in her home, in the presence of her four toddlers, authorities raced to link the crime to Blackthorne, the man who vowed to monitor Sheila's every move in his obsessive quest for power and revenge.

In the 1950s, Confidential magazine, America's first celebrity scandal magazine, revealed Hollywood stars' secrets, misdeeds, and transgressions in gritty, unvarnished detail. Deploying a vast network of tipsters to root out stars' sexual affairs, drug use, and sexuality, publisher Robert Harrison destroyed celebrities' carefully constructed images and built a media empire. Confidential became the best-selling magazine on American newsstands in the 1950s, surpassing Time, Life, and the Saturday Evening Post. Confidential's spectacular rise was followed by an equally spectacular fall.

Emily has always felt like an outsider, so when a family friend takes her under his wing she is delighted. But soon it becomes clear that his motives are not all they seem. At the age of 11, Emily is groomed into being a ‘county lines’ drug trafficker. It is the beginning of a vicious cycle that sees her become prey to one abuser after another, involving a huge child-sex-trafficking gang. The scale of the abuse—at the hands of hundreds of men—is sickening, and at times it feels like there will never be an escape. But then, in the darkest of moments, a ray of light shines....

Perhaps the most compelling murder case of our day, the death of six-year-old JonBenet Ramsey galvanized the nation - and years after it occurred, the mystery still endures. Who killed the young beauty queen and why? Who is covering up for whom, and who is simply lying? In JonBenet, the most authoritative and comprehensive study of the Ramsey murder, a former lead Boulder Police detective, Steve Thomas, explores the case in vivid and fascinating detail.

When we avoid taking a decision, what happens to it? In The Unaccountability Machine, Dan Davies examines why markets, institutions and even governments systematically generate outcomes that everyone involved claims not to want. He casts new light on the writing of Stafford Beer, a legendary economist who argued in the 1950s that we should regard organisations as artificial intelligences, capable of taking decisions that are distinct from the intentions of their members.

Randy Kraft was highly intelligent, politically active, loyal to his friends, committed to his work - and the killer of 67 people - more than any other serial killer known. This book offers a glimpse into the dark mind of a living monster.

Revolution's End fully explains the most famous kidnapping in US history, detailing Patty Hearst's relationship with Donald DeFreeze, known as Cinque, the head of the Symbionese Liberation Army. Not only did the heiress have a sexual relationship with DeFreeze while he was imprisoned, she didn't know he was an informant and a victim of prison behavior modification.

Dallas antiques dealer Mary Jean Pearle had a bitter history with her ex-husband, John David Battaglia, a former Marine and successful accountant. But even after the abuse she endured from him, she never thought he would go after their daughters, Faith and Liberty. That is, until she listened helplessly over the phone as Faith made a heartrending plea for her life - which was followed by gunshots. In this updated account of Battaglia's unthinkable crime, Irene Pence recounts an unforgettable saga of violence, betrayal, and a mother's worst nightmare.

In 2005, Kerri Rawson opened the door of her apartment to greet an FBI agent who shared the shocking news that her father had been arrested for murdering 10 people, including two children. That’s also when she first learned that her father was the notorious serial killer known as BTK, a name he’d given himself that described the horrific way he committed his crimes: Bind, torture, kill.

From poverty to lucky in love, Belle found her happy ending with a man named Mads…or so everyone thought. But when the wealthy Mads died a mysterious death, Belle collected the life insurance policy and remarried…only for her new husband to drop dead. With things going from strange to sinister, more men mysteriously die or go missing around Belle.

It began as rumors. Whispers at dinner parties. Warnings about bad dates with a Canadian celebrity. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, superstar CBC broadcaster Jian Ghomeshi revealed his interest in "rough sex" in a long Facebook post, and a scandal of unprecedented scale descended on the radio host. What the public did not know was that months before Ghomeshi's emotional post, Canadaland podcaster Jesse Brown and Toronto Star journalist Kevin Donovan were quietly pursuing serious allegations against him.

A mesmerizing narrative about the rise and fall of an unlikely international crime boss. Based on hundreds of interviews, Patrick Radden Keefe's sweeping narrative tells the story not only of Sister Ping, but of the gangland gunslingers who worked for her, the immigration and law enforcement officials who pursued her, and the generation of penniless immigrants who risked death and braved a 17,000 mile odyssey so that they could realize their own version of the American dream.

A Civil War veteran who perpetrated one of the most ghastly mass slaughters in the annals of U.S. crime. A nineteenth-century female serial killer whose victims included three husbands and six of her own children. A Gilded Age “Bluebeard” who did away with as many as fifty wives throughout the country. A decorated World War I hero who orchestrated a murder that stunned Jazz Age America.

Since its first show in 2010, The Last Podcast on the Left has barreled headlong into all things horror, as hosts Henry Zebrowski, Ben Kissel, and Marcus Parks cover subjects spanning Jeffrey Dahmer, werewolves, Jonestown, and supernatural phenomena. Deeply researched but with a morbidly humorous bent, the podcast has earned a dedicated and aptly cult-like following for its unique take on all things macabre.

Todo indica que en realidad AMLO no era el hombre que venía a romper el sistema criminal, sino que ha sido su Caballo de Troya, uno más de los instrumentos del Cártel de Sinaloa para culminar su plan de conquista de nuestra nación.

Mrs. Grace Humiston was an amazing lawyer and a traveling detective during a time when no women were practicing those professions. She focused on solving cases no one else wanted and advocating for innocents. One of her greatest accomplishments was solving the cold case of a missing 18-year-old girl, Ruth Cruger. Her work changed how the country viewed the problem of missing girls, but it came with a price: she learned all too well what happens when one woman upstages the entire NYPD.

For over half a century, Banco Popular was one of the most profitable banks in the world—until one day, in 2017, when the Spanish bank suddenly collapsed overnight. When investigative journalist Gareth Gore was dispatched to report on the story, he expected to find yet another case of unbridled capitalist ambition gone wrong. Instead, he uncovered decades of deception that hid one of the most brazen cases of corporate pillaging in history, perpetrated by a group of men sworn to celibacy and self-flagellation who had secretly controlled Popular and abused their positions there.

It’s the $10 million heist you’ve never heard of. In a matter of months, dozens of truckloads disappeared from American highways. But what were they carrying? Nuts. Marc Fennell takes you into a rabbit hole of crime syndicates, stolen identities and private investigators that will change the way you think about food forever. Eighty per cent of the world’s almonds are grown in the heart of California, but this journey will take you to Italy, the Spanish coast, deep under the earth and even into space.

Cœur policier regroupe les témoignages de 30 membres actifs ou retraités des diverses forces de l’ordre québécoises, dont plusieurs se confient pour la toute première fois. Avec générosité, ils se souviennent des gestes posés pour dénouer des situations de crise où leur apport s’est révélé vital.