True Criminal

Actors, musicians, TV personalities, and other public figures in the spotlight aren’t always who they appear to be. You might be surprised by just how many have led nefarious, double lives, and have become infamous criminals! Power, status, and a rich lifestyle aren’t barriers to criminal behavior. Yes, people from all walks of life commit crimes. But the people featured here are not your typical neighbors or subway passengers—they are household names and Hollywood stars.

In 2009, Jared Fishman was a young prosecutor working on low-level civil rights cases in the justice department when a file landed on his desk. That folder contained two items: a story from The Nation magazine looking into mysterious deaths in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, and an autopsy report for a man named Henry Glover, whose charred remains were found in a burned-out car two weeks after the storm. The autopsy report, bafflingly, listed no cause of death.

Before the 1920s found their roar, a charismatic gambling addict named Roy Gardner dominated news headlines with daring train robberies and escapes from incarceration. Nicknamed "the Smiling Bandit," Gardner spilled no blood—except his own—as he cut a felonious path across the western United States, as the country hobbled through a recession in the aftermath of the First World War. Alcatraz Ghost Story explores the life of Roy Gardner in the context of his great love story and the larger backdrop of drug addiction, incarceration, and the racial and labor violence of the 1920s and 1930s.

Dealing with some of the most heinous crimes imaginable, forensic neuropsychologist and psychoanalyst Dr. Richard Lettieri gives a behind-the-scenes look at criminal psychology through case studies from his over 30 years of experience as a court-appointed and privately retained psychologist.

On August 14, 1975, eight daring thieves ransacked 148 massive safe-deposit boxes at a secret bank used by organized crime, La Cosa Nostra, and its associates in Providence, Rhode Island. The crooks fled with duffel bags crammed full of cash, gold, silver, stamps, coins, jewels, and high-end jewelry. The true value of the loot has always been kept secret, partly because it was ill-gotten to begin with, and partly because there was plenty of incentive to keep its true worth out of the limelight.

From CSI to Forensic Files to the celebrated reputation of the FBI crime lab, forensic scientists have long been mythologized in American popular culture as infallible crime solvers. Juries put their faith in "expert witnesses", and innocent people have been executed as a result. Innocent people are still on death row today, condemned by junk science.

When 14-year-old Jesse Pomeroy was arrested in 1874, a nightmarish reign of terror over an unsuspecting city came to an end. "The Boston Boy Fiend" was imprisoned at last. But the complex questions sparked by his ghastly crime spree - the hows and whys of vicious juvenile crime - were as relevant in the so-called Age of Innocence as they are today.

Widely known in the criminal underworld as the 'Black Widow', Linda Calvey spent the first half of her life running with the UK's top gangsters, robbing banks and rubbing shoulders with the Kray twins. That is, until, in 1990, her lover Robbie Cook was murdered at point-blank, and she found herself falsely convicted. Linda was sent away for decades, and would go on to become Britain's longest-serving female prisoner. This is her story of life inside, and how she learnt to survive the many years she spent behind bars.

As the last don of the Philadelphia mob, Ralph Natale, the first-ever mob boss to turn state's evidence, provides an insider's perspective on the Mafia. Natale's reign atop the Philadelphia and New Jersey underworlds brought the region's Mafia back to prominence in the 1990s. Smart, savvy, and articulate, Natale came up in the mob and saw firsthand as it hatched its plan to control Atlantic City's casino unions.

Whether in Truman Capote’s detailed murder of the Clutter family or Ted Bundy’s small-town charm, criminals have always roamed rural America and towns worldwide. Featuring murder stories, criminal case studies, and more, The Best New True Crime Stories: Small Towns contains all-new accounts from writers of true crime, crime journalism, and crime fiction. And these entries are not based on a true story - they are true stories. Edited by acclaimed author and anthologist Mitzi Szereto, the stories in this volume span the globe.

UN CHOC. Depuis 1984, Jean-Luc Ployé a effectué plus de 13 000 expertises psychologiques pour les tribunaux français : la moitié sont des victimes, l'autre des mis en cause. Parmi eux : Michel Fourniret, avec qui il devra passer huit heures dans une salle minuscule, sa femme Monique Olivier, qui se révèlera brillante aux tests d'intelligence, ou encore Francis Heaulme dont il découvre le haut du corps mutilé par de fréquentes autoflagellations. Son travail consiste à établir leur profil psychologique à l'aide de divers tests, d'entretiens qui lui permettent d'essayer d'entrer dans la tête des tueurs.

Between October 2014 and November 2016, global terrorism expert Jessica Stern held a series of conversations in a prison cell in The Hague with Radovan Karadzic, a Bosnian Serb former politician who had been indicted for genocide and other war crimes during the Bosnian War. In My War Criminal, Jessica Stern brings to bear her incisive analysis and her own deeply considered reactions to her interactions with Karadzic, while also offering a deeply insightful and sometimes chilling account of the complex and even seductive powers of a magnetic leader.

In this audiobook is a unique, never-before-published look at the investigations undertaken to stop the depredations of America's most infamous serial killer, Ted Bundy. Presented here in an easy-to-follow chronology are the raw, unedited and most fascinating official case files as they appeared to the detectives from the Pacific Northwest to the Rocky Mountains to Florida.

You’ve heard of Pablo Escobar, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, and Rafael Caro Quintero. Their names conjure ghoulish images of bloody streets, white powder, bundles of weed, and a particular flavor of machismo unique to ruthless druglords. But what of the drugladies, las narcas? For the first time, investigative reporter Deborah Bonello takes you behind the curtain to introduce the women at the helm of organized crime south of the US-Mexico border.

A Criminal and an Irishman is the story of Pat Nee's life as an Irish immigrant and Southie son, a Marine, a convicted IRA gun smuggler, and a former violent rival and then associate of Whitey Bulger. His narrative transports the listener into the criminal underworld, inside planning and preparation for an armored car heist, inside gang wars and revenge killings.

Delve into the hidden underbelly of crime as we unveil the secrets of the Los Angeles Mafia Crime Family. From its elusive origins to its far-reaching influence, prepare to uncover the tangled web of power, intrigue, and betrayal that defined this criminal empire.

For over a century, the Bruno-Scarfo crime family reigned over Philadelphia before a series of internal and external events led to their downfall. Such was the power that the family possessed that they had close connections with the Five Families of the New York Mafia.

No criminal sparked as much fear and loathing among the public and law enforcement as underworld crime boss, Kenny Noye. A man with a central role in some of the most high-profile crimes of a generation. From the £125 million (current value) Brink's Mat gold bullion raid to the death of Covert Police Operative John Fordham, and road rage victim Stephen Cameron, the multimillionaire villain became universally known as ‘Public Enemy: No 1'.

In 1990, a young woman was strangled on a jogging path near the home of Pat Brown and her family. Brown suspected the young man who was renting a room in her house, and quickly uncovered strong evidence that pointed to him - but the police dismissed her as merely a housewife with an overactive imagination. It would be six years before her former boarder would be brought in for questioning, but the night Brown took action to solve the murder was the beginning of her life's work.

True crime, as an entertainment genre, has always prioritized clear narrative arcs: victims wronged, police detectives in pursuit, suspects apprehended, justice delivered. But what stories have been ignored? In Evidence of Things Seen, fourteen of the most innovative crime writers working today cast a light on the cases that give crucial insight into our society.