True Urban

On a warm spring evening in South Los Angeles, a young man is shot and killed on a sidewalk minutes away from his home, one of the thousands of Black Americans murdered that year. His assailant runs down the street, jumps into an SUV, and vanishes, hoping to join the scores of killers in American cities who are never arrested for their crimes. But as soon as the case is assigned to Detective John Skaggs, the odds shift.

A fabulously entertaining audiobook from the ultimate authority on those almost believable tales that always happen to a "friend of a friend". Alligators in the sewers? A pet in the microwave? A tragic misunderstanding of the function of cruise control? No, it didn't really happen to your friend's sister's neighbor: It's an urban legend. And no matter how savvy you think you are, you are sure to find in this collection of more than 200 tales at least one story you would have sworn was true.

Following the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq in 2003, the SAS launched one of the most intense and secretive operations in its history: Task Force Black. BBC journalist Mark Urban uncovers the sensational story of this operation and the extraordinary men who carried it out.

Since the night of her brutal attack and unwilling transformation into a vampire, Merit has stood as Sentinel and protector of Chicago's Cadogan House. She's saved the Windy City from the forces of darkness time and again with her liege and lover, Ethan Sullivan, by her side. When the House is infiltrated and Merit is attacked by a vampire who seems to be under the sway of dark magic, Merit and Ethan realize the danger is closer than they could have imagined.

Prison buddies Billy Good and Jackie Walker made time pulling small jobs here and there. Not a bad living if you liked scraping by. The thing to worry about was the next fix. Nothing else mattered. When Billy and Jackie fell in with Kenyatta, a ghetto lord ready to take back the streets, they thought they'd hit the big time. Dealing with drug pushers and crooked cops in the name of justice sure felt good, but in a world where "kindness was the sweetest con of all", every bullet fired echoed with the sound of payback.

In 1973, Roseann Quinn, an Irish-Catholic teacher at a school for deaf children, was killed in New York City after bringing a man home to her apartment from an Upper West Side pub. The crime made headlines and the ensuing case quickly evolved into a cultural phenomenon. In this groundbreaking true crime tale, Lacey Fosburgh, the New York Times reporter first assigned to the story, utilizes an inventive dramatization technique to veer between the chilling, suspenseful personal interactions leading up to the brutal stabbing and the gritty details of its aftermath.

Long accused of racism and “white flight”, the ethnic Americans driven from their homes and neighborhoods—the author included—finally get the chance to tell their side of the story.

Chris Bathum was a respected therapist, addiction specialist, and founder of one of the fastest-growing rehabilitation chains in America. But Bathum was a total fraud: he was a homicidal meth-head with a history of sexually abusing his patients, scamming insurance companies, and eliminating whistle-blowers. Like Rose Stahl. But this intended victim would be his last. Stahl would risk her life to bring down the monster she and so many other people in need had once trusted for their salvation.

A simple man, lacking in knowledge, but quick of wit. He is flung into the future, where everything is different. Now, he has to make a name for himself, carve his own path in life. He decides to play a game, the biggest one in the world. A strategy game, focused on tactics, used to select the top managers of the largest international corporation. Now, he has to prove his mettle and earn a place for himself in the future....

From its beginnings in the 1890s, Miami Beach has been a place made by visionaries and hustlers. During Prohibition, Al Capone had to muscle into its bootlegging and gambling businesses. After December 1941, when the Beach was the training ground for half a million army recruits, even the war couldn't stop the party. After a short postwar boom, the city's luck gave out. But in 1981, 125,000 Cubans arrived by the boatload.

The Parachute Regiment is Britain's elite airborne infantry. On the 80th anniversary of their first crucial campaign, in Operation Torch in North Africa, historian and broadcaster Mark Urban combines perspectives from German and British sources to tell the gripping stories of the men who had the resilience, fitness and self-reliance to be "Red Devils"—the name they were given by their German enemies.

London. A city apart. Inimitable. Or so it once seemed. Spiralling from the outer limits of the Overground to the pinnacle of the Shard, Iain Sinclair encounters a metropolis stretched beyond recognition. The vestiges of secret tunnels, the ghosts of saints and lost poets lie buried by developments, the cycling revolution and Brexit. An electrifying final odyssey, The Last London is an unforgettable vision of the Big Smoke before it disappears into the air of memory.

In this remarkable challenge to conventional thinking about the environment, David Owen argues that the greenest community in the United States is not Portland, Oregon, or Snowmass, Colorado, but New York City.

Empire of Sin re-creates the remarkable story of New Orleans' 30-years war against itself, pitting the city's elite "better half" against its powerful and long-entrenched underworld of vice, perversity, and crime. This early-20th-century battle centers on one man: Tom Anderson, the undisputed czar of the city's Storyville vice district, who fights desperately to keep his empire intact as it faces onslaughts from all sides.

When I moved to Prosper Woods, California, a couple of weeks ago, I’d had big plans for a quiet life. Let’s just say, things haven’t exactly turned out the way I expected they would. For one thing, as new sheriff, I hadn’t planned on investigating a murder the day after my arrival. For another thing, no one told me supernatural creatures existed. I didn’t believe it at first, but when Vincent Lasco suddenly smiled at me with a mouth full of fangs, things got interesting.

Elsabet or Elizabeth Bathory's life is notorious and, for the most part, known to history. What she's done since is another story altogether. Haunted by the crimes of her life and by her bloodfather, Vlad Dracula, Elsa seeks a life of her own in the New World. But her past will always catch up to her and she must face her demon.

Maddie Graves-Winters has settled into married life with her husband, Nick, and is looking toward the future. When an invitation to a special retreat, strictly for psychics, lands in her lap, she decides it’s time for a leap of faith. As the owner of Casper Creek, a cosplay Western town in Kentucky, Hannah Hickok is in a precarious position. A recent incident involving the death of a tourist - and a member of her own coven - has Hannah struggling. That’s why she agrees to host a bunch of psychics in her town.

When you look at me, can you see my truth, can you tell who I am inside? Of course you can't, I hide it well, my secrets, pain, and lies. The crazy thing about doing things in the dark is that it....

Have you ever had a friend that was more envious of you, than proud of you? Why not just cut that friend off? Well, because that would be too easy, and easy is not fun. As the old cliché goes, "If I can't have you, no one will." This couldn't be more true as Kelli attempts to rid her best friend Symone of everything she loves, just to settle an old debt that Symone is not even aware exists.

No man has ever been able to resist Samiya Savage. The chocolate bombshell has everything: a big wallet, big butt, and sex appeal. What she doesn't have is a man to call her own. That's until she met Rich, in her favorite restaurant. She knew that Cupid had finally caught her when she met him. No man had ever captured her heart, and held her attention in the way that he had. When you find a man like Richard "Richie Rich" Fleming, who's young, black, and successful, you never let him go.