True War

The Skripal Files is a remarkable and definitive account of Sergei Skripal’s story, which lays bare the new spy war between Russia and the West. Mark Urban, the diplomatic and defense editor for the BBC, met with Skripal in the months before his poisoning, learning about his career in Russian military intelligence, how he became a British agent, his imprisonment in Russia, and the events that led to his release. Skripal’s first-hand accounts and experiences reveal the high stakes of a new spy game that harks back to the chilliest days of the Cold War.

Mike and Kate Blaise fell in love during high school in small-town Macon, Missouri. Sharing a deep sense of patriotism, they both entered the US Army, she as a commissioned officer and he as an enlisted infantry soldier who later became a helicopter pilot with the Air Cavalry. Forced to accept the realities of a military marriage yet determined to stay with her husband, Kate passed up her dream assignment in the United States to be with Mike, who was deployed to Korea. But they never imagined a day like 9/11 or the military aftermath that sent them to Iraq.

In The Assassin’s Accomplice, historian Kate Clifford Larson tells the gripping story of Mary Surratt, a little-known conspirator in the plot to kill Abraham Lincoln, and the first woman ever to be executed by the federal government. A Confederate sympathizer, Surratt ran the boarding house where the conspirators met to plan Lincoln’s assassination. Set against the backdrop of the Civil War, The Assassin’s Accomplice tells the intricate story of the Lincoln conspiracy through the eyes of its only female participant, offering a fresh perspective on America’s most famous murder.

In the Vietnam War, 2,197 helicopter pilots and 2,717 crew members were killed. Black Cat 2-1 is the story of one pilot who made it home and the valiant men he served with who risked their lives for the troops on the ground. Bob Ford invites listeners into the Huey helicopters he flew on more than 1,000 missions when he and his men dared to protect and rescue. For those whose voices were silenced in that faraway place or who have never told their stories, he creates a tribute that plays like a thriller, captures the humor of men at war, and resounds with respect for those who served with honor.

In Shadows in the Monarchy: Royal Scandals and Murder Plots, acclaimed author Lee Brickley embarks on a captivating journey through history, uncovering the layers of secrecy and scandal that have shrouded the British monarchy. The intricate web of deceit—reaching from the ties between Prince Andrew and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein to the unsettling rumors around Queen Victoria's grandson and the infamous Jack the Ripper—paints a chilling tableau of power and its corrosive effects.

With the immediacy and force of a sniper's strike, Cold Zero is a blistering first-person account of life inside the FBI and its elite Hostage Rescue Team.

Ambushed in Afghanistan and betrayed by their own leaders, these elite Marines fought for their lives again, back home. A cross between A Few Good Men and American Sniper, this is the true story of an elite Marine special operations unit bombed by an IED and shot at during an Afghanistan ambush. The Marine Commandos were falsely accused of gunning down innocent Afghan civilians following the ambush. The unit’s leader, Major Fred Galvin, was summarily relieved of duty, and his unit was booted from the combat zone.

Wealthy, beautiful, and brilliant, Shele Danishefsky had fulfillment at her fingertips. Having conquered Wall Street, she was eager to build a family with her much younger husband, promising Ivy League graduate Rod Covlin. But when his hidden vices surfaced, marital harmony gave way to a merciless divorce. Rod had long depended on Shele's income to fund his tastes for high stakes backgammon and infidelity - and she finally vowed to sever him from her will. In late December 2009, Shele made an appointment with her lawyer. She would never make it to that meeting.

When Rema chose to be crowned queen and join the rebel forces, she knew she'd face the fight of her life. What she didn't expect was to be kidnapped by an Emperion assassin and taken to the mainland to be executed in front of the emperor. How can she save Greenwood Island if she can't even save herself?

On November 23, 1942, German U-Boats torpedoed the British ship Benlomond, and it sank in the Atlantic in two minutes. The sole survivor was a second steward named Poon Lim, who, with no knowledge of the sea, managed to stay alive for 133 days on a small wooden raft.

Hanna Reitsch and Melitta von Stauffenberg were talented, courageous, and strikingly attractive women who fought convention to make their names in the male-dominated field of flight in 1930s Germany. With the war, both became pioneering test pilots and were awarded the Iron Cross for service to the Third Reich. But they could not have been more different, and neither woman had a good word to say for the other.

The riveting true story of America’s first homegrown Muslim terror attack, the 1977 Hanafi siege of Washington, DC.

In Enemies Within Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman lay bare the complex and often contradictory state of counterterrorism and intelligence in America through the pursuit of Najibullah Zazi, a terrorist bomber who trained under one of bin Laden's most trusted deputies. Zazi and his coconspirators represented America's greatest fear: a terrorist cell operating inside America. Apuzzo and Goldman lift the veil of secrecy to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of our counterterrorism measures.

With the Battle of Britain won, Winston Churchill and his military chiefs faced an even more fearsome challenge in the Battle of the Atlantic. Thwarted in his plans to invade, Hitler decided he would starve Britain into submission instead. Operating in conjunction with U-Boats, long-range Condor aircraft manned by élite German airmen attacked Allied ships far beyond the range of any land-based RAF fighters, with devastating results.

Tom Chandler arrived in Bogotá at the height of the cocaine boom. Pablo Escobar lay dead, the Cali Cartel had taken over much of the global supply and an avalanche of coke was poised to hit Europe. Now the British government wanted Chandler and his team to do the impossible: infiltrate the most powerful crime syndicates on earth and stop their drug shipments. It was a perilous assignment. The cartel bosses operated like a lethal multinational, with armies of hit men and myriad spies in ports, airports, police stations and government offices.

In the inspiring tradition of Black Hawk Down, this is the riveting real-life story of how an Australian SAS signalman's courage under fire saved more than 80 lives. It is an enthralling eyewitness account of the war on terror. Jock Wallace was pumped. It was the start of Operation Anaconda, the US-led military offensive to flush out al Qaeda and Taliban from their last stronghold in the Shahi Kot Valley in Afghanistan.

After an elderly man jumped from New York's Pulitzer Building, in 1911, his death made the front page of the New York Times: "WorldDome Suicide a Famous War Spy". By then Pryce Lewis had slipped entirely offstage; but, as Gavin Mortimer reveals, the headline did him justice, speaking to the dramatic, vitally important, and until now untold role he had played in the Civil War.

Their names were Bob Palmer, Gordy Cox, Tim McCoy, and Chuck Vervalin, and in 1941, when they joined the Navy, they were not trying to prove their patriotism - they were just looking for a job that would provide "three hots and a cot". But on April 22, 1943, the war took a terrible turn for them. Their submarine, the USS Grenadier, was torpedoed. Listed as lost in action and given up for dead, all four had in fact miraculously escaped, only to be captured by the Japanese.

In October 1934, the Chinese Communist Army found itself facing annihilation, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Nationalist soldiers. Rather than surrender, 86,000 Communists embarked on an epic flight to safety. Only 30 were women. Their trek would eventually cover 4,000 miles over 370 days. Under enemy fire they crossed highland swamps, climbed Tibetan peaks, scrambled over chain bridges, and trudged through the sands of the western deserts.

In Long Island, a farmer found a duck pond turned red with blood. On the Lower East Side, two boys playing at a pier discovered a floating human torso wrapped tightly in oilcloth. Blueberry pickers near Harlem stumbled upon neatly severed limbs in an overgrown ditch. Clues to a horrifying crime were turning up all over New York, but the police were baffled: There were no witnesses, no motives, no suspects. The grisly finds that began on the afternoon of June 26, 1897, plunged detectives headlong into the era's most perplexing murder.