Hardcover Michael Franzese Story Nonfiction True Crime Mob boss Michael Franzese had it all–money, power, prestige. Then, he did the unthinkable. He quit the mob. In one of the most fascinating books ever written about today's Mafia, Michael reveals the answers to the many mysteries surrounding his incredible life. Find out how and why he did what no one else managed to do–and live. Journey with Michael through a life defined by two blood covenants. The first bound him to the mob. The second set him free. Learn More

Hardcover - Great Hurricane: The Miraculous Journey of Rubin Carter by James S. Hirsch Here comes the story of the Hurricane: On June 17, 1966, two men entered the Lafayette Grill in Paterson, New Jersey, and shot four people, killing three. Rubin Hurricane Carter, a onetime contender for the middleweight boxing crown, and John Artis, an acquaintance of Carter's, were charged with the murders. In a highly publicized and racially loaded trial, the prosecution hinged its case upon the convoluted and contradictory testimonies of two lifelong criminals, and failed to present any definitive evidence of Carter and Artis's guilt. Nonetheless, both innocent men were sentenced to life in prison. Hurricane is a detailed, inspiring account of Carter's 22-year effort to exonerate himself and regain his freedom. Carter's saga is rich and complicated, and James Hirsch deserves praise for his balanced treatment. He brings Carter's electrifying and complex personality alive without unnecessarily lionizing him, masterfully detailing his transformation from a defiant, intimidating man known for his dangerous temper and stubborn pride into a enlightened one who defeated despair and unimaginable injustice. Upon incarceration, Carter refused to behave like a guilty man--by defying the rules: rejecting prison garb and keeping his jewelry, shunning prison food, and failing to see a parole officer. His defiance earned him cruel punishment, but he compelled the rigid, unforgiving system to come to terms, at least in certain instances. Though he began an earnest study of the law in order to issue his own appeals, he could not have won his freedom without the astonishing collective effort of others. After a 1974 front-page story in The New York Times revealed his plight, there followed an outpouring of public support that included celebrity endorsements from, among many others, Muhammad Ali, Jesse Jackson, and Bob Dylan, who immortalized him in the famous song Hurricane. Though all the publicity turned Carter into an icon for a time, ultimately it was the efforts of a group of enigmatic Canadians and a team of persistent lawyers that helped Carter achieve justice. He lost his family, his boxing career, and 22 years of his life, yet in the end, he refused to allow bitterness to consume him. When the charges against him were finally dropped in 1988, he spoke at a press conference: If I have learned nothing else in life, I've learned that bitterness only consumes the vessel that contains it. And for me to permit bitterness to control or infect my life in any way whatsoever, would be to allow those who imprisoned me to take even more than the twenty-two years they've already taken. Now, that would make me an accomplice to their crime... He emerged from the fight of his life with his dignity and humanity intact. --Shawn Carkonen Learn More

Hardcover George Anastasia Gotti's Rules: The Story of John Alite, Junior Gotti, and the Demise of the American Mafia From New York Times bestselling author and “one of the most respected crime reporters in the country”, comes the inside story of the John Gotti and Gambino families, told through the unique vantage point of notorious mob hit-man John Alite, a close associate of Junior Gotti, who later testified against him. Anastasia’s new book is a very rare glimpse into the Gotti family, from an insider’s perspective through the figure of John Alite, who was Gotti Jr.’s friend and protector. Until now, no one has given up the kind of personal details about the Gottis — including the legendary “Gotti Rules” of leadership — that Anastasia has uncovered here, through his exclusive access to and interviews with mob-enforcer-turned-government-witness Alite. Learn More

Mortal Danger (Crime Files #13) by Ann Rule FROM TRUST TO TERROR... FROM SECURITY TO SURVIVAL The author of The Stranger Beside Me brings her brilliantly informed understanding of the sociopath to this riveting truecrime collection. Only Ann Rule, who unknowingly worked alongside the smart and charming Ted Bundy -- America's most notorious serial killer -- could lend her razor-sharp insight into these cases of the spouse, lover, family member, or helpful stranger who is totally trusted but whose lethally violent nature, though masterfully disguised, can and will kill. Featured here is the case of a Southern California family man who appeared to be the picture of healthy living with his expertise in naturopathic healing. Luring a beautiful flight attendant into a passionate affair, he swept her away to a secluded home on the Oregon coast where his jealous rages escalated, ultimately leading to a brutal sex attack in which she believed she would die. How this brave victim survived, never knowing her tormentor's whereabouts, and how he resurfaced, forcing a tragic end for all involved, makes this one of Ann Rule's most compelling narratives. Other cases include that of the woman who masterminded her husband's murder to gain his inheritance...the monstrous sadist whose prison release damaged a presidential candidate's campaign and ended in a bitter double tragedy in a quiet neighborhood three thousand miles away...the shocking DNA link between a cold-blooded crime and a cold case...and inside the horrific case of the man who crossed an ocean and several countries to stalk the Eurasian beauty who had fled from him in desperation. Learn More

Hardcover Chase Your Shadow: The Trials of Oscar Pistorius by John Carlin The definitive account of the rise and fall of South African Olympic and Gold Medal-winning Paralympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius, from his personal and athletic success to the murder charge that rocked the world and put both the man, and post-Apartheid South Africa, on trial. Oscar Pistorius made history as the first amputee to compete against able-bodied runners at the 2012 London Olympics. A hero in his native South Africa, the “Blade Runner” as he is known for his futuristic prosthetic legs, became a global icon of resilience and determination. But less than a year later, Pistorius rocked the world once again when he shot his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp, through a closed bathroom door in the early hours of February14, 2013. Charged with murder, he claimed self-defense, contending that he had acted in a blind panic, imagining an intruder had broken in. But as the investigation moved to trial—during which the prosecution sought to prove that he killed her in a rage after an argument—a picture emerged of a traumatized individual fascinated with guns and assailed, behind the heroic facade, by anguish and self-doubt. Acclaimed journalist John Carlin follows the trials of this fallen champion, detailing his fraught upbringing, his almost superhuman rise to athletic glory, and the mysterious circumstances surrounding Steenkamp’s death. At the center of Pistorius’s story is South Africa—a young democracy stained by a history of racial disparity and levels of criminal violence that are among the highest in the world. Thoughtful and probing, Chase Your Shadow offers a piercing look at this intriguing modern tragedy, bringing to life a complex figure and the troubled land that shaped him. Learn More

Paperback Home Sweet Murder (Discovery's Murder is Forever) by James Patterson (Goodreads Author) Two true-crime thrillers as seen on Discovery's Murder is Forever TV series HOME SWEET MURDER: Lawyer Leo Fisher and his wife Sue are a sixty-one-year-old couple enjoying a quiet Sunday dinner at home. Until a man in a suit rings their front door claiming to be an SEC agent. By the end of the evening, two people will be shot, stabbed, and tortured. And two others will fare worse . . . MURDER ON THE RUN: The middle-aged housekeeper found dead with a knife in her throat was bad. But the little boy was worse. After a bloody double homicide that puts Omaha, Nebraska, on the map, Detective Derek Mois promises the boy's parents he will catch the killer, no matter how long or far he runs . . . Learn More

Paeprback (creasing on spine) Ann Rule And Never Let Her Go True Crime Mystery From America's most celebrated true-crime writer comes the heartbreaking real-life drama of a doomed young woman hopelessly trapped in a web of sexual intrigue, political manipulation, and emotional deception by her charming and successful—but ultimately deadly—lover. The author of fifteen New York Times national bestsellers, Ann Rule, a former Seattle policewoman, has researched thousands of homicides and understands every facet of murder investigation. Now, in the most complex and shocking book of her long career, she delves into the motivation that drove a seemingly successful man to kill, and she explores heretofore unknown aspects of a fatal affair between a beautiful young woman who moved confidently in the heady world of the upper echelons of government and a widely admired millionaire attorney who was an immensely popular political figure. On June 27, 1996, thirty-year-old Anne Marie Fahey, who was the scheduling secretary for the governor of Delaware, had dinner with a man she had been having a secret affair with for more than two years. Tommy Capano, forty-seven, was perhaps the most politically powerful man in Wilmington. Son of a wealthy contractor, former state prosecutor, partner in a prestigious law firm, advisor to governors and mayors, Tom Capano had a soft-spoken and considerate manner that endeared him to many. Although recently estranged from his wife, he was a devoted father to his four beautiful young daughters, the trusted son of his widowed mother, and the backbone of his extended family. But sometime after 9:15 that night when Anne Marie and Tom left a Philadelphia restaurant, something terrible happened to Anne Marie. It would be forty-eight hours before her brothers and sisters realized that she had disappeared entirely. Ann Rule brilliantly traces the lives of both Fahey and Capano as she discloses the intimate details of their ill-fated bonding. A vulnerable, trusting woman becomes spellbound by a charming, duplicitous married man, and what begins as a seemingly unremarkable affair is slowly transformed into an obsessive, convoluted, and deadly relationship. Through her impeccable research, Rule peels away layer after layer of deception to reveal a man who lived a secret life for decades, a man so greedy that he would sacrifice anyone to gain what he desired. One of his many mistresses—all of whom were unknown to one another—was Deborah MacIntyre, an attractive and wealthy member of one of Wilmington's oldest families and an administrator of an elite private school. She, too, would become part of the mystery surrounding Anne Marie's disappearance. As three prominent families are destroyed to satisfy one man's jealous obsessions, this unfathomable tragedy becomes a tale that few would believe if it were presented as fiction. Shockingly, it is all true. Destined to become a classic, And Never Let Her Go is a riveting account of forbidden love and murder among the rich and powerful, and a chilling insight into the evil that sometimes hides behind even the most charming façade. (less) Learn More

Paperback Ann Rule If You Really Loved Me True Crime Nonfiction There was only one way to please her father: Murder his wife.... David Brown was the consummate entrepreneur: a computer wizard and millionaire by age thirty-two. When his beautiful young wife was shot to death as she slept, Brown's fourteen-year-old daughter, Cinnamon, confessed to killing her stepmother. The California courts sentenced her harshly: twenty-four years to life. But in the wake of Cinnamon's murder conviction, thanks in part to two determined lawmen, the twisted private world of David Brown himself unfolded with astonishing clarity -- revealing a trail of perverse love, twisted secrets, and evil mind games. A complex and often dangerous investigation suggested a horrifying scenario: Was the seemingly bland David Brown really a stone-cold killer who convinced his own daughter to prove her love by killing for him? A man who turned young women into his own personal slaves, who collected nearly $1 million in insurance money, and married his dead wife's teenage sister, David Brown was a sociopath who would stop at nothing...a deadly charmer who almost got away with everything. Learn More

Hardcover Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed by Patricia Cornwell (Goodreads Author) Now updated with new material that brings the killer's picture into clearer focus. In the fall of 1888, all of London was held in the grip of unspeakable terror. An elusive madman calling himself Jack the Ripper was brutally butchering women in the slums of London’s East End. Police seemed powerless to stop the killer, who delighted in taunting them and whose crimes were clearly escalating in violence from victim to victim. And then the Ripper’s violent spree seemingly ended as abruptly as it had begun. He had struck out of nowhere and then vanished from the scene. Decades passed, then fifty years, then a hundred, and the Ripper’s bloody sexual crimes became anemic and impotent fodder for puzzles, mystery weekends, crime conventions, and so-called “Ripper Walks” that end with pints of ale in the pubs of Whitechapel. But to number-one New York Times bestselling novelist Patricia Cornwell, the Ripper murders are not cute little mysteries to be transformed into parlor games or movies but rather a series of terrible crimes that no one should get away with, even after death. Now Cornwell applies her trademark skills for meticulous research and scientific expertise to dig deeper into the Ripper case than any detective before her—and reveal the true identity of this fabled Victorian killer. In Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper, Case Closed, Cornwell combines the rigorous discipline of twenty-first century police investigation with forensic techniques undreamed of during the late Victorian era to solve one of the most infamous and difficult serial murder cases in history. Drawing on unparalleled access to original Ripper evidence, documents, and records, as well as archival, academic, and law-enforcement resources, FBI profilers, and top forensic scientists, Cornwell reveals that Jack the Ripper was none other than a respected painter of his day, an artist now collected by some of the world’s finest museums: Walter Richard Sickert. It has been said of Cornwell that no one depicts the human capability for evil better than she. Adding layer after layer of circumstantial evidence to the physical evidence discovered by modern forensic science and expert minds, Cornwell shows that Sickert, who died peacefully in his bed in 1942, at the age of 81, was not only one of Great Britain’s greatest painters but also a serial killer, a damaged diabolical man driven by megalomania and hate. She exposes Sickert as the author of the infamous Ripper letters that were written to the Metropolitan Police and the press. Her detailed analysis of his paintings shows that his art continually depicted his horrific mutilation of his victims, and her examination of this man’s birth defects, the consequent genital surgical interventions, and their effects on his upbringing present a casebook example of how a psychopathic killer is created. New information and startling revelations detailed in Portrait of a Killer include: - How a year-long battery of more than 100 DNA tests—on samples drawn by Cornwell’s forensics team in September 2001 from original Ripper letters and Sickert documents—yielded the first shadows of the 75- to 114 year-old genetic evid... Learn More

Paperback James Patterson (Goods Reader) Murder, Interrupted (Discovery's Murder is Forever) True Crime Nonfiction Two true-crime thrillers as seen on Discovery's Murder is Forever TV series - premiering January 2018 MURDER, INTERRUPTED. Rich, cheating financier Frank Howard wants his wife dead, and he's willing to pay Billie Earl Johnson whatever it takes, to the tune of $750,000. When his bullet misses the mark, Billie Earl and Frank will turn on each other in a fight for their lives . . . MOTHER OF ALL MURDERS. Dee Dee Blancharde is a local celebrity. Television reports praise her as a single mother who tirelessly cares for her wheelchair-bound, chronically ill daughter. But when the teenaged Gypsy Rose realizes she isn't actually sick and Dee Dee has lied all these years, Gypsy Rose exacts her revenge . . . Learn More

Paperback - Great Patricia Cornwell (Goodreads Author) Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper Case Closed True Crime Nonfiction Now updated with new material that brings the killer's picture into clearer focus. In the fall of 1888, all of London was held in the grip of unspeakable terror. An elusive madman calling himself Jack the Ripper was brutally butchering women in the slums of London’s East End. Police seemed powerless to stop the killer, who delighted in taunting them and whose crimes were clearly escalating in violence from victim to victim. And then the Ripper’s violent spree seemingly ended as abruptly as it had begun. He had struck out of nowhere and then vanished from the scene. Decades passed, then fifty years, then a hundred, and the Ripper’s bloody sexual crimes became anemic and impotent fodder for puzzles, mystery weekends, crime conventions, and so-called “Ripper Walks” that end with pints of ale in the pubs of Whitechapel. But to number-one New York Times bestselling novelist Patricia Cornwell, the Ripper murders are not cute little mysteries to be transformed into parlor games or movies but rather a series of terrible crimes that no one should get away with, even after death. Now Cornwell applies her trademark skills for meticulous research and scientific expertise to dig deeper into the Ripper case than any detective before her—and reveal the true identity of this fabled Victorian killer. In Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper, Case Closed, Cornwell combines the rigorous discipline of twenty-first century police investigation with forensic techniques undreamed of during the late Victorian era to solve one of the most infamous and difficult serial murder cases in history. Drawing on unparalleled access to original Ripper evidence, documents, and records, as well as archival, academic, and law-enforcement resources, FBI profilers, and top forensic scientists, Cornwell reveals that Jack the Ripper was none other than a respected painter of his day, an artist now collected by some of the world’s finest museums: Walter Richard Sickert. It has been said of Cornwell that no one depicts the human capability for evil better than she. Adding layer after layer of circumstantial evidence to the physical evidence discovered by modern forensic science and expert minds, Cornwell shows that Sickert, who died peacefully in his bed in 1942, at the age of 81, was not only one of Great Britain’s greatest painters but also a serial killer, a damaged diabolical man driven by megalomania and hate. She exposes Sickert as the author of the infamous Ripper letters that were written to the Metropolitan Police and the press. Her detailed analysis of his paintings shows that his art continually depicted his horrific mutilation of his victims, and her examination of this man’s birth defects, the consequent genital surgical interventions, and their effects on his upbringing present a casebook example of how a psychopathic killer is created. New information and startling revelations detailed in Portrait of a Killer include: - How a year-long battery of more than 100 DNA tests—on samples drawn by Cornwell’s forensics team in September 2001 from original Ripper letters and Sickert documents—yielded the first shadows of the 75- to 114 year-old genetic evid... Learn More

Hardcover - Great Tall Man: The Death of Doomadgee by Chloe Hooper In 2004 on Palm Island, an Aboriginal settlement in the Deep North of Australia, a thirty-six-year-old man named Cameron Doomadgee was arrested for swearing at a white police officer. Forty minutes later he was dead in the jailhouse. The police claimed he'd tripped on a step, but his liver was ruptured. The main suspect was Senior Sergeant Christopher Hurley, a charismatic cop with long experience in Aboriginal communities and decorations for his work. Chloe Hooper was asked to write about the case by the pro bono lawyer who represented Cameron Doomadgee's family. He told her it would take a couple of weeks. She spent three years following Hurley's trail to some of the wildest and most remote parts of Australia, exploring Aboriginal myths and history and the roots of brutal chaos in the Palm Island community. Her stunning account goes to the heart of a struggle for power, revenge, and justice. Told in luminous detail, Tall Man is as urgent as Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and The Executioner's Song. It is the story of two worlds clashing -- and a haunting moral puzzle that no reader will forget. Learn More