True Crime

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One of the Best Books of the Year

Time * NPR * Washington Post * Bloomberg News * Chicago Tribune * Chicago Public Library * Fortune * Los Angeles Times * E! News * The Telegraph * Apple * Library Journal In this newly updated edition of the "meticulous and devastating" (Associated Press) account of violence and espionage that spent months on the New York Times Bestsellers list, Ronan Farrow exposes serial abusers and a cabal of powerful interests hell-bent on covering up the truth, at any cost - from Hollywood to Washington and beyond.
In 2017, a routine network television investigation led to a story only whispered about: one of Hollywood's most power­ful producers was a predator, protected by fear, wealth, and a conspiracy of silence. As Farrow drew closer to the truth, shadowy operatives, from high-priced lawyers to elite war-hardened spies, mounted a secret campaign of intimidation, threatening his career, following his every move, and weaponizing an account of abuse in his own family. This is the untold story of the exotic tactics of surveillance and intimidation deployed by wealthy and connected men to threaten journalists, evade accountability, and silence victims of abuse. And it's the story of the women who risked everything to expose the truth and spark a global movement
Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in AutobiographyIndie Bound #1 BestsellerUSA Today BestsellerWall Street Journal Bestseller

An enthralling introduction to humanity's darker side. Investigate 100 of the world's most notorious crimes and find out what truly happened.

Who are the people behind the most notorious crimes, why did they do it, and how were they caught? The pages of this book answer your questions about infamous criminals, their offenses, and the detectives who were hot on their heels.

This book captures the most notorious crimes from medieval times to the modern-day. With a foreword by British author Peter James, this book unravels the mysteries and idiocracies of transgressions by some of history's most infamous criminals. Whether pure evil, opportunistic, or disturbed, each criminal is profiled to make sense of their lawless behavior and antisocial actions.

Crime stories, mysteries, and criminals

Investigate intriguing crimes such as the Mississippi Scheme, the Ponzi scheme, the Black Dahlia, and more recent cybercrimes. The book also features enigmatic criminals such as Jack the Ripper, Ted Bundy, the Zodiac Killer, the Mafia, and more.

Complete the Series:

Complete the Big Ideas series by adding to your collection various interesting topics covered in books such as The Astronomy Book, The Art Book, The History Book, and many more.

This suspenseful true story of a drug cartel hitman who got away with murder after murder in California's Central Valley over three decades reveals how the criminal justice system fails our most vulnerable immigrant communities.

On the surface, fifty-eight-year-old Jose Martinez didn't seem evil or even that remarkable--just a regular neighbor, good with cars and devoted to his family. But in between taking his children to Disneyland and visiting his mom, Martinez was also one of the most skilled professional killers police had ever seen.

He tracked one victim to one of the wealthiest corners of America, a horse ranch in Santa Barbara, and shot him dead in the morning sunlight, setting off a decades-long manhunt. He shot another man, a farmworker, right in front of his young wife as they drove to work in the fields. The widow would wait decades for justice. Those were murders for hire. Others he killed for vengeance.

How did Martinez manage to evade law enforcement for so long with little more than a slap on the wrist? Because he understood a dark truth about the criminal justice system: if you kill the "right people"--people who are poor, who aren't white, and who don't have anyone to speak up for them--you can get away with it.

Melding the pacing and suspense of a true crime thriller with the rigor of top-notch investigative journalism, The Devil's Harvest follows award-winning reporter Jessica Garrison's relentless search for the truth as she traces the life of this assassin, the cops who were always a few steps behind him, and the families of his many victims. Drawing upon decades of case files, interrogation transcripts, on-the-ground reporting, and Martinez's chilling handwritten journals, The Devil's Harvest uses a gripping and often shocking narrative to dig into one of the most important moral questions haunting our politically divided nation today: Why do some deaths--and some lives--matter more than others?

"Meticulously researched and tightly woven, The Devil's Harvest is an important story because it tells us that if [this] can happen in one place, then it can happen in any place. And that's damn scary." --Michael Connelly, New York Times bestselling author of The Closers, The Lincoln Lawyer, and The Night Fire

Over Easter weekend 2015, a motley crew of six English thieves, several in their sixties and seventies, couldn't resist coming out of retirement for one last career-topping heist. Their target: the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit, in the heart of London's medieval diamond district. "The Firm" included Brian Reader, ringleader and legend in his own mind; Terry Perkins, a tough-as-nails career criminal but also a frail diabetic; Danny Jones, a fitness freak, crime enthusiast, and fabulist; Carl Wood, an extra pair of hands, and definitely more brawn than brains; John "Kenny" Collins, getaway driver, prone to falling asleep on the job; and the mysterious Basil, a red-wigged associate who has only now been identified.

Perhaps not the smoothest of criminals--one took a public bus to the scene of the crime; another read Forensics for Dummies in hopes he would learn how to avoid getting caught--they planned the job over fish and chips at their favorite pubs. They were cantankerous and coarse, dubbed the "Bad Grandpas" by British tabloids, and were often as likely to complain about one another as the current state of the country. Still, these analog thieves in a digital age managed to disable a high-security alarm system and drill through twenty inches of reinforced concrete, walking away with a stunning haul of at least $19 million in jewels, gold, diamonds, family heirlooms, and cash.

Veteran reporter and former London correspondent for the New York Times Dan Bilefsky draws on unrivaled access to the leading officers on the case at the Flying Squad, the legendary Scotland Yard unit that hunted the gang, as well as notorious criminals from London's shadowy underworld, to offer a gripping account of how these unassuming criminal masterminds nearly pulled off one of the great heists of the century.

A gripping and shocking story of a serial killer mother, and the brave daughter who brought her to justice. Dulcie Bodsworth was the unlikeliest serial killer. She was loved everywhere she went, and the townsfolk of Wilcannia, which she called home in the late 1950s, thought of her as kindand caring. The officers at the local police station found Dulcie witty and charming, and looked forward to the scones and cakes she generously baked and delivered for their morning tea.That was one side of her. Only her daughter Hazel saw the real Dulcie. And what she saw terrified her.Dulcie was in fact a cold, calculating killer who, by 1958, had put three men in their graves - one of them the father of her four children, Ted Baron - in one of the most infamous periods of the state's history. She would have got away with it all had it not been for Hazel.Written by award-winning journalist Janet Fife-Yeomans together with Hazel Baron, My Mother, A Serial Killer is both an evocative insight into the harshness of life on the fringes of Australian society in the 1950s, and a chilling story of a murderous mother and the courageous daughter who testified against her and put her in jail.

From New York Times bestselling author Alex Tresniowski comes a page-turning, remarkable true-crime thriller recounting the 1910 murder of ten-year-old Marie Smith, the dawn of modern criminal detection, and the launch of the NAACP.

In the tranquil seaside town of Asbury Park, New Jersey, ten-year-old schoolgirl Marie Smith is brutally murdered. Small town officials, unable to find the culprit, call upon the young manager of a New York detective agency for help. It is the detective's first murder case, and now, the specifics of the investigation and daring sting operation that caught the killer is captured in all its rich detail for the first time.

Occurring exactly halfway between the end of the Civil War in 1865 and the formal beginning of the Civil Rights Movement in 1954, the brutal murder and its highly-covered investigation sits at the historic intersection of sweeping national forces--religious extremism, class struggle, the infancy of criminal forensics, and America's Jim Crow racial violence.

History and true crime collide in this sensational murder mystery featuring characters as complex and colorful as those found in the best psychological thrillers--the unconventional truth-seeking detective Ray Schindler; the sinister pedophile Frank Heidemann; the ambitious Asbury Park Sheriff Clarence Hetrick; the mysterious "sting artist," Carl Neumeister; the indomitable crusader Ida Wells; and the victim, Marie Smith, who represented all the innocent and vulnerable children living in turn-of-the-century America.

Gripping and powerful, The Rope is an important piece of history that gives a voice to the voiceless and resurrects a long-forgotten true crime story that speaks to the very divisions tearing at the nation's fabric today.

When vice and scandal are all fun and games. Portland, Oregon began as a town of itinerant young men who had no shortage of diversions at the end of the workday. This city grew up with lots of revelry and little regulation. After the last tree fell in logging season and after the workday ended on the docks, those young men broke out the cards. Saloon culture quickly took hold in Portland, offering alcohol, sex, gambling, and other diversions. This book traces the storied and scandalous history of Portland, from the underground and elite saloons and gambling rings to the vice, scandal, and fun they brought. Readers will meet the impresarios, gangsters, and racketeers who colored Portland's history.