Other books that might interest you

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  Steel City Mafia - Blood...

  Paul N. Hodos

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  Pittsburgh's small but lucrative Cosa Nostra mafia family was on the rise in 1985 with a newly crowned Don . . . The men who came to dominate the rackets in western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, and West Virginia opened the family to massive profits from drug trafficking and a street tax on other criminal activities. At the same time, the Youngstown, Ohio, faction of the family launched a brutal mob war against the weakening Cleveland mafia and the Altoona, Pennsylvania, crew violently clamped down on their city. Discover gritty stories of a made member who controlled who a local police department hired, an informant who betrayed his own mafia grandfather and father, numerous unsolved murders and a mob mole in the Pittsburgh office of the FBI. This is the tale of a mafia family at the pinnacle of its power, willing to do anything to hold on to that power and its downfall in the criminal underworld.

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  The Con - How Scams Work Why...

  James Munton, Jelita McLeod

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  “[A] fascinating, informative, and highly entertaining primer on the various ways the uninitiated may find themselves ripped off by a con artist.” —Publishers Weekly   No one thinks it can happen to them, but Americans are forty times more likely to be defrauded than to have their cars stolen or their homes burgled. Con artists ruin people financially and emotionally, leaving in their wake a trail of destruction, broken hearts, and deflated dreams.    The first step to combating fraud is to understand it. What do scams look like? Why are they effective? The next step is to take action. How can we protect ourselves and our families? The Con: How Scams Work, Why You’re Vulnerable, and How to Protect Yourself informs and engages with accessible stories of ordinary people from all walks of life thrown into unexpected and disorienting circumstances. The book goes behind the scenes of real-world cons to examine the logistics and psychology that enable scams to succeed. The goal is to help people understand and recognize deception, and in the same way that they avoid other potentially dangerous situations, take a detour. Once readers have gained a clear idea of what scams look and sound like and learned simple strategies to reduce personal risk, protecting themselves will be just as instinctive as putting on a seat belt.  “This compelling work goes a long way toward putting distance between scammers and their prey.” —Foreword Reviews  “Completely fascinating and insightful.” —Booklist  

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  Fatal Lunch - The Death Cap...

  Cheryl Warren

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  EXHAUSTIVELY RESEARCHED. COMPELLINGLY TOLD. IMPOSSIBLE TO PUT DOWN. 
  A family lunch. Beef Wellington. Four guests. Three dead within a week. 
  You may have followed the Erin Patterson death cap murder case through the headlines. You may have watched the documentaries, scrolled the theories, formed your own opinion. But ask yourself this: can you actually explain how the prosecution proved it? Can you explain why the defence arguments failed? Most people who followed this case closely cannot — because the evidence emerged in fragments, out of sequence, often contradicting what was reported the day before. By the time the verdict came down, the people at the centre of the story had been flattened into a plot. 
  On 29 July 2023, Erin Patterson served individually plated beef Wellington to four members of her estranged husband's family at her home in Leongatha, a quiet town in rural Victoria, Australia. Hidden inside each pastry parcel was Amanita phalloides — the death cap mushroom.  Within a week, three of the lunch guests were dead. The fourth survived after fifty-four days in hospital.  
  No motive was ever proven. The evidence was entirely circumstantial. The verdict was unanimous: guilty on three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. 
  Fatal Lunch strips the case back to what was actually established. Twelve months of meticulous research, drawn from court documents, trial testimony, forensic records and verified reporting — written after the trial concluded. The complex forensic evidence — mushroom toxicology, liver pathology, cell tower data, phones that were wiped and the one that was never found — is explained in plain language throughout. Author Cheryl Warren draws on a Masters in Information Technology to untangle the digital evidence the prosecution relied on, making it accessible without losing its weight. 
  Whether this case is new to you or you think you already know it, this book will change what you understand about what happened in that dining room.

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  The Sing Sing Files - One...

  Dan Slepian

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  “Bristling with urgency, empathy, and determination…this is investigative journalism at its best and most necessary.”—AudioFileThe author's podcast, Letters from Sing Sing, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.This program is read by the author and features sound design and original archival sound recordings from Sing Sing maximum-security prison, including letters written to the author. It also includes commentary from formerly incarcerated men.An NBC Dateline producer's cinematic account of his two-decade journey navigating the broken criminal justice system to help free six innocent menIn 2002, Dan Slepian, a veteran producer for NBC’s Dateline, received a tip from a Bronx homicide detective that two men were serving twenty-five years to life in prison for a 1990 murder they did not commit.Haunted by what the detective had told him, Slepian began an investigation of the case that eventually resulted in freedom for the two men and launched Slepian on a two-decade personal and professional journey into a deeply flawed justice system fiercely resistant to rectifying—or even acknowledging—its mistakes and their consequences.The Sing Sing Files: One Journalist, Six Innocent Men, and a Twenty-Year Fight for Justice is Slepian’s account of challenging that system. The story follows Slepian on years of prison visits, court hearings, and street reporting that led to a series of powerful Dateline episodes and eventually to freedom for four other men and to an especially deep and lasting friendship with one of them, Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez. From his cell in Sing Sing, JJ aided Slepian in his investigations until his own release in 2021 after decades in prison.Like Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy, The Sing Sing Files is a deeply personal account of wrongful imprisonment and the flaws in our justice system, and a powerful argument for reckoning and accountability. Slepian’s extraordinary book, at once painful and full of hope, shines a light on an injustice whose impact the nation has only begun to confront.A Macmillan Audio production from Celadon Books.

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  The Wireless Operator - The...

  David Tuch

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  Government agencies and rival factions were closing in. His look-alike had already fallen victim to professional hitmen and his once-powerful allies in Cuban intelligence and the DEA could no longer guarantee his safety. How did a boy from Manchester revolutionise the criminal world and become the largest marijuana trafficker in American history?
  
  
  
  This is the never-before-told story of Harold Derber, the debonair British Merchant Navy veteran who invented the modern drug trade with his groundbreaking invention: the drug mothership. Through his ghost fleet of drug ships, Derber eventually become the chief supplier of marijuana to post-war America. This gripping true tale follows Derber from humble beginnings in Manchester, England to his assassination in the sun-kissed streets of Miami. Along the way, Derber's story takes in some of the most significant events of the twentieth century - the Second World War's Battle of the Atlantic, the Cuban Revolution and the murky shadows of the Cold War.
  
  
  
  Shedding light on a litany of plots including arms and refugee smuggling, large-scale stock fraud and Derber's rise to the pinnacle of the drug world, this remarkable transatlantic story paints a complex picture of a singular figure and brings his extraordinary life into focus for the first time.

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  Keanu Reeves is Not in Love with...

  Becky Holmes

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  'Fabulous. I read this in a single weekend and I didn't want it to end. Scammers, con-artists, catfishers – you have met your match' Jeremy Vine
  'A brilliant read. Moves effortlessly between hilarious and informative and back again' Ed Byrne, comedian and actor
  'Astonishing' Daily Mail
  Online romance fraud is a problem across the globe. It causes financial and emotional devastation, yet many people refuse to take it seriously. This is the story of one middle-aged woman in a cardigan determined to understand this growing phenomenon.
  No other woman has had so many online romances – from Keanu Reeves to Brad Pitt to Prince William – and Becky Holmes is a favourite among peacekeeping soldiers and oil rig workers who desperately need iTunes vouchers. By winding up scammers and investigating the truth behind their profiles, Becky shines a revealing, revolting and hilarious light on a very shady corner of the internet.
  Featuring first-hand accounts of victims, examples of scripts used by fraudsters, a look into the psychology of fraud and of course plenty of Becky's hysterical interactions with scammers, this is a must-read for anyone who needs a reminder that Keanu Reeves is NOT in love with them.

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