Altri libri che potrebbero interessarti

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  Bindon - Fighter Gangster Actor...

  Wensley Clarkson

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  John Bindon was a modern legend. A powerful figure in London's underworld, his film-star looks, charm and talent brought him worldwide exposure. His story reads like the plot of a movie in which Big John himself might have landed a part. Usually typecast in tough-guy roles, his on-screen persona was chillingly close to the real-life one.  
  Big John’s good looks and charisma led to encounters with stunning women, most famously Princess Margaret, and numerous high profile relationships. But most of all, Big John was a warm-hearted, complex man, utterly devoted to those who gave him respect and always prepared to be the last line of defence to those closest to him. He emerged from a poor, working class London childhood and fraternised with the Krays and the Richardsons, but eventually turned his back on crime to play major parts in films such as Mick Jagger's Performance, The Who's Quadrophenia and Michael Caine's Get Carter. This is a truly moving story about a man who was many different things to many people, but never anything but himself.

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  The Trillion Dollar Conman - The...

  Ben Robinson

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  Based on the hit BBC 5Live podcast series, The Trillion Dollar Conman is an audacious tale of an international fraud that is stranger than fiction.
  
  In 2009, Notts County FC were on the brink of bankruptcy when they were taken over by a mysterious company supposedly backed by the Bahraini royal family. The club was promised millions of pounds worth of investment and a list of marquee players, including Sol Campbell and Kasper Schmeichel were signed, in a recruitment drive led by former England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson, who was appointed to take the club all the way to the Premier League.
  
  However, within weeks, as the bills began to pile up, the dream came tumbling down as it transpired that the club, the players and the fans had been tricked by a convicted fraudster called Russell King.
  
  The world's oldest professional football club found itself at the centre of one of the most outlandish frauds in sporting and world history, which spanned the globe from Nottingham to North Korea, involving fake sheikhs, fast cars, broken promises and a trail of destruction.

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  Arnold Rothstein and Meyer...

  Editors Charles River

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  One of the most integral members of that criminal underworld was Arnold Rothstein, the archetype of the old school mobster. He was intelligent, charming, well-spoken, grotesquely wealthy, and a sharp dresser, often pictured with a patterned bowtie and a flat-top fedora snugly fit over his receding hairline. And yet, he was nothing like the stereotypical mobster; Arnold was not a drinker or smoker, and he was not one to be tempted by illicit substances. He was a notorious high roller, with pockets holding wads of $100 bills, but to the casual eye, he was just another dapper, well-mannered gentleman who frequented the tracks and casinos after a long day at the office. 	In addition to his aversion to the aforementioned vices, Rothstein never chewed gum or cursed (at least in public). He snacked on figs and fruits, and he was equipped with an insatiable sweet tooth. Affectionately nicknamed the “Cookie Monster” by his loved ones, Rothstein adored cookies of all kinds – which he washed down with a glass of milk every evening before bed – and constantly ate cakes, pies, and all sorts of desserts.  
  	One of America’s most infamous mobsters, Meyer Lansky, was also one of the most mysterious, a perplexing, yet inexplicably intriguing individual with multiple reputations. To his admirers, he was in many ways the ultimate genius and survivor within the callous and cut-throat world of 20th century organized crime. Even in adulthood, Meyer was smaller than most, standing anywhere between 4'11” to 5'4”, and weighing 136 pounds at his heaviest. He was not merely an intellectual – he was worldly and wise, one who often doled out advice akin to poetry to his children and grandchildren, his gravelly voice oddly soothing. At the same time, he had all the stealth and cunning of a sphinx, and while remarkably even-tempered, gangsters twice his size dared not cross him.

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  Poisoning the Pecks of Grand...

  Tobin T. Buhk

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  With his boyish good looks, Arthur Warren Waite charmed into marriage the daughter of wealthy Grand Rapids business tycoon John E. Peck in 1916. He then wasted no time executing what he believed to be a flawless scheme to hijack his wife's inheritance. The plot went awry when a mysterious telegram set off a sequence of events that ultimately exposed his immoral ambition to poison all other Peck heirs. Follow Waite's fingerprints of indiscretion around Grand Rapids and New York City as author Tobin T. Buhk details this audacious plan of staggering complexity.

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  The Enforcers - Inside Cape...

  Caryn Dolley

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  CAPE TOWN’S POPULAR high-end night spots attract an array of clientele, from young partygoers to politicians, models to moguls. In parallel with this is a sleazy underworld where control of the lucrative nightclub-security scene is the ultimate prize, for which some are prepared to pay using extortion and murder as the main currencies. 
    
  South Africa’s private-security sector is massive, an informal police force increasingly relied on as confidence in traditional policing wanes. But it’s an industry tainted by ties to underworld figures and events. 
    
  The Mother City’s security turf wars have their roots in pre-democratic South Africa, and branch into Cape Flats gang battles raging since the 1990s. Dotting this landscape are colourful and contentious figures – Yuri ‘The Russian’ Ulianitski, nightclub-security kingpin and rumoured apartheid-state operative Cyril Beeka, convicted drug dealer Radovan Krejčíř, controversial businessman Nafiz Modack and Mark Lifman. Making surprise appearances are high-ranking police officers as well as prominent members of the ANC and government. 
    
  Journalist Caryn Dolley has interviewed numerous criminal and suspects, often putting herself in danger in pursuit of the truth. Here she weaves her research into a story that lays bare the reality of Cape Town’s nightclub-security wars: a vast network of information and misinformation in which innocent members of the public enjoying a night out inadvertently rub shoulders with some of the city’s most infamous criminals.

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  Long Island’s Vanished Heiress -...

  Steven C. Drielak

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  A new look at the 1937 abduction of a wealthy wife and mother, based on previously classified FBI documents. 
   
   
    
  When she was kidnapped from Long Meadow Farm in Stony Brook, New York, in 1937, Alice McDonell Parsons was the heir to a vast fortune among Long Island's wealthy elite. The crime shocked the nation and was front-page news for several months. 
   
   
    
  J. Edgar Hoover personally assigned his best FBI agents to the case, and within a short time, Parsons's husband and their live-in housekeeper, Anna Kupryanova, had become prime suspects. Botched ransom attempts, clashes between authorities, and romantic intrigue kept the investigation mired in drama. The crime remained unsolved. Now, in this book, former Suffolk County detective Steven C. Drielak reveals previously classified FBI documents—and pieces together the mystery of the Alice Parsons kidnapping.

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