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  Vaninka - Celebrated Crimes Book 17

  Alexandre Dumas

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  To paraphrase the note from the translator, The Celebrated Crimes of Alexandre Dumas père was not written for children. The novelist has spared no language—has minced no words—to describe violent scenes of violent times.In this, the seventeenth of the series, Dumas, in this case more a novelist rather than a historian, turns his attention to a story from Russia: that of Vaninka. Her father was a Russian count and a general in the Russian Imperial army under Paul I. She falls in love with one of her father's officers, whose tragic but accidental death leads her to a savage crime. Ironically, bringing her to justice requires a great perversion of justice itself.This story is historical romance, not history. It does show us something of the life of Russia at the time, and takes a side trip through part of the Napoleonic wars, but the focus is firmly on the price a beautiful young girl pays for her arrogant willingness to play fpr keeps with human hearts.Dumas may have collaborated on this, as he frequently did in his works, with other writers. Nevertheless, it is clearly Dumas who has the final say on this work, as with all the other works in this series.Enjoy!

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  Stauffenberg Symbol of...

  Wolfgang Venohr

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  A biography of the man who lead the secret mission to kill Adolph Hitler and topple the Nazi regime, from an award-winning historian.   On 20th July 1944, senior officers gathered at the Wolfschanze—the Wolf’s Lair—Hitler’s headquarters in East Prussia. Among them was Colonel Claus Schenk Count von Stauffenberg, chief of staff of the Reserve Army, and he carried a briefcase packed with explosives. This is his story.   Shortly after midday the building was rocked by a massive explosion. Five men were killed, others wounded and the interior of the Wolfschanze was wrecked. Believing that he had killed the German Führer, von Stauffenberg set off for Berlin to initiate Operation Valkyrie—the coup d’etat to overthrow the Nazi regime.   Hitler, of course, did not die that day and Stauffenberg and his coconspirators were rounded up and executed. But what motivated Stauffenberg to attempt such a mission? Was Stauffenberg a traitor or a patriot? After decades of analyzing the sources and eyewitness reports, the renowned historian Wolfgang Venohr revealed the true nature of the man behind the most audacious assassination attempt of the Second World War.   Like many others, Stauffenberg smarted from Germany’s humiliating defeat in 1918 and the punishing terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Indeed, until the late 1930s, Stauffenberg agreed with much of the National Socialist ideology, which sought to reestablish Germany as the most powerful nation in Europe. But, increasingly, he saw his country sliding to defeat yet again at the hands of a leader who has lost his grip on reality. Stauffenberg believed he had no choice but to act . . .

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  Wolf Boys - Two American...

  Dan Slater

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  The tale of two American teenagers recruited as killers for a Mexican cartel, and the Mexican American detective who realizes the War on Drugs is unstoppable. “A hell of a story…undeniably gripping.” (The New York Times)In this astonishing story, journalist Dan Slater recounts the unforgettable odyssey of Gabriel Cardona. At first glance, Gabriel is the poster-boy American teenager: athletic, bright, handsome, and charismatic. But the ghettos of Laredo, Texas—his border town—are full of smugglers and gangsters and patrolled by one of the largest law-enforcement complexes in the world. It isn’t long before Gabriel abandons his promising future for the allure of juvenile crime, which leads him across the river to Mexico’s most dangerous drug cartel: Los Zetas. Friends from his childhood join him and eventually they catch the eye of the cartel’s leadership. As the cartel wars spill over the border, Gabriel and his crew are sent to the States to work. But in Texas, the teen hit men encounter a Mexican-born homicide detective determined to keep cartel violence out of his adopted country. Detective Robert Garcia’s pursuit of the boys puts him face-to-face with the urgent consequences and new security threats of a drug war he sees as unwinnable.In Wolf Boys, Slater takes readers on a harrowing, often brutal journey into the heart of the Mexican drug trade. Ultimately though, Wolf Boys is the intimate story of the lobos: teens turned into pawns for the cartels. A nonfiction thriller, it reads with the emotional clarity of a great novel, yet offers its revelations through extraordinary reporting.

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  The Hostage Rescuer - The Return...

  Martin Phillips, Darren Franklin

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  The gripping true crime story of a child abducted by his father from his mother, and the international race to rescue him against dangerous odds. 
   
  Two close encounters with death convince Darren Franklin that his career in global private security is not the healthiest. Meanwhile Scottish nurse Diane is on a life-changing journey of her own after a Shirley Valentine-style romance on a Greek holiday island. As she moves to Australia to marry her Greek lover and start a family, Darren escapes a contract on his life and teams up with a former British special forces operative to get into the business of rescuing abducted children.  
   
  Then Darren’s and Diane’s paths cross. After Diane’s marriage breaks down, her ex takes their four-year-old son Theo back to the Greek islands, and, when all attempts to get her son back via the courts have failed, Darren’s company is called in to get him back. As Diane waits anxiously in the wings, Darren and his small team must contend with hostile locals, double-crossing police, and dubious legal contacts to conduct surveillance on their target, formulate a plan, and grab the boy before making their hazardous escape. They can trust no one. A whole island community is against them, they have their suspicions about their own lawyer, and the charity go-between on their team is actively leaking details of their plans, risking their mission, and possibly their lives.  
   
  Set against an epidemic of parental abductions, and a background of frequent failed recoveries, the action swings from Britain to South America to Australia, to the USA and the Greek Islands on a dramatic, emotional roller coaster from start to finish.

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  Killer Genius - The Bizarre Case...

  C.J. March

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  He’s a doctor whose patients have a way of dying; a lawyer, who uses his skills to squirm out of criminal convictions. He’s a scholar, but other scholars have no idea what he’s talking about. He’s a family man, but one day, his wife and baby disappear forever. Only two things are clear: Edward Rulloff is a mystery, and everywhere he goes, death and destruction follow. 
   
  While the criminal justice system has its hands full trying to keep and convict Edward Rulloff, the world will argue whether he’s a genius, a scam artist or a madman. Even Mark Twain has an opinion.

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  Depraved - The Shocking True...

  Harold Schechter

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  The heinous bloodlust of Dr. H.H. Holmes is notorious -- but only Harold Schechter's Depraved tells the complete story of the killer whose evil acts of torture and murder flourished within miles of the Chicago World's Fair. "Destined to be a true crime classic" (Flint Journal, MI), this authoritative account chronicles the methods and madness of a monster who slipped easily into a bright, affluent Midwestern suburb, where no one suspected the dapper, charming Holmes -- who alternately posed as doctor, druggist, and inventor to snare his prey -- was the architect of a labyrinthine "Castle of Horrors." Holmes admitted to twenty-seven murders by the time his madhouse of trapdoors, asphyxiation devices, body chutes, and acid vats was exposed. The seminal profile of a homegrown madman in the era of Jack the Ripper, Depraved is also a mesmerizing tale of true detection long before the age of technological wizardry.

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