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  The Unspeakable Crimes of Dr Petiot

  Thomas Maeder

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  The chilling true story of a serial killer who preyed on men, women, and children desperate to escape Nazi-occupied Paris.   On March 11, 1944, police were called to investigate foul-smelling smoke pouring from the chimney of an elegant private house near the Arc de Triomphe. In the basement of 21 rue Le Sueur, they made the first of many gruesome discoveries: a human hand dangling from the open door of a coal-burning stove.   Proceeding to the rear of the home, detectives found rib cages, skulls, and internal organs strewn across the floor and large piles of quicklime mixed with fragments of bone and flesh. The Gestapo had two offices in the neighborhood—were Hitler’s henchmen responsible for the carnage? Or was it the work of French Resistance fighters purging Paris of traitors and German spies?   As the investigation unfolded, a more sinister possibility emerged. The building’s owner, Dr. Marcel Petiot, was a handsome and charismatic physician whose past was littered with bizarre behavior and criminal activity. When he was finally captured eight months later, Dr. Petiot claimed he was a loyal member of the Resistance who helped kill Nazi collaborators. Prosecutors charged that he was a sadistic mass murderer who lured at least twenty-seven innocent people to their deaths with promises of escape. Estimates of the actual number of his victims ran as high as 150 men, women, and children.   From the first stages of the investigation to the sensational trial in which Dr. Petiot’s superior intelligence and perverse wit were on full display, author Thomas Maeder meticulously reconstructs one of the twentieth century’s most fascinating and lurid murder cases. Drawing on classified police files and interviews with surviving participants, The Unspeakable Crimes of Dr. Petiot is a riveting true crime saga that that “reads like a shocking psychological thriller” (Newsweek).  

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  Sins of the Mother - The...

  Maria Eftimiades

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  On October 25, 1994, a hysterical Susan Smith told police a tale that would strike terror in the hearts of mothers everywhere: An unidentified gunman had sped off with her two little boys, leaving her screaming on the side of the road.For more than a week, the people in the tiny town of Union, South Carolina, rallied around the young mother. They combed the woods and neighborhood parks for the missing children and prayed for their safe return, while FBI teams launched a massive manhunt.No one ever suspected that the pretty twenty-three-year-old who tearfully pleaded for her children in front of millions of TV viewers could be capable of such a heartless act . . . until she led police to the watery graves of her young sons. Now, as a shaken community confronts its outrage and sorrow, a stunned nation asks how is could have happened.

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  Murder on the Florida Frontier -...

  Andrew Fink

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  This historical true crime reveals the story behind a sensational murder trial in 19th century Florida—and the local legend of a headless ghost.  Sanford, Florida, 1880. As the United States recovered from the horrors of the Civil War, settlers, swindlers, and former soldiers from both sides decended on Florida in droves. Among these newcomers was Archie Newton, a young Englishman seeking refuge from his past. Newton hoped to forge a new life on the Florida frontier—and he set his sights on the fertile soil of Sanford.    Samuel McMillan was a miserly Sanford bachelor who carried large sums of "greenbacks" and trusted no one. The ambitious Newton made no secret of his plan to buy McMillan's profitable orange grove. But on his way back from Newton's home one evening, McMillan disappeared without a trace. He wasn't seen again until his headless corpse was pulled from a nearby lake.    Though there was no direct evidence linking Newton to the murder, he was immediately suspected. The trial was sensational and the evidence gruesome. To this day, local legends tell of a headless ghost rising from the lake. In Murder on the Florida Frontier, Andrew Fink chronicles the twists and turns of this shocking true story

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  The Real Mr Big - How a...

  Ron Chepesiuk, Jesus Ruiz-Henao

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  This true crime memoir is both a “high-speed train trip through the modern cocaine trade” and a story of reform, redemption and family (Gerald Posner, and author of Pharma). Born in 1960, Jesus Ruiz Henao wanted to be rich like the drug dealers he saw as he grew up in the cocaine-producing region of Colombia’s Valle of the Cauca. In 1985, he moved to the quiet London suburb of Hendon, where he and his wife held down mundane cleaning and bus driving jobs. At least to outward appearances . . . While keeping a low profile, Henao built a drug trafficking network reaching from Colombia to England and across Europe. It was a risky business with law enforcement on one side and ruthless competitors on the other. By the summer of 2003, he decided to get out. But then he made the one mistake that would get him caught. It cost him a seventeen-year prison sentence, with more tacked on when he tried to make one last deal from behind prison walls. Co-written by Henao with bestselling author Ron Chepesiuk, The Real Mr. Big is the story of how an ambitious Colombian immigrant became known to law enforcement as “the Pablo Escobar of British drug trafficking.”

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  The Marquise de Ganges -...

  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 eighteenth of the series, Dumas explores the history of a famous French aristocratic family: that of Marie de Rossan, also known as Diane de Joannis de Roussan and as Anne-Elisabeth De Rossan, but in any case the Marquise de Ganges and La Belle Belle Provençale: often described as the most beautiful woman of her time. It was, indeed, her beauty that undid her. After the death of her first husband, she heard of the Marquis de Gange; she heard of him as the handsomest man in France, and she could not resist the urge to meet him. They met, they married, and the rest is history--bloody, violent and terrible history, completely opposite to the sweet romance with which it began. Dumas tells her story in full, and also takes us through the tales of her husband, her children, and the men who murdered her--and that group may include her husband as well.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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  The Beatle Bandit - A Serial...

  Nate Hendley

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  The sensational true story of how a bank robber killed a man in a wild shootout, sparking a national debate around gun control and the death penalty.On July 24, 1964, twenty-four-year-old Matthew Kerry Smith disguised himself with a mask and a Beatle wig, hoisted a semi-automatic rifle, then held up a bank in North York, Ontario.The intelligent but troubled son of a businessman and mentally ill mother, Smith was a navy veteran with a young Indigenous wife and a hazy plan for violent revolution.Outside the bank, Smith was confronted by Jack Blanc, a former member of the Canadian and Israeli armies, who brandished a revolver. During a wild shootout, Blanc was killed, and Smith escaped—only to become the object of the largest manhunt in the history of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Force.Dubbed "The Beatle Bandit," Smith was eventually captured, tried, and sentenced to hang. His murderous rampage had tragic consequences for multiple families and fueled a national debate about the death penalty, gun control, and the insanity defense.

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