True Crime

Scams and Swindlers is filled with tales of con artists and their mind-bending schemes, from the terrifying to the downright unbelievable. This thrilling compendium of the world's most incredible scams is truly stranger than fiction. Did you hear about the scammer who posed as a wealthy socialite to fund her lavish lifestyle? What about the people who use dating apps...

The crime of sextortion has reached epidemic proportions, fuelled by both sex offenders and organised scammers targeting our most vulnerable online. Children are some of the internet's most prolific and most naive users, and increasing numbers are finding themselves caught in an evil web of networked manipulators. Up to 70 percent of all new sexual exploitation content online is victim-produced,...

The verdict is guilty. On 20 May 2014, former New South Wales police officers Roger Rogerson and Glen McNamara murdered student Jamie Gao in cold blood. Both have been found guilty of murder and possession of 2.78 kilograms of methamphetamine, and sentenced to life imprisonment. But this wasn't Rogerson's first trial or conviction. Once one of the most highly decorated...

The highly-anticipated book from the UK's number one true crime podcast, RedHanded! What is it about killers, cults, and cannibals that capture our imaginations even as they terrify and disturb us? How do we carefully consume these cases and what can they teach us about what makes victims and their murderers our collective responsibility? RedHanded rejects the outdated narrative of...

In 1981, ambitious young Ma Anand Sheela transported the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh to the United States to fulfil his dream of creating a utopia for his thousands of disciples. Four years later, the incendiary Rajneeshpuram commune in Oregon collapsed under the weight of audacious criminal conspiracies hatched in its inner sanctum, including the largest bioterrorism attack in US...

Ever since Vladimir Putin came to power in Russia, his critics have turned up dead on a regular basis. According to Amy Knight, this is no coincidence. In Putin's Killers, the KGB scholar ties dozens of victims together to expose a campaign of political murder during Putin's reign that even includes terrorist attacks such as the Boston Marathon bombing. Russia...

Dapin's words cut into the organs of the criminal underworld like a surgeon's knife! DAVID McMILLAN, Klong Prem Central Prison Bangkok escapee Mark Dapin has built a rapport with some of Australia's most serious criminals. It is a rapport that gives him an edge over other authors that cannot be replicated. BERNIE MATTHEWS, Long Bay Correctional Centre escapee On a...

The first historical account of the development of prison gangs worldwide Power on the Inside is the first book to examine the historical development of prison gangs worldwide, from those that emerged inside mid-nineteenth-century Neapolitan prisons to the new generation of younger inmates challenging the status quo within gang subcultures today. Historian-criminologist Mitchel P. Roth examines prison gangs throughout the...

This fascinating book looks at the phenomenon of murder and poisoning in the nineteenth century. Focusing on the case of William Palmer, a medical doctor who in 1856 was convicted of murder by poisoning, it examines how his case baffled toxicologists, doctors, detectives, and judges. The investigation commences with an overview of the practice of toxicology in the Victorian era...

"As every amateur toxicologist knows, the difference between a poison and medicine is often simply the dose." There is no weapon as insidious, as seductive, or as mysterious as poison. In this terrifying account of history's silent assassin, discover the gripping tales of users, abusers, and victims of these mysterious substances, from Cleopatra and Catherine de' Medici to contemporary secret...

When Don Osborne went to Pentridge in 1970, he found a nineteenth-century penal establishment in full working order. It held about 1200 inmates, most of them cooped up in tiny stone cells that sweltered in summer and froze in winter. Some had no sewerage or electric light. Assigned to teach in the high-security section of the prison, Don worked in...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA DAGGER IN TRANSLATION ‘Disturbing and powerful … I loved it’ - Leïla Slimani, author of Lullaby 'Icy and chilling... In sharply drawn sentences, Sedira summons the beauty of a small French village, and the shocking acts of the people inside it' - Flynn Berry, author of the Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick, Northern Spy You sprinted...

What was it like for Mary-Ann Hodge to be married to Mark 'Chopper' Read? How was Joe Korp's former girlfriend Tania Herman persuaded to try to kill his wife Maria? And why did hairdresser Sylvia Bruno fall for Melbourne gangland killer Nikolai 'The Bulgarian' Radev? What attracts women to dangerous men? For Georgina Freeman (married to illegal casino king George...

Ever since Vladimir Putin came to power in Russia, his critics have turned up dead on a regular basis. According to Amy Knight, this is no coincidence. In Orders to Kill, the KGB scholar ties dozens of victims together to expose a campaign of political murder during Putin's reign that even includes terrorist attacks such as the Boston Marathon Bombing....

One Nation Under Blackmail is a damning indictment of the consequences resulting from the nearly century-old relationship between both US and Israeli intelligence and the organised criminal network known as the National Crime Syndicate. This book specifically explores how that nexus between intelligence and organised crime directly developed the sexual blackmail tactics and networks that would later enable the sexual...

Once a Copper, always a copper. At least that's how it seems for Brian 'The Skull' Murphy, long-retired but sought out by a trail of journalists and cops who regularly beat a path to his door. Once known as Australia's toughest cop, The Skull was both charged with manslaughter (and acquitted), then awarded a Valour Award for bravery in the...

Harry Markopolos and his team of financial sleuths discuss first-hand how they cracked the Madoff Ponzi scheme No One Would Listen is the thrilling story of how Harry Markopolos, a little-known number cruncher from a Boston equity derivatives firm, and his investigative team uncovered Bernie Madoff's scam years before it made headlines, and how they desperately tried to warn the...

In 2011, Carmen Segarra took a job as a regulator at Goldman Sachs for the New York Fed. It was an opportunity, she believed, to monitor the big bank's behaviour in order to avoid another financial crisis. Shocked to discover that Goldman did not have a conflict of interest policy, she immediately issued a report. But her superiors pressured her...

Brooks Brown was a contemporary and friend of the killers, and gives first-hand insight into what happened that day, the toxic culture at Columbine that fed the alienation and hatred expressed by the killers, and disposes of the myths and prejudices that continue to colour our reactions to school shootings. On April 20, 1999, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, two...

Shortlisted for the 2023 Danger Awards 'A fresh take on the Ned Kelly legend' - The Australian He lurched through the gun smoke, his head encased in an iron helmet, and started shooting. To the weary police in the cordon around the Glenrowan hotel, he appeared like a monster, or a creature from hell. For over a century, the Ned...

Most wonder how Dale Varnam stayed alive. Dale wonders why. Back in the eighties, the quaint fishing village of Varnamtown, North Carolina—full of zany Southern characters—got rich, and so did town clown Dale Varnam, who perfected his own brand of crazy. Dale rose to the top of the heap in the drug smuggling biz, helping the town’s livelihood of shrimping...

'Jim Fraser has been at the forefront of forensic science in the UK for decades... A superb story of real-life CSI.' - Dr Richard Shepherd, bestselling author of Unnatural Causes 'Powerful... Fascinating' - Independent Most murders are not difficult to solve. People are usually killed by someone they know, there is usually abundant evidence, and the police methods used to...

The new book from Steve Keogh

Shocking True Crimes can happen in Your Street. From acclaimed true crime author and podcaster Emily Webb comes a gripping collection of chilling cases from Australia and beyond. This volume delves into both well-known and obscure crimes, revealing the dark underbelly lurking beneath seemingly peaceful neighbourhoods. In 1977, the murder of an Australian nurse living in Texas shocked the community...

In a place where murder isn't supposed to happen—rural Missouri and Southern Illinois—deputy sheriff and investigator Harry Spiller learned the hard reality: murder is all around us. It doesn't matter whether you live in a big city or small county with farms and churches—murder is swift and can happen to anyone, anywhere, and anytime. All too often, victims fall prey...

On December 22, 1993, a murder took place just after midnight. There was very little investigation done. The case was closed before a key witness could come forward, and when she did, no one believed her. Murdered by Mistake reveals the sequence of events that led up to the murder. The witness has spent 25 years trying to get the...

The explosive history of weaponised mail over hundreds of years. This book unfolds the gripping history of weaponised mail, offering the first-ever comprehensive exploration of this sinister phenomenon. Spanning two centuries, Murder by Mail unveils the history of postal bombs, describing the evolution of both explosives and the postal services that facilitated their deadly use. From an eighteenth-century incident involving...

Far away from any World War II battlefront, the citizens of Melbourne lived in fear of a serial killer - the Brownout Strangler. May 1942: Melbourne was torn between fearing Japanese invasion and revelling in the carnival atmosphere brought by the influx of 15,000 cashed-up American servicemen. But those US forces didn't guarantee safety. Not long after their arrival, the...

The definitive account of the most dangerous street gang in America—the MS-13—as seen through the lives of one family caught in its malicious web. The MS-13 was born from war. In the 1980s, El Salvador was enmeshed in a bloody fight for control of the government. To escape the guerrilla assaults and death squads, many fled to the US and...

While visiting his ailing father in Sydney, the author discovers an old suitcase chucked out for a council clean-up. Curiosity gets the better of him and he opens it. Inside are hundreds of photographs, newspaper clippings, and letters, all addressed to Mr Blank. And so the process of discovery begins: Who is Mr Blank? A maverick entrepreneur with the Midas...

For Billy Hayes, 1970 was a horrifying year. It was the year when he tried to smuggle 4lbs of hashish from Istanbul back to his home in America. It was the year when he was arrested at Istanbul airport, tried, and sentenced to 30 years in a Turkish jail. For five years, he suffered the filth, brutality, and degradation of...

When he received an SOS from a friend kidnapped in a dark corner of Asia, journalist Conor Woodman began a journey that would lead him to the most dangerous and least understood place on earth: Wa State, a lawless enclave of Myanmar that neither the government nor the army dare to enter, and a hotbed of vice and corruption. Conor...

In the tradition of Argo, The Wizard of Lies, and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, a book that expands upon the HBO docuseries, McMillion$, with new, exclusive interviews and stories that couldn't make it into the series. In March of 2001, Federal prosecutor Mark Devereaux cold-called Rob Holm, the head of security for McDonald's Corporation. Without explanation, Devereaux...

Powerful Financial Times More twists and turns than a Hollywood spy thriller Spectator A story we all need to hear New Statesman Gripping... Araujo's accretion of detail has a powerful effect New York Times Excellent Kirkus Reviews Deep in the heart of the Amazon, an entire region has lived under the control of one notorious land baron: Joselio de Barros....

"We were invisible. We had to be. We took an oath of absolute secrecy. We never even told our immediate families who we were. We went about our lives in New York City. Just like you. We were your accountants, money managers, lawyers, executive recruiters, doctors. We owned your child's private school and sold you your brownstone. But you'd never...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MARK AND EVETTE MORAN NIB LITERARY AWARD 2022 The Mafia continues to fascinate audiences around the world, depicted in books, films, and TV series. In an astonishing twist, Colin McLaren, the bestselling author of JFK: The Smoking Gun, actually became a mafioso during his tenure as an undercover drug squad cop. Over three extraordinary years, McLaren gathered...

Mafia Brotherhoods is the enthralling new history of Italian organised crime by the author of the international bestseller Cosa Nostra. Mafia. Camorra. 'Ndrangheta. The Sicilian mafia, or Cosa Nostra, is far from being Italy's only dangerous criminal fraternity. The south of the country hosts two other major mafias: the camorra, from Naples and its hinterland; and the 'ndrangheta, the mafia...

Larrimah: hot, barren, a speck of dust in the centre of the nothingness of outback Australia. Where you might find a death adder in the bar and a spider or ten in the toaster. Maybe it's stupid to write a love letter to a town that looks like this. A town where there's nothing to see, nothing to buy and...

A New York Times bestseller! Written in a flowing narrative style, Kitty Genovese: A True Account of a Public Murder and Its Private Consequences presents the story of the horrific and infamous murder of Kitty Genovese, a young woman stalked and stabbed on the street where she lived in Queens, New York, in 1964. The case sparked national outrage when...

The Disturbing Inside Story of Women Who Are Driven to Kill Killer Women are the most disturbing yet compelling of all criminals, representing the very darkest side of humanity and subverting the conventional view of women as the weaker sex. From Elizabeth Bathory, 'The Bloody Countess' whose vampire-like tendencies terrorised sixteenth-century Hungary, to the Moors Murderer Myra Hindley and the...

A murder at the hands of a mother is a heartbreaking deviation and a crime against nature! How can a mother commit such an appalling crime? How can she end the lives of the innocents she so recently bore and nurtured? A mother is supposed to be loving, protective, caring, and kind. She's supposed to nurture and guide her children...

One woman's hilarious and fascinating quest to expose the truth behind fraudulent Twitter profiles: romance scammers beware, you have met your match! 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...

From Amanda Knox to O.J., Casey Anthony to Kyle Rittenhouse, our justice system faces scrutiny and pressure from the media and public like never before. Can the bedrock of 'innocent until proven guilty' survive in what acclaimed Seattle attorney and legal analyst Anne Bremner calls the age of judgement? When unscrupulous Italian prosecutors waged an all-out war in the media...

Follow a trial lawyer’s career through the demanding, often controversial, and suspenseful world of jury trials, tension-filled appeals, and the different worlds of courtrooms, jail cells, corporate boardrooms, and law firms. Each of the cases in the nineteen chapters were selected from a total of his 150 jury trials to reflect issues of current importance, including refugees on the Mexican...

"Fierce and absorbing . . . Fabricant chronicles the battles he and his colleagues have fought to unravel a century of fraudulent experts and the bad court decisions that allowed them to thrive." – Washington Post "No one in America will ever know the number of innocent people convicted, sent to prison, and even executed because of the flood of...

An aspiring tycoon partners with a racketeer to build a jukebox that makes millions, then takes the fall for the largest money laundering scheme in history. Caught between the Mob and the feds in a plot to save the casinos in Havana from Castro’s revolution, Wolfe Rabin pulls the biggest money-laundering scheme in history, but his hubris leads to the...

James 'Jimmy Two Guns' McIntyre was Glasgow's go-to gangland lawyer and consigliere to one of Scotland's foremost crime families. His maverick approach to the law and a client list that included some of the most feared gangland figures of the time—including the McGoverns and Paul Ferris—ensured that he was always in demand but under the constant scrutiny of the authorities....

Exactly who was Jack the Ripper, the infamous Victorian serial killer? Jack the Ripper FAQ explores this question in depth, providing a thorough overview not only of the world's most notorious serial killer but also of the cultural impact that remains as powerful more than 130 years on from his murderous spree. Every murder attributed to him is discussed in...

Jack Ruby changed history with one bold, violent action: killing accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald on live TV two days after the 22 November 1963, murder of President John F. Kennedy. But who was Jack Ruby, and how did he come to be in that spot on that day? As we approach the sixtieth anniversaries of the murders of...

Jack Ruby changed history with one bold, violent action: killing accused presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald on live TV two days after the 22nd November 1963 murder of President John F. Kennedy. But who was Jack Ruby—and how did he come to be in that spot on that day? As we approach the sixtieth anniversaries of the murders of Kennedy...

Prizewinning journalist Janet Malcolm discovers the elements of Greek tragedy in a sensational New York City murder trial. "Astringent and absorbing... Iphigenia in Forest Hills casts, from its first pages, a genuine spell — the kind of spell to which Ms. Malcolm's admirers (and I am one) have become addicted." —Dwight Garner, New York Times "This is shrewd and quirky...

Shocking. Eye-opening. Grimly fascinating. These true stories from a Forensic Psychiatrist working in prisons, secure hospitals and criminal courts are perfect for true crime fans and readers of The Prison Doctor and The Dark Side of the Mind. As a forensic psychiatrist, it's Dr Das's job to treat and rehabilitate what the tabloids might call the 'criminally insane', many of...

I Heard You Paint Houses are the first words Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke to Frank 'the Irishman' Sheeran. To paint a house is to kill a man. The paint is the blood that splatters on the wall and floors. In the course of nearly five years of recorded interviews, Frank Sheeran confessed to Charles Brandt that he handled more than...

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who suffered a tragedy, the death of her father, a war hero, a philanthropist, a good man, in suspicious circumstances. She fled to New York where she made a new life with a brilliant mathematician. Her name is Ghislaine Maxwell and her lover was Jeffrey Epstein. Through Jeffrey, and her family...

'Endlessly fascinating...meticulously written and thoroughly absorbing book' Financial Times Out now: Revised and Updated The gripping new book by the UK's most eminent forensic scientist, Angela Gallop. __________ CRIME [Noun]: An action or omission which constitutes an offence and is punishable by law Forensic science is one of the most important aspects of any criminal investigation. The impartial and objective...

From the author of the star-reviewed Garden State Gangland comes an in-depth exposé on East Harlem's notorious Purple Gang whose murderous exploits became a media obsession and Mafia lynchpin. In the late 1970s, a string of seemingly unconnected murders had Harlem police and federal authorities at their wits’ end until they realised several commonalities. The victims were all either Mafia...

For fans of Mindhunter, Criminal Minds, and My Favorite Murder, a riveting memoir of a trailblazing woman's life hunting down serial killers as one of the first female profilers of the FBI Behavioral Sciences Unit and the real-life model for Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs. 'Jana Monroe is the single most influential woman to ever serve in...

'Donald Mackay was not just an innocent victim tragically struck down by a criminal act. He was a casualty of the actual fight against organised crime ... killed on active service, as it were ... His name should never be forgotten, his passing must not be allowed to be in vain.' The assassination of Donald Mackay was meant to solve...

The bold, the bad, and the slightly mad... Criminality, some say, is part of Australia's national identity, and in Great Australian Rascals, Rogues and Ratbags, Jim Haynes profiles fifteen larger-than-life Aussie rogues - some of our greatest ne'er-do-wells from colonial times to the modern era. These stories uncover the truth and expose the myths about characters ranging from the most...

Australia has always been a land of mysteries. Some are ancient, some are historical, and many continue to perplex us today—and will probably continue to do so tomorrow. More often than most of us would like to think, things simply vanish, and people disappear without explanation, leaving a trail of heartbreak across generations. Australia also has its fair share of...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 WALKLEY BOOK AWARD WINNER OF THE DOUGLAS STEWART PRIZE FOR NONFICTION, 2024 NSW PREMIER'S LITERARY AWARDS A shocking expose of the dark, secret history of Catholic orphanages - the violence, abuse, and even murder that took place within their walls - and a call to hold the powerful to account. Ghosts of the Orphanage is the...

Independence Day weekend, 1960: a young cop is murdered, shocking his close-knit community in Stamford, Connecticut. The killer remains at large, his identity still unknown. But on a beach not far away, a young Army doctor, on vacation from his post at a research lab in a maximum-security prison, faces a chilling realisation. He knows who the shooter is. In...

Independence Day weekend, 1960: a young cop is murdered, shocking his close-knit community in Stamford, Connecticut. The killer remains at large, his identity still unknown. But on a beach not far away, a young Army doctor, on vacation from his post at a research lab in a maximum-security prison, faces a chilling realisation. He knows who the shooter is. In...

NEW AND UPDATED EDITION Fred and Rose West are virtually unique in British criminal history: a husband and wife who loved and killed together. FRED & ROSE IS THE DEFINITIVE ACCOUNT OF THIS INFAMOUS CASE (NOW WITH A POSTSCRIPT FROM THE AUTHOR) During their long relationship, the Wests murdered a series of young women, burying the remains of nine victims...

A New York Times Bestseller! On Halloween 1975, Martha Moxley was found brutally murdered outside her home in swanky Greenwich, Connecticut. Twenty-seven years after her death, the State of Connecticut spent some $25 million to convict her friend and neighbour, Michael Skakel, of the murder. At Michael's criminal trial, the State offered no physical or forensic evidence, no fingerprints or...

A riveting look at the perpetrators, victims, and whistleblowers behind financial crimes, from forensic accounting expert and documentarian Kelly Richmond Pope. Have you ever wondered why Bernie Madoff thought he could brazenly steal his clients' money? Or why investors were so easily duped by Elizabeth Holmes? Or how courageous people like Jeffrey Wigand are willing to become whistleblowers and put...

The New York Times bestselling True Crime Files series continues with this haunting collection of the dangers lurking among those we trust the most—from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Stranger Beside Me. Doomed relationships and deadly betrayals are at the heart of this unputdownable collection of true cases from the personal files of Ann Rule, “America’s...

Following on the heels of the critically-acclaimed true crime account, A Killer By Design (soon to be released as an original docuseries called Mastermind on Hulu), this book offers a groundbreaking look into the crucial role played by expert witnesses in the most high-profile criminal cases, from the Menendez brothers to Larry Nassar to Bill Cosby, based on Dr. Ann...

A former public defender testifies to the vivid human suffering at the heart of America’s criminal justice system. As a public defender, Allen Goodman faced cross-examination from family and friends every day: how could he live with himself? How could he work to help criminals? Presumed guilty by association, Goodman quickly learned that such interrogations were stacked against him. People...

Enter the fascinating world of crime scene investigation with this chilling memoir from Jo Ward of BBC's Forensics - the Real CSI. For most people, dead bodies are horrifying. They are the physical representation of everything we're afraid of - our own mortality, the unknown, the inevitability and lack of dignity of the end. But for Jo Ward, a dead...

This is - for the first time - the full and unedited story behind the sick life and mysterious death of Jeffrey Epstein that is being called one of the most significant scandals in American history. He was the billionaire financier and close confidant of presidents, prime ministers, movie stars, and British royalty, the mysterious self-made man who rose from...

When her adoptive mother died in 2009, Donna Freed set out to track down her birth mother. What she discovered was truly shocking – she was the daughter of a pair of infamous con artists, at the heart of one of the biggest true crime stories to grip the USA in the 1960s. Previously redacted records from the infamous Louise...

When her adoptive mother died in 2009, Donna Freed set out to track down her birth mother. What she discovered was truly shocking—she was the daughter of a pair of infamous con artists, at the heart of one of the biggest true crime stories to grip the USA in the 1960s. Previously redacted records from the infamous Louise Wise Services...

Former CNN/HLN anchor and veteran broadcast journalist Susan Hendricks takes an investigative deep dive into the still-unsolved double homicide of two teens in Delphi, Indiana—and its lasting impact on the community. On February 13, 2017, two teenage girls—13-year-old Abby Williams and 14-year-old Libby German—decided to enjoy a day off from school by exploring the popular hiking trails near the Monon...

Famous for its revolutionary aspects in musical, political, sexual identity and consumerist ideas, punk rock also has its lesser-known gangster ethos. The untold story of punk's violent LA gangs is recounted here by key players. The SoCal punk scenes were populated by blue-collar kids who responded to the aggression of punk music. A number of them formed punk gangs that...

'This particular phase in my life is the most dangerous. My husband is planning "an accident" in my car, brake failure and serious head injury in order to make the path clear for him to marry.' - Letter written by Princess Diana, late 1996 It is a moment that remains frozen in history. When the Mercedes carrying Diana, Princess of...

Argo meets Spotlight, as New York Times bestselling author Craig Unger reveals his thirty-year investigation into the secret collusion between Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign and Iran, raising urgent questions about what happens when foreign meddling in elections goes unpunished. Argo meets Spotlight, as New York Times bestselling author Craig Unger reveals his thirty-year investigation into the secret collusion between...

Did Chicago's first black female mayor commit egregious misconduct against two Christian businessmen? Based on a true story, Demons of Federal Misconduct: A Chicago Memoir! (A Christian Nonfiction Novel) takes readers through two federal investigations, the U.S. Attorney's Office, the FBI, demons, angels, and spiritual warfare. Author Christopher Myron Claxton meticulously elucidates his belief that Satan deployed three demon spirits...

The 1830 murder of wealthy slaver Joseph White shook all of Salem, Massachusetts. Soon, the crime drew national attention when it was discovered that two of the conspirators came from Salem's influential Crowninshield family: a clan of millionaire shipowners, cabinet secretaries, and congressmen. A prosecution team led by famed Massachusetts senator Daniel Webster made the case even more newsworthy. Meanwhile,...

Winner of 'Best Book' and 'Impact for Change' True Crime Awards 2025 The shocking true story of one of Britain’s most secretive, groundbreaking and successful police covert operations Bristol, 1979. An attacker roams the streets... Young women are warned not to go out alone... Enter the Decoys. For several years, a prolific predator haunted Bristol. Avon and Somerset Police had...