Polit- & Justizthriller

He was the friendly, baby-faced, Canadian boy next door.  He came from a loving, caring, and well-respected family.  Blessed with good looks and back-woods charm, he was popular with his peers and he excelled in sports.  A self-proclaimed "die hard" Calgary Flames fan, he played competitive junior hockey and competed on his school''s snowboarding team.  And he enjoyed the typical simple pleasures of a boy growing up in the country: camping, hunting, and fishing with family and friends. But he also enjoyed brutally murdering women, and he became one of the youngest serial killers in Canadian history.  

Now with new cover, new interior art, and vintage movie posters added."John Holmes was every man''s gigolo, a polyester smoothie with a sparse mustache, a flying collar, and lots of buttons undone. He wasn''t threatening. He chewed gum and overacted. He took a lounge singer''s approach to sex, deliberately gentle, ostentatiously artful, a homely guy with a pinkie ring and a big dick who was convinced he was every woman''s dream." -from "The Devil and John Holmes."John Curtis Holmes had the longest, most prolific career in the history of pornography. He had sex on-screen with two generations of leading ladies, from Seka and Marilyn Chambers to Traci Lords, Ginger Lynn, and Italian Member of Parliament Cicciolina. The first man to win the X-Rated Critics Organization Best Actor Award, Holmes was an idol and an icon, the most visible male porn star of his time.Holmes started in the business around 1968 and made more than two thousand movies. But after descending into a world of drugs and crime, he became the central figure in one of the most publicized mass murders in L.A. history, the 1981 Wonderland Avenue killings in Laurel Canyon, in which four people were brutally bludgeoned to death. Holmes was tried and acquitted of the crimes in 1982. He died from complications of AIDS on March 13, 1988.Read the story that inspired the movies Boogie Nights, with Mark Walhberg, and Wonderland, with Val Kilmer and Lisa Kudrow. Now with restored edits, updated information, new cover and interior art by Austraila''s famous illustration team WBYK, and photos of old Holmes movie posters. The collection includes three bonus stories. "Little Girl Lost," about the life and death of beautiful porn starlet Savannah, among the first of the Vivid Girls; "Deviates in Love" about swingers and amateur porn; and "The Porn Identity," about a divorced man''s search for retired porn starlets in an effort to get his mojo back.

Even though England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales were under a common Parliament in the nineteenth century, cultural, economic, and historical differences led to very different values and assumptions about crime and punishment. For example, though the Scots were the most likely to convict accused killers, English, Welsh, and Irish killers were two and a half times more likely to be executed for their crimes. In Certain Other Countries, Carolyn A. Conley explores how the concepts of national identity and criminal violence influenced each other in the Victorian-era United Kingdom. It also addresses the differences among the nations as well as the ways that homicide trials illuminate the issues of gender, ethnicity, family, privacy, property, and class. Homicides reflect assumptions about the proper balance of power in various relationships. For example, Englishmen were ten times more likely to kill women they were courting than were men in the Celtic nations. By combining quantitative techniques in the analysis of over seven thousand cases, as well as careful and detailed readings of individual cases, the book exposes trends and patterns that might not have been evident in works using only one method. For instance, by examining all homicide trials rather than concentrating exclusively on a few highly celebrated ones, it becomes clear that most female killers were not viewed with particular horror, but were treated much like their male counterparts.The conclusions offer challenges and correctives to existing scholarship on gender, ethnicity, class, and violence. The book also demonstrates that the Welsh, Scots, and English remained quite distinct long after their melding as Britons was announced and celebrated. By blending a study of trends in violent behavior with ideas about national identity, Conley brings together rich and hotly debated fields of modern history. This book will be valuable both for scholars of crime and violence as well as for those studying British history.

INCLUDES LOVE LETTERS FROM THE VICTIM TO THE DEFENDANT HIDDEN OVER 70 YEARS!In August 1945, Gladys Lincoln of Sacramento contacted prosperous Dr. W. D. Broadhurst of Caldwell, Idaho, and rekindled a romance from twenty years earlier. After many passionate letter exchanges and several sexually-charged meetings, they were married in Reno, Nevada on May 20, 1946. After a passion-filled three-day weekend together, the doctor returned to his home in Idaho, and Gladys returned to Sacramento ... and to her husband, Leslie Lincoln! But Gladys was much more than a bigamist.Gladys needed something even she didn''t understand. She married her first husband when she was 20, and her second husband only 14 months later. The second marriage lasted only two years, the third less than 16 months. Leslie Lincoln was her fifth, and Dr. Broadhurst became her sixth. But what desperate need drove her to go from marriage to marriage?Then what dark mindset moved her and her young cowboy chauffeur to commit murder? Find out in ''TIL DEATH DO US...'' the gripping new true crime from WildBlue Press author Patrick Gallagher, whose grandfather was Gladys'' lead defense attorney during her sensational trial.

Pablo Escobar was a mama''s boy who cherished his family and sang in the shower, yet he bombed a passenger plane and formed a death squad that used genital electrocution.Most Escobar biographies only provide a few pieces of the puzzle, but this action-packed 1000-page book reveals everything about the king of cocaine.Mostly translated from Spanish, Part 3 contains stories untold in the English-speaking world, including:The terrifying details of how Pablo slaughtered some of his friends.The Cali Cartel''s attempt to drop a bomb on Pablo''s prison.His final dark desperate days with his family. Who really hunted him and how he died.

Game Over tells the harrowing story of teenager Breck Bednar, who was groomed over the internet and brutally murdered on 17 February 2014 by someone he met online.

Presents research on all aspects of black money and financial crime in individual, organisational, and societal experiences. The book further examines the implications of white-collar crime and practices to enhance forensic audits on financial fraud and the effects on tax enforcement.

Do you ever have that feeling you're being watched? Perhaps you are...Leading criminologist Christopher Berry-Dee turns his unflinching gaze on maybe the most sinister and disturbing of all killers - those who first stalk their unwitting victims, often for months at a time.

Explore Somerset''s condemned, their circumstances and how society attributed their conviction and execution. This book provides the reader with accounts from across Somerset from the Beautiful city of Bath to the small picturesque town of Ilminster. There are over thirty true accounts of Somerset Executions, From Murderers to Highwaymen, Forgers to arsonistsExplore the execution locations of Somerset- from Stonegallows, Ilchester and Shepton Mallet. Read about brutal execution types ranging from the hanging from an old oak tree, burning on the stake to the US army firing squad. Meet the professional executioners who crafted and improved the hanging process offering the condemned a dignified death and those that weren''t quite so good at their job.

Written by an insider responsible for running the investigation, this never-before-told story goes behind the scenes as an incumbent president's campaign works to expose a political opponent's mob connections. Part detective story, part political thriller, the narrative features all the major players in the Reagan White House.

As a new attorney, Pamela Braswell was confident her career was about to skyrocket. Instead, she narrowly escaped death at the hands of a serial rapist and killer. Braswell's firsthand true crime narrative gives a victim's perspective of a harrowing investigation, revelations in the press, grand jury indictment and capital murder trial.

Born in mid-nineteenth century America, Sophie Lyons was a master thief, con artist, blackmailer and smuggler. Despite her prominent place in crime history, Sophie Lyons has never been the subject of a full-length biography. This book chronicles Sophie's fascinating and tragic life.

Through a comparison of the tellings and retellings of two famous cases more than a century apart - the Jack the Ripper killings in 1888, and the murder trials of Steven Avery as documented in Making a Murderer - this book examines the complicated dynamics of criminal celebrity.

Byron Smith moved back to his family home in Little Falls, Minnesota, to care for his elderly mother and enjoy a quiet retirement from the US State Department. On Thanksgiving Day 2012, Byron shot and killed two teens who broke into his home by breaking a bedroom window. It was the sixth burglary in less than six months. Previous burglaries included over fifty thousand dollars in gold, cash, jewelry, and his Vietnam medals. He feared for his life as each burglary became more violent, and the fear that he would be killed by his own guns intensified. With his training in security, he installed cameras and recorders and locked and dead bolted every door and window to his home to prevent entry. Prescription drug bottles were found in the teen's car from another home they had broken into the night before. Byron was convicted of first-degree murder in April of 2014 after an unusual trial and sentenced to life in prison. Before the trial, he lived with his neighbors, John and Kathy Lange and their fifteen-year-old-son, Dilan. This story is an intimate insight into this family's friendship and support of Byron while this incident became national news. A Dateline episode, "12 Minutes on Elm Street," aired in May of 2014, only depicted a small portion of the real story. This book reveals facts that were not allowed in the trial and how the ripple effect of our nation's drug epidemic caused a US veteran to be imprisoned by his own fear.

In 1989, Eileen Franklin, a young California housewife, claimed to recover a repressed memory of her father killing her playmate 20 earlier. In a landmark trial, the father was charged and convicted of first-degree murder, based solely on his daughter''s testimony. This book chronicles the trial, explores the remarkably dysfunctional Franklin family, and delves into the reliability of repressed memory as evidence in court.This version contains a 2011 Epilogue, which details the reasons for the reversal of George Franklin''s conviction and the refusal of the district attorney to retry him for murder.

Forget what you've seen in all the high-gloss airport movies. Enter the unvarnished world of air traffic control, aircraft accident investigation, and government cover-ups. A world where courtrooms are used to distort facts and oaths to tell the truth have no meaning, where witnesses are manipulated and the stakes of winning and losing are destroyed careers and multimillion-dollar rewards.Michael Edmunds, an expert witness in air traffic control, takes on the case of his life when a private aircraft and a commuter airliner operating under radar control and assigned different altitudes collide in the rain-soaked night skies over Upstate New York. The normal investigation and legal process is accelerated by a US senator whose wife died in the crash. High-powered government officials attempt to cover up mistakes, recorded transmissions are altered, and evidence is destroyed.Edmunds discovers that not only does he have to deal with a bureaucracy bent on discrediting him but will also be working with two inexperienced lawyers with different agendas, one of whom turns out to be his ex-fiancée from the distant past. Their breakup had been less than cordial to say the least.Ed Strong weaves an engaging tapestry of twisting plots in this engrossing thriller.

For six decades, Pittsburgh-based forensic scientist Cyril Wecht has been an outspoken authority when horrible things happen to everyday people. His memoir describes his work on famous cases, his life in the public eye and his legal battles with determined and powerful authorities, from his hometown DA to a US Attorney and the FBI.

A chronicle of ten mid-Victorian trials that features brother versus brother, aristocrats fighting commoners, an imposter to a family's fortune, and an ex-priest suing his ex-wife. Most of these trials assailed a culture that frowned upon displays of bad taste, revealing fault lines in what is traditionally seen as a moral and regimented society.

On a summer day in 1898, a family in Dover, Delaware, shared a box of chocolates they received from an anonymous sender. Within days, two of the seven family members were dead; the other five became ill but recovered. The search for the perpetrator soon moved from Delaware to California, where a suspect was quickly identified: Cordelia Botkin.