Polit- & Justizthriller

This book analyzes the everyday actions of ordinary people in the context of extreme political and cultural polarization, distort the criminal justice system and betray the lofty ideals expressed in American founding documents and centuries of Anglo-American articulations of basic human rights.

A vivid new history of the criminal underworld in the medieval Holy Land

Thieves-in-law' (vory-v-zakone in Russian) are career criminals belonging to a criminal fraternity that began in the 1930s in the Soviet prison camps. For reasons that the book attempts to explain, thieves-in-law became exceptionally prevalent in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Here, by the 1990s, they formed a mafia network--criminal associations that attempt to monopolize protection in legal and illegal sectors of the economy. At this time, the mafia was in many ways more powerful than the state. In 2005, however, anti-organized crime policy was transferred from Italy and America to Georgia. Legislation targeting the thieves-in-law directly was successful in causing a steep decline in mafia influence and organized criminal activity. This book asks how and why this occurred. In particular, why did the thieves-in-law not resist the attack on them successfully? Based on extensive fieldwork and utilizing unique access to primary sources of data, such as police files, court cases, archives, and expert interviews, the book provides a case study of varying organized criminal resilience to state attack. It studies the dynamics of changing mafia activities, recruitment practices, and organization as these relate to changes in the socio-economic environment and, in particular, anti-organized crime policy in what is the first sustained, directed anti-mafia policy implemented in a post-Soviet country.

Every Contact Leaves a Trace is a professional and confessional account of cases and stories from a senior crime scene investigator.

This book weaves glimpses of some of the author's experiences; intertwined with the experiences of friends, family and acquaintances; in his half-century journey to understand the impact of oppression and trauma on his life and the country. The author explores how the murder of his young friend Matthew Shepard, and being briefly thrust into the national spotlight, affected the direction and focus of that journey. The book chronicles his movement from the deafening silence of growing up in the "don't ask don't tell" environment of Wyoming; through that horrific murder; and into decades of painstakingly slow, positive, change toward social justice; accompanied by a growing negative backlash culminating in "don't say gay" and other hate-based legislation.

The stakes are never higher when the charge is murder¿ Explore the riveting twists and turns of some of the most notorious and controversial murder trials in history, such as the O. J. Simpson, Phil Spector, and Oscar Pistorius cases.Each of the trials detailed in this book¿the latest in DK¿s highly successful series of true crime investigations¿dominated the world's news media and gripped public attention. After examining the evidence, if you had been a member of the jury, what would have been your verdict? Guilty? Or Not Guilty?

A gripping true crime compendium of some of the world's most infamous and shocking mass murderers, such as John Wayne Gacy, the Boston Strangler, the Moors murderers and Harold Shipman, as well as some lesser-known figures. This book not only relates the disturbing events that transpired but also delves into the psychology of the perpetrators.

The Art Dealer¿s Apprentice tells the story of how the author moved to New York in 1989 as a young Midwesterner, found a job at an Upper East Side gallery, and became the protégé of Carla Panicali, an Italian countess and major international art world figure.

In January 2017, Chimene Suleyman was on her way to an abortion clinic in Queens, New York with her boyfriend, the father of her nascent child. It was the last day they would spend together. In an extraordinary sequence of events, Chimene was to discover the truth of her boyfriend's life: that she and many other women had been subtly, patiently and painfully betrayed.In this spellbinding memoir, she exposes one man's control over many women and the trauma he left behind, and celebrates the sisterhood that formed in his wake despite - and in spite of - him. Exploring how women are duped every day by individuals, she interrogates how society itself continually allows this to happen. She demonstrates that, no matter how intelligent, educated or self-aware they might be, over time a woman can be played into performing the age-old role of giver and nurturer: self-sacrificing and subordinate. Both a devastating personal testimony and a searing indictment of persistent misogyny, The Chain is a book for any woman who has questioned her relationship and buried her doubts, for any woman who can't quite identify the source of her unease and for any woman who has been sheltered by the fierce protection of her female friends.

On January 6, 1986, Barry and Louise Berman set out for a stroll and never returned. Despite extensive investigations by local and federal authorities, the double homicide of the Kahlua heir and his wife remains unsolved.

No other investigation across his entire FBI career would ever match the level of intensity, excitement, suspense, and drama of operation ¿Paesan Blues¿¿this book is the inside look at that undercover investigation centered on an Italian mafioso and his associates in Miami and Italy.

After more than a century of silence, the true story of one of history''s most notorious mutinies is revealed in Joan Druett''s riveting "nautical murder mystery" (USA Today). On May 25, 1841, the Massachusetts whaleship Sharon set out for the whaling ground of the northwestern Pacific. A year later, while most of the crew was out hunting, Captain Howes Norris was brutally murdered. When the men in the whaleboats returned, they found four crew members on board, three of whom were covered in blood, the other screaming from atop the mast. Single-handedly, the third officer launched a surprise attack to recapture the Sharon, killing two of the attackers and subduing the other. An American investigation into the murder was never conducted--even when the Sharon returned home three years later, with only four of the original twenty-nine crew on board. Joan Druett, a historian who''s been called a female Patrick O''Brian by the Wall Street Journal, dramatically re-creates the mystery of the ill-fated whaleship and reveals a voyage filled with savagery under the command of one of the most ruthless captains to sail the high seas.

This is the disturbing true story of Elsa Cuellar ¿ one of the most notorious child traffickers you've ever heard of.

Here's the complete Mona Lisa story which includes that of the world's most famous art theft for which Pablo Picasso was arrested as a suspect.

A collection of chilling true crime stories that lift the lid on the world's most infamous serial killers, unpicking their means, motives and methods - and how they were finally brought to justice.

Like sharks to blood in the water, the mob arrived in Hollywood greedy and ready to tear away huge chunks of cash. Opportunistic mobsters saw labor unions as the means for muscling into the movie industry and extorting millions of dollars from studio bosses.

On a June night in 1983, twenty-three-year-old Karla Faye Tucker and her boyfriend, fueled by a sinister cocktail of illicit drugs, broke into a Houston apartment. "We were very wired," Tucker later testified, "and we was looking for something to do." Though they later claimed they entered the premises with no murderous intent, they ended up slaughtering two people--one a sworn enemy, the other an utter stranger. The weapon: a pickax they found in the apartment. Fourteen years later, in early 1998, Tucker was facing lethal injection. But after her religious conversion in prison, Texas would be executing a different woman than the one who'd committed the murders. Her change was so dramatic that the most powerful and influential voices in American televangelism--Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell among them--were urging viewers to contact Texas's governor, George W. Bush, and plead for clemency. One follower was author Mark Beaver's father, a devout Southern Baptist deacon who asked Beaver to put his fledgling literary ambitions to work by composing a letter on his behalf to Governor Bush. Through a merger of true crime, social history, and memoir, The Ballad of Karla Faye Tucker illustrates how a seemingly distant news story triggers a national reckoning and exposes a growing divide in America's evangelical community. It's a tale of how one woman defies all conventions of death row inmates, and her saga serves as an unlikely but fascinating prism for exploring American culture and the limits of forgiveness and transformation. It's also a deeply personal reflection on how a father's request leads his son to struggle with who he was raised to be and who he imagines becoming.