Polit- & Justizthriller

Examines the 1988 murder of four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn and the conviction of Walter Ogrod, a young man with autism spectrum disorder who had lived across the street from the family at the time of the murder.

Who was the biggest, baddest outlaw in the Old West? Billy the Kid or Jesse James? Which outlaw did the most to wreak havoc across the frontier? And which outlaw left behind the biggest legacy? Author Bill Markley takes on those questions and more in this thoughtful and entertaining examination of these legendary lives.

Even in a genre well known for generating controversy, some true-crime and scandal books have wielded a particular power. This work delves into that hard copy era when crime and scandal books had a cultural impact beyond the genre's film and TV documentaries, fueling outcries that sometimes matched the notoriety of the cases they discussed.

The Curse of the Great Train Robbery tells the thrilling story of the robbery and reveals the series of subsequent events which will leave readers to ponder whether this was a crime which was both cursed and doomed to fail from the very outset.

In the waning days of the Cold War, Aldrich Ames sent a dozen of the US's best agents to their death by betraying them. This is the story of how he was finally caught, chronicling the events that launched his traitorous career.

Using contemporary accounts, Barbara Smith vividly recreates a number of murder cases from 1920s Nova Scotia to 1980s British Columbia.

The tragic death of 13-year-old Danny Croteau in 1972 faded from headlines and memories for 20 years until the Boston abuse scandal--a string of assaults within the Catholic Church--exploded in the early 2000s. Despite numerous indications--including 40 claims of sexual misconduct with minors--pointing to him as Croteau's killer, the Reverend Richard R. Lavigne remains "innocent." Drawing on more than 10,000 pages of police and court records and interviews with Danny's friends and family, fellow abuse victims, and church officials, the author uncovers the truth--church complicity in a cover up and the masking of priests' involvement in a ring of abusive clergy--behind Croteau's death and those who had a hand in it.

If Americans were asked to select the best known and most celebrated outlaws, from among the many bad men produced by the Wild West, chances are Frank and Jesse James would be the choice of most people. The brothers and their gang robbed stage coaches, banks and trains in Missouri and surrounding states.

For half a century the Manson Family has captured the public imagination--the lurid, inexplicable violence in a glamorous Hollywood setting, the bizarre and lengthy trials, and Charles Manson's strange charisma and willingness to embrace the role of evil icon. For years, the story has been documented, dramatized and lampooned in dozens of films and television programs. This comprehensive study examines the various on-screen portrayals, from factual accounts based on prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's true crime classic Helter Skelter to prime-time TV dramas to a claymation spoof and even hardcore porn.

In the tradition of The Glass Castle, My Most-Wanted Marijuana Mom is a son's candid and dynamic memoir of growing up in an eccentric dysfunctional family as his brash free-spirited mother struggles to succeed in the male-dominated world of international marijuana smuggling.

Big Bob"" Bashara put on a respectable face. To his friends in Detroit's affluent suburb of Grosse Pointe, he was a married father of two, Rotary Club President, church usher and soccer dad. To his ""slaves"" he was ""Master Bob"", cocaine-snorting slumlord who operated a sex dungeon and had a submissive girlfriend to do his bidding.

Florence Maybrick was the first American woman to be sentenced to death in England--for murdering her husband, a crime she almost certainly did not commit. Her 1889 trial was presided over by an openly misogynist judge who was later declared incompetent and died in an asylum. Hours before Maybrick was to be hanged, Queen Victoria reluctantly commuted her sentence to life in prison--in her opinion a woman who would commit adultery, as Maybrick had admitted, would also kill her husband. Her children were taken from her; she never saw them again. Her mother worked for years to clear her name, enlisting the president of the United States and successive ambassadors, including Robert Todd Lincoln. Decades later, a gruesome diary was discovered that made Maybrick''s husband a prime Jack the Ripper suspect.

Examines cyber aggression and bullying and policy changes to combat this new form of crime. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as anti-bullying programs, cyberstalking, and social exclusion, this book is aimed at academics, researchers, policy makers, and students seeking current research on cyberstalking, harassment, and bullying.

Indiana Captain Matt Leach was at the helm of the violent years between 1933 and 1935 that came to be known in the Midwest as the era of the Public Enemy. Leach elevated outlaw John Dillinger to unprecedented celebrity with press coverage aimed at smoking out the fugitive. In return, Dillinger vowed to kill him - a threat which never came to fruition.

Provides a readable and informative analysis of how and why we arrived at our present understanding of organised crime in the Unites States. By going back to the original accounts of the events that inform our understanding of much of the subject, this work will question some of our most deeply held assumptions on crime and its role in US society.

Anatomy of a False Confession goes inside the interrogation room and explains how government agents got Brendan Dassey to falsely confess to murder; how the prosecutor used that confession to win a conviction; why the conviction was reversed (and why the reversal was later reversed); and how the law should be reformed to avoid future injustices.

A view into the smoke-filled saloons, brothels, and gambling "hells" of the frontier West Joseph Lowe attracted trouble the way a magnet draws iron. Eventually this strange talent cost him his life, but not before he had made his mark in a good many towns of the frontier West. "Rowdy Joe," folks called him. He was every bit of that and more. The life that earned him his nickname began after the Civil War, when he mustered out of the Union Army and went West. He apparently worked as a mule skinner and at other jobs before getting into the entertainment business--saloons, dance halls, gambling parlors, brothels--at Ellsworth, Kansas. In this book the authors explain how taxation was used to control and manipulate what some called "this evil in our midst." In telling the story of Joe Lowe and his place in frontier history, they also focus on the measures taken by city councils to extract cash from the "locusts of lechery" in an effort to curtail their activities. Communities that employed police to enforce local ordinances and state laws found that enforced taxation was not only less deadly than the six-shooter, but more productive. Harsh fines could be imposed for "soliciting" or running a saloon or "house" without a license, and in this manner the city benefited from revenue paid for the privilege of remaining in business. Some like Lowe refused to pay, but invariably they met defeat. When things got hot in Kansas, Joe tried Texas, and then Colorado. It was in Denver that Joe got drunk once too often, repeatedly antagonized a former policeman, and was shot and killed. Rowdy Joe Lowe is a view into the smoke-filled saloons, brothels, and gambling "hells" of those who prospered or perished amongst the pasteboard pirates, pimps, or other characters of the frontier West.

Drawing on a lifetime of field experience, this book tells the stories of the Mafia's twentieth-century bosses, showing how men such as Sam Giancana, "Crazy Joe" Gallo, and John Gotti became household names.