True Crime Sports

Italy's ultras are the most organised and violent fans in European football. Many groups have evolved into criminal gangs, involved in ticket-touting, drug-dealing and murder. A cross between the Hells Angels and hooligans, they're often the foot-soldiers of the Mafia and have been instrumental in the rise of the far-right. But the purist ultras say that they are insurgents fighting against a police state and modern football. Only amongst the ultras, they say, can you find belonging, community and a sacred concept of sport.

Arturo "Thunder" Gatti hung up his gloves in 2007, closing the book on a boxing career that bordered on the mythical. At long last, he seemed ready to leave the business of blood behind for a long, happy life outside the ring. His retirement was celebrated—boxing's modern gladiator had earned his freedom. Two years later, he was gone—found dead in a hotel in Brazil under mysterious circumstances. He was only thirty-seven years old. Did he commit suicide? Or was he killed by his new wife?

Dangerous Odds - a true crime thriller memoir - is the explosive, never-been-told, behind-the-scenes look into the world of illegal sports betting, revealed by an insider. Marisa Lankester, a young beauty with a privileged New York upbringing, stumbles into the back door of the largest illegal sports betting organization in the US, run by Ron (The Cigar) Sacco. Marisa, a thrill-seeker, maneuvers herself into this mob-run men-only bookmaking operation and becomes a trusted insider.

A portion of the proceeds from Front Row Seat will be donated to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Disease research and the Positive Coaching Alliance to help coaches lead and develop America’s future leaders. America's youth sports industry has changed dramatically over the past two decades. The days of playing for your town or local YMCA team, be it baseball, soccer, basketball or lacrosse were coming to an end.

In this absorbing tale of a sports legend, infidelity, jealousy, money, and murder, former NFL and college star quarterback Steve McNair and his attractive young lover Sahel Kazemi embark on a dangerous affair in Nashville that leaves both dead.

Known as the "beautiful game," soccer is the world's most popular sport, crossing borders and language barriers to entertain billions. But underneath it all - the raucous fans in the stadiums; the beloved players; and FIFA, the international governing body with a membership of 209 national associations - is a scandal that threatens to make soccer the ugliest sport in the world. Filled with headline-making revelations, The Big Fix is a must-hear for soccer fans and true crime aficionados.

This is the true story of Ted, Viscount Deerhurst, the son of the Earl of Coventry and an American ballerina who dedicated his life to becoming a professional surfer. Surfing was a means of escape, from England, from the fraught charges of nobility, from family, and, often, from his own demons. Surf, Sweat and Tears takes us into the world of global surfing, revealing a dark side beneath the dazzling sun and cream-crested waves. Here is surf noir at its most compelling; a dystopian tale of one man’s obsessions, wiped out in a grisly true crime.

In his own words, Kermit Alexander finally shares the full story of what happened to his loved ones and the aftermath of that tragic day. He recounts the hours leading up to the massacre and how afterward he lost himself in the LA underworld, pleading, bribing, and threatening in a search for answers. He describes his journey through the "wilderness" of despair - the years of isolation living out of his car, broke, depressed, and sick.

High school players in a working-class neighborhood in the 1970s gain desperately needed structure and guidance from Jack "Clyde" Dempsey, a scrappy, charismatic coach who seems like nothing more than a football geek. But Coach also happens to be the toughest guy on the streets of Boston, with a temper to match, and it's his secret life as a mob enforcer/collector that forces him to flee the country, becoming one of America's most wanted.

Eddie and the Gun Girl is the true story of the shooting of Philadelphia Phillies All-Star first baseman Eddie Waitkus by a deranged female admirer in 1949. While such incidents would become commonplace in ensuing years, as stars of every persuasion would surround themselves with bodyguards and live in increasing fear of unannounced assailants, the events of that June 14 at the elegant Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago were unprecedented.

Die erweiterte und aktualisierte Fassung des Spiegelbestsellers. Warum hat Katar die WM bekommen und welche kriminellen Praktiken gehen im brasilianischen Fußball vor sich? Diese und viele weitere Fragen beantwortet Thomas Kistner, Sportjournalist der Süddeutschen Zeitung, in seinen investigativen Beiträgen, die als Grundlage dieses Werks dienen. Dafür hat er die mafiösen Strukturen recherchiert und seinen Bestseller FIFA-Mafia überarbeitet.

What does a young footballer do to cut loose? At night, some play what they think of as pranks or games: night games with women. Sometimes these involve consensual sex, sometimes not, and often the lines are blurred. In Night Games, Anna Krien follows the rape trial of an Australian Rules footballer. She also takes a balanced and fearless look at the dark side of footy culture - the world of Sam Newman, Ricky Nixon, Matty Johns and the Croa Sharks.

In 2009, Notts County FC were on the brink of bankruptcy when they were taken over by a mysterious company supposedly backed by the Bahraini royal family. The club was promised millions of pounds worth of investment and a list of marquee players, including Sol Campbell and Kasper Schmeichel were signed, in a recruitment drive led by former England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson, who was appointed to take the club all the way to the Premier League.

Skating on Thin Ice exposes the culture of toxic masculinity in professional hockey and suggests how sport and society can change the narrative on sexual assault and violence.

In Slaughter in the Streets, Don Stradley masterfully unfolds the story of how Boston became "boxing's murder capital." From the early days of Boston's Mafia, to the era of Whitey Bulger, Stradley tells the fascinating stories of men who were drawn to the dual shady worlds of boxing and the mob.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of All-American Murder by James Patterson, read by Peter Coleman. Aaron Hernandez was a college football All-American who became the youngest player in the NFL and later reached the Super Bowl. He was a star on the league-dominant New England Patriots, who extended his contract for a record $40 million. Hernandez’s every move as a professional athlete played out in the headlines, yet he led a secret life - one that ended in a maximum-security prison. What drove him to go so wrong so fast?

Thoroughbred racing was one of the first major sports in early America. Horse racing thrived because it was a high-status sport that attracted the interest of both old and new money. It grew because spectators enjoyed the pageantry, the exciting races, and, most of all, the gambling. In The Sport of Kings and the Kings of Crime, author Steven Riess fills a long-neglected gap in sports history, offering a richly detailed and fascinating chronicle of thoroughbred racing's heyday.

The brutal 2010 murders of promising footballer Eddie Moussa and his brother were a harbinger of the gang violence now laying siege to Sweden. Written by crime reporter Ann Törnkvist, Follow F--king Orders captures the freefall of a quaint town, known for its sports-crazed community and top-league football team, into a bloody turf war. After the biggest police investigation into organized crime in Swedish history, the local mob boss was sentenced to life for ordering the hit on Eddie.

It was a cold and foggy February night in 1983 when a group of armed thieves crept onto Ballymany Stud, near The Curragh in County Kildare, Ireland, to steal Shergar, one of the thoroughbred industry's most renowned stallions. The thieves demanded a hefty ransom for the safe return of one of the most valuable Thoroughbreds in the world, but the ransom was never paid and Shergar's remains have never been found.

The story of FIFA's fall from grace has it all: power, betrayal, revenge, sports stars, hustlers, corruption, sex and phenomenal quantities of money, all set against exotic locales stretching from Caribbean beaches to the formal staterooms of the Kremlin and the sun-blasted streets of Doha, Qatar.