Western True Crime

You probably heard the stories of Pablo Escobar, the Medellín Cartel, and Narcos. But do you know the story of the equally essential founder of the cartel and the guy who appears in FORBES 1988 World's Billionaires List as a Druglord?—Meet José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

Stalking the streets of 19th-century London, Jack the Ripper left a gruesome trail of terror in his wake—and then slipped away. Now, this riveting true-crime book peels back the myths and mysteries, providing a gritty and detailed exploration of the clues and theories that have plagued this long-dead criminal investigation. Retracing his most infamous murders, this book will take listeners on a thrilling journey back in time, drawing on the accounts of eyewitnesses, reporters, and detectives to paint a compelling picture of the monster who hunted in the shadows of Victorian London.

Even after WWI had ended, the region of Arizona, New Mexico, and West Texas stubbornly refused to be tamed. It was still a place where frontier gunfights broke out at an alarming rate. Utilizing official records, newspaper accounts, and oral histories, Cowboys and Gangsters tells the story of the untamed "Wild West" of the Prohibition era of the 1920s and early 1930s and introduces a rogues' gallery of six-gun-packing Western gunfighters and lawmen.

Laurence Rees, in his magnum opus, combines largely unpublished testimony with the latest academic research to create the first accessible and authoritative account of the Holocaust in over three decades. Rees argues that whilst hatred of the Jews was always at the epicentre of Nazi thinking - and the Holocaust was the most appalling crime in history - what happened cannot be fully understood without considering the murder of the Jews alongside other Nazi plans to kill millions of non-Jews as well.

Out of all of the world’s most dangerous serial killers, none are more infamous than Ted Bundy. Known as the charming, charismatic killer who stalked young women to commit his unspeakable crimes, Ted Bundy left a dark shadow on America’s history that has haunted our collective consciousness for generations. Perfect for anyone morbidly curious about the evil that lurks just out of sight, as well as fans of true crime books, Ted Bundy: The Horrifying Story of the Charming Serial Killer offers you a gritty, detailed, and unforgettable look at the monster Ted Bundy became.

Author Orlando (Ori) Spado honestly recants his humble beginnings from the small town of Rome in upstate New York, to becoming known as "The Mob Boss of Hollywood." A candid account documenting his fall from a well-known Hollywood fixer mixing with A list celebrities to serving 62 months in Federal prison, and ultimately making a determined comeback.

Infamous as a con artist, charming cult leader, and madman who spewed a toxic and twisted ideology, Charles Manson continues to fascinate and intrigue people to this very day. Long since the terrible moments when his followers committed their violent killing spree, Manson has been cemented in pop culture as the iconic cult leader - a man who hid his insanity behind a veil of cunning and manipulation.

Once he was a young, happily married businessman. Then he lost his wife to human madness and that young man was gone, replaced by the Loner, the wandering son of legendary gunfighter Frank Morgan, and now the current occupant of a cell in the brutal and unforgiving Hell Gate prison. The Kid's crime? He looked too much like an outlaw who escaped from this very prison. So the Kid teams up with a fellow inmate with an escape plan, vowing to hunt down a look-alike killer on the loose.

True West: Sam Shepard’s Life, Work, and Times is the story of an American icon, a lasting portrait of Sam Shepard as he really was, revealed by those who knew him best. This sweeping biography charts Shepard’s long and complicated journey from a small town in Southern California to become an internationally known playwright and movie star. The only son of an alcoholic father, Shepard crafted a public persona as an authentic American archetype: the loner, the cowboy, the drifter, the stranger in a strange land.

Lady Jacqueline invades the Old West. In 1870, the world’s largest diamond field is discovered in American Indian country. London financier Nathan Rothschild joins forces with San Francisco entrepreneur Asbury Harpending to control the new wealth. To protect his investment, Rothschild dispatches consulting detective, and sometime spy, Lady Jacqueline Bennett to shadow Harpending. Jacqueline’s adventures stretch from London to San Francisco. Through the desert and chased by Indians, she finally scales Diamond Mountain to find the secret of the treasure. As with many of my books, this one...

Billy the Kid once said that he killed 22 men - one for each year that he lived. While it’s more likely that he only killed eight or nine, this young outlaw was clearly deadly. But his brief and brutal life reveals how his tragic existence led him into a life of crime. After growing up in poverty as an Irish immigrant in New York City and losing his father at a young age, Billy the Kid had to endure losing his mother when he was only 15.

Just before Christmas in 1996, a beautiful French woman - the wife of a movie mogul - was brutally murdered outside of her holiday home in a remote region of West Cork, Ireland. The crime was reported by a local journalist, Ian Bailey, who was at the forefront of the case until he became the prime murder suspect. Arrested twice, he was released without charge.

The reverberations from Fred West's crimes continue to this day. The story never dies. West was perhaps one of Britain's most evil, feared serial killers. His horrifying compulsion to kidnap, rape and torture his victims before murdering them showed a savagery and cruelty that can barely be believed. His 'House of Horrors' at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, became a burial ground for the women who fell into his hands. This new publication of Geoffrey Wansell's iconic, best-selling true-crime masterpiece comes 30 years after West was arrested, in 1992.

In many ways, the narrative of the Wild West has endured more as legend than reality, and a perfect example of that can be found in the legend of William Henry McCarty Jr., better known as William H. Bonney or "Billy the Kid". Indeed, separating fact from fiction when it comes to the life of the West's most famous outlaw is nearly impossible, due in great measure to the fact that the young man himself cultivated the image of a deadly outlaw and legendary gunman himself.

When Ghana declared independence from Britain in 1957, it immediately became a target for opportunists determined to lay hold of whatever assets colonialism hadn’t already stripped. The military ousted the new nation’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, then falsely accused him of stealing the country’s gold and hiding it overseas. Into this story stepped one of history’s most charismatic scammers, John Ackah Blay-Miezah – a con man to rival the trickster god Anansi. Born into poverty, Blay-Miezah declared himself the custodian of an alleged Nkrumah trust fund worth billions.

Op 1 april 2014 keren Kris Kremers (21) en Lisanne Froon (22) niet terug van een wandeling in de jungle van Panama. Maandenlange zoekacties, bemoeilijkt door het slechte weer, leveren niets op. Twee maanden later wordt er diep in de jungle een rugzak gevonden met daarin onder meer hun telefoons en camera, waarop vreemde foto's gevonden worden. Dit leidde tot wilde speculaties over de verdwijning die tot op de dag van vandaag voortduren. Zijn ze verdwaald, ontvoerd, beroofd?

They were the first outlaws to rob a moving train. But from 1864 to 1868, the Reno brothers and their gang of counterfeiters, robbers, burglars, and safecrackers also held the town of Seymour, Indiana, hostage, making a large hotel near the train station their headquarters. When the gang robbed the Adams Express car of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad on the outskirts of Seymour on October 6, 1866, it shocked the world - and made other burgeoning outlaws like Jesse James sit up and take notice. The extraordinary efforts to take them out defined the term "frontier justice".

For those who are in any way interested in the depths of human morality, the Wests represent some of the most depraved and sadistic murderers ever to have lived. Not only did they prey on unsuspecting young girls, but their attentions were even turned toward their own daughters. In a case involving kidnap, rape, and murder, Fred and Rose went beyond the realms of what many of us consider possible as people.

The gripping tale chronicles the lives of Britain's most infamous husband and wife serial killers couple. Over the course of two decades, Fred and Rosemary West murdered more than a dozen young females. Most of the murders were sexually motivated and took place at the couple's house of horrors on 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester, in South West England. Only when the killers were brought to justice did their murderous reign of rape, torture, bondage, and terror come to an end.

From the capture of Sidney Reilly, the "Ace of Spies", by Lenin's Bolsheviks in 1925, to the deportation from the USA of Anna Chapman, the "Redhead under the Bed", in 2010, Kremlin and Western spymasters have battled for supremacy for nearly a century. In Deception Edward Lucas uncovers the real story of Chapman and her colleagues in Britain and America, unveiling their clandestine missions and the spy-hunt that led to their downfall. It reveals unknown triumphs and disasters of Western intelligence in the Cold War,