White Crime

Gerard Lee Bevan was the black sheep of one of London's most respectable banking families. A high-living womanizer and upper-class shyster of almost pantomime proportions, he exploited a glittering range of social connections. After a long run of success in City dealings he perpetrated a massive fraud which ruined both the City Equitable Fire Insurance Company and his stockbroking firm, Ellis & Co. He fled the country and was eventually arrested, tried, and jailed.

With his flight delayed, Ted Severson meets Lily Kintner, a magnetic stranger, in an airport bar. In the netherworld of international travel and too many martinis, he confesses his darkest secrets, about his wife's infidelity and how he wishes her dead. Without missing a beat Lily offers to help him carry out the task.

A small number of people, motivated by an insatiable greed for power and wealth, and backed by a pinstripe army of enablers, have driven the world to the brink of destruction. Patrick Alley, co-founder of Global Witness and the author of Very Bad People, introduces us to some of the world's worst warlords, grifters and kleptocrats who can be found everywhere from presidential palaces to the board rooms of some of the world's best known companies. Pitted against them, the book also follows the people unravelling the deals, tracking the money and going undercover at great risk.

Detective Sara Hirst has moved from London to Norfolk Police's Serious Crimes Unit. Under the brooding skies of North Norfolk, Sara faces her toughest case yet and finds that great beauty sometimes conceals great violence.

In 1894, Leonarda Cianciulla was born into an abusive household. As a young girl, she attempted suicide twice. After decades of abuse, Leonarda sought stability and married Raffaele Pansardi. Her mother did not approve and conveyed her anger in the strongest possible sense. She cursed the marriage. Leonarda believed that her mother’s words had power and they haunted her. In 1939, Leonarda’s eldest son, Giuseppe, informed her that he was going to join the Army. She decided that the only way to protect him was through the most extreme means - human sacrifice.

Chris Bathum was a respected therapist, addiction specialist, and founder of one of the fastest-growing rehabilitation chains in America. But Bathum was a total fraud: he was a homicidal meth-head with a history of sexually abusing his patients, scamming insurance companies, and eliminating whistle-blowers. Like Rose Stahl. But this intended victim would be his last. Stahl would risk her life to bring down the monster she and so many other people in need had once trusted for their salvation.

2015 saw the worst American maritime disaster in decades. The captain of the SS El Faro commanded his crew to sail straight into a hurricane. The ship sank and all 33 crew members died. The sinking raised troubling questions: Why did the captain choose to sail into the hurricane? Why did no one on board or on shore stop him? And why was such an old and heavily loaded ship even allowed on the water?

Buck Reilly’s vacation in the Virgin Islands goes downhill fast when he witnesses a helicopter crash over the Sir Francis Drake Channel. Buck races to the rescue, but the lone survivor—a beautiful woman—has amnesia. When Buck learns the woman is Giselle Huibert, the first lady of France, who fled her husband while at the G8 Summit on St. Thomas for reasons she cannot remember, Buck has no choice but to try and help her. However, Giselle refuses to let him call the police—even when it becomes clear that men intending to kill them are hot on their trail.

Charles Whitman, Jr. was born and raised with his two younger brothers in a nice neighborhood in the suburbs of Lake Worth, Florida. From the outside, the Whitmans appeared to be living the American dream but within the household, lay a much darker reality. Charles Whitman, Sr. made sure his family wanted for nothing, and in return, he demanded perfection. Lethargy or failure were unacceptable and resulted in violence.

It’s just before dawn on the South China Sea when three experienced pirates open fire on a small smuggling yacht. Their target: a bag of uncut sapphires worth millions. But when one of them stumbles across an enormous treasure that wasn’t on the manifest, everything goes sideways. Within minutes two of them are dead, leaving the third, a coldblooded psychopath, to claim both the sapphires and the mysterious windfall for himself. If he disappears, he won’t just be wealthy. He’ll have the power to change the course of history.

In 1895, elderly patients were quietly dying one by one, yet no one sounded the alarm – until an entirely family passed away. All had been in the care of nurse Jane Toppan and suspicions hit the roof. Dilated pupils, feverish bodies, and erratic rambling left doctors baffled, but these weren’t the signs of illness. They were the marks of something far more sinister. Toppan manipulated her patients' dosages, watching them drift between life and death. For her, each fatal dose was not a crime, but a twisted act of mercy—a dark salvation from suffering.

Kraken is enjoying life as a family man, content to spend his days with Alba and their young daughter, Deba. But there's no rest for the weary, especially when you're the most famous investigator in Vitoria. Kraken and Esti are charged with investigating the mysterious disappearance of two sisters and finding it hard to make any headway when a wealthy businessman's murder appears to shine a light on the case. The man was poisoned with a medieval aphrodisiac - a crime that has eerie similarities to one detailed in the novel everyone in Vitoria is buzzing about.

On February 29, 2000, John Price took out a restraining order against his girlfriend, Katherine Knight. Later that day, he told his coworkers she had stabbed him and that if he were ever to go missing, it was because Knight had killed him. The next day, Price didn’t show up for work. A coworker was sent to check on him. They found a bloody handprint by the front door, and they immediately contacted the police. The local police force was not prepared for the chilling scene they were about to encounter.

On August 14, 1975, eight daring thieves ransacked 148 massive safe-deposit boxes at a secret bank used by organized crime, La Cosa Nostra, and its associates in Providence, Rhode Island. The crooks fled with duffel bags crammed full of cash, gold, silver, stamps, coins, jewels, and high-end jewelry. The true value of the loot has always been kept secret, partly because it was ill-gotten to begin with, and partly because there was plenty of incentive to keep its true worth out of the limelight.

Being a cop was never something that Riley was very good at. But now, as she must become a vigilante to clear her name, she finds new reserves of strength and courage, all with a healthy dose of sarcasm. With her name and photo splashed across the nightly news, Riley should leave the city ASAP. Instead, she decides to stay undercover and track down the real killer. But somebody knows that Riley is still in the game, and soon the police are the least of her worries as a sexy assassin starts closing in. Can she become the hero the city needs without getting herself killed?

The unthinkable has happened at London's Peculiar Crimes Unit. In the depths of winter, a member of staff has been found murdered, and everyone who works there is suddenly a suspect. But Arthur Bryant and John May, the eccentric elderly detectives who run London's strangest crime division, aren't on hand to solve the crime. They've ventured into the heart of the English countryside, only to become stranded on a desolate snowbound section of road.

The once-thriving houseboat communities along Arkansas' White River are long gone, and few remember the sensational murder story that set local darling Helen Spence on a tragic path. In 1931, Spence shocked Arkansas when she avenged her father's murder in a DeWitt courtroom. The state soon discovered that no prison could hold her. For the first time, prison records are unveiled to provide an essential portrait. Join author Denise Parkinson for an intimate look at a Depression-era tragedy. The legend of Helen Spence refuses to be forgotten - despite her unmarked grave.

At the far end of Siberia survival depends on Muscle, stamina, and a devious mind! In a place the world doesn't know or care about, Skurt Ancre, Assistant Director of Mining in Chukotka decides to bring progress to his community, even if it requires him to engage in a growing list of illegal actions. No matter who is in charge in Russia--the czar, the communists, or its new democratic leaders--nothing in this country ever changes. The incompetent government is unable, or unwilling, to stabilize the imploding economy and it is the average citizen who suffers. Ancre and his group of friends ...

Ray Tatum tangles with the rural Virginia MAGA crowd in a collision of homespun charity and bigoted villainy.

It sounds like a modern day Lifetime movie: two talented, popular and wealthy men both fall in love with the same beautiful but somewhat tarnished girl. One had a long history of mental illness, the other was considered an architectural genius. The inevitable showdown, complete with a very public murder, took place in one of the most fashionable restaurants in the world.