This "highly readable" memoir by a criminal awaiting execution on death row is "a sparkling contribution in the field of criminological thought" ( The New York Times ).In June 1948, 27-year-old petty criminal Caryl Chessman was sentenced in California on two counts of sexual assault, receiving two death sentences as punishment in a case that remains one of the most baffling episodes in American legal history.Mainta...

**#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “mercilessly entertaining” (Vanity Fair) instant classic “about the nature of identity and the terrible secrets that can survive and thrive in even the most intimate relationships” (Lev Grossman, Time “One of the Best Books of the Decade”)—now featuring never-before-published deleted scenesTHE NEW YORK TIMES’S BEST THRILLER OF THE CENTURY • ONE OF TIME'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ...

There is something about the loss of a child that everyone takes to heart. A lot of suffering happens in this world, but when it involves a child, it touches everyone all the more and it is tolerated all the less. Empty Cradle is the writer's personal recollection of the time leading up to and surrounding the abduction of her newborn infant, just days before Christmas.This story is based on a true crime - dates, times, and details were researched from media sources, court ...

From a producer of 48 Hours Mystery and The Boston Globe reporter comes the full account of the shocking crime spree of the infamous Craigslist Killer.In this “detailed and absorbing” (The Boston Globe) true crime book, discover the many mysteries behind the secret life of the brilliant and well-liked Boston University medical student who came to be known as the Craigslist Killer. How was he able to conceal his dark side to all w...

The true stroy of the longest-distance hijacking in American history.In an America torn apart by the Vietnam War and the demise of '60s idealism, airplane hijackings were astonishingly routine. Over a five-year period starting in 1968, the desperate and disillusioned seized commercial jets nearly once a week, using guns, bombs, and jars of acid. Some hijackers wished to escape to foreign lands; others aimed to swap hostages for sacks of cash. Their criminal exploit...

The true story of Barbara Hoffman is a tale of money, men, and the Madison, Wisconsin, massage parlor where a biochemistry major turned into a murderer.On a freezing Christmas morning, a distraught young man named Gerald Davies led Madison police to Tomahawk Ridge, where they found the body of Harold Berge, naked, bloody, and beaten. Davies insisted that he hadn't killed the man, but that he and his fiancée had simply buried the corpse in a snowbank.The inv...

'It was just after dawn on Thursday, November 14, 1991. The hatch on the cell door slid back. I could see the screw's face through the slit. I've seen better heads on a pig dog, but this time I could have kissed him.'Underworld standover man and executioner Mark Brandon 'Chopper' Read was released from Pentridge Prison in November, 1991, vowing never to return. He became an instant celebrity when his autobiography Chopper: From the Inside hit the bestselle...

For the first twenty-five years of his criminal career, Charles "Lucky" Luciano was a vicious mobster who rose to become the multimillionaire king of the New York underworld. For the next twenty-five years of his life, Luciano was a legend---but a fake master criminal without real power, his evil reputation manipulated and maintained by the government agents who had put him behind bars.Drawing on secret government documents from archives in the United States and Europe, this myth-bu...

The true story of the last of the big-time Mob bosses, now updated and back in print nearly two decades after its initial publication, with a new foreword by retired FBI agent Joe Pistone, author of Donnie Brasco**, and a new afterword that catches readers up on Joseph Massino’s life in the Witness Protection Program before his passing in 2023—from Anthony M. DeStefano, the Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award–winning investigative journalist who is one ...

The extraordinarily captivating memoir of the remarkable jewel thief who robbed the rich and the famous while maintaining an outwardly conventional life—an astonishing and completely true story, the like of which has never before been told . . . or lived.Bill Mason is arguably the greatest jewel thief who ever lived. During a thirty-year career he charmed his way into the inner circles of high society and stole more than $35 million worth of fabulous jewels from such celebrities as...

Charles Bronson is Britain’s most notorious prisoner, a ‘Category A’ inmate who has spent over 30 years inside as a result of his violent and unpredictable behaviour. No one knows the system better than Charlie. Now, for the very first time, you can find out what it is really like inside a maximum security institution as Charlie blows the lid on his life in HM Wakefield. Written in diary form by Charlie himself from behind locked doors, this unique book uncovers the real Charlie; his thoug...

'Only a drunk or a madman would survive – luckily, on that occasion, I was both.'Ex-convict, author and celebrity Mark Brandon 'Chopper' Read gives readers a unique insight into Australia's sordid criminal underworld.Written in Chopper's unique style and featuring his characteristic dark humour, the ninth instalment of Chopper's memoirs tells the story of the Tassie Chainsaw Massacre and explains why drinking Crown Lagers is the key to winning a serious pub...