The story begins, as stories do in all good thrillers, with a botched robbery and a police chase. Eight Apuleian vases of the fourth century B.C. are discovered in the swimming pool of a German-based art smuggler. More valuable than the recovery of the vases, however, is the discovery of the smuggler's card index detailing his deals and dealers. It reveals the existence of a web of tombaroli -- tomb raiders -- who steal classical artifacts, and a network of dealers and smugglers w...

The basis of the Sundance TV series GomorrahA New York Times Notable Book of the YearGomorrah is a bold and important work of investigative writing that holds global significance, one heroic young man's impassioned story of a place under the rule of a murderous organization.A groundbreaking major bestseller in Italy, Gomorrah is Roberto Saviano's gripping nonfiction account of the decline of Naples...

The definitive book about the explosive Rizzuto crime familyOn May 5, 1981, three rebellious members of New York’s Bonanno crime family were gunned down in a Brooklyn social club. One of the gunmen was Vito Rizzuto, a man who would rise to the top of the underworld in Canada and then expand his reign across continents to become a global superboss.The Sixth Family, now revised and updated, reveals the hidden history of the rise of the Rizzuto clan, ...

One Sunday morning in 1993 a 16-year-old girl named Eliza Claps goes missing from a church in the centre of Potenza, Italy. Shortly before her disappearance, Elisa had met Danilo Restivo, a strange local boy with a fetish for cutting women's hair on the back of buses. Elisa's family are convinced that Resitvo is responsible for their daughter's disappearance, but he is protected by local big-wigs: by his Sicilian father, by a doctor with links to organised crime, by a priest who had vices ...

MAFIA. CAMORRA. 'NDRANGHETA.The Sicilian mafia, known as Cosa Nostra, is far from being Italy's only dangerous criminal fraternity. The country hosts two other major mafias: the camorra from Naples; and, from the poor and isolated region of Calabria, the mysterious 'ndrangheta, which has now risen to become the most powerful mob group active today.Since they emerged, the mafias have all corrupted Italy's institutions, drastically curtailed the life-chances of its citizens, ...

This is the true story of Totò Riina, the Cosa Nostra boss who rose from nothing to become the most powerful man in Sicily. The picture emerges of a bloodthirsty, power-hungry monster who, despite his lowly beginnings, is able to outmanoeuvre the other Mafia chiefs and take control of the organisation. However, the story is not just that of Riina, but also of Sicily itself. D'Avanzo and Bolzoni have transformed a complex series of events spanning several decades into a gripping narrative.

In the early hours of an August 2007 morning a gunfight broke out in an Italian restaurant in Duisburg, Germany; in less than five minutes over seventy shots were fired into the bodies of six men. Both the victims and the assassins were members of the 'Ndrangheta crime organization. Calabria's Mafia had brazenly shown its savage influence outside Italy for the first time.In The Honored Society award-winning investigative reporter Petra Reski reveals the Mafia menace lurkin...

In this beautiful and extraordinary zen calligraphy book, Shozo Sato, an internationally recognized master of traditional Zen arts, teaches the art of Japanese calligraphy through the power and wisdom of Zen poetry.Single-line Zen Buddhist koan aphorisms, or zengo, are one of the most common subjects for the traditional Japanese brush calligraphy known as shodo. Regarded as one of the key disciplines in fostering the focused, meditative state of m...

Of all the thousands of stories he had written across his lifetime, author and journalist William John Stapleton had never been happier to write the words "The End" than when he completed The Twilight Soi series with the short book "Bangkok Busted: You Go To Jail For Sure".The series began in an anguished state after the author wrote a book detailing the decline of Bangkok's famous strip of go-go boy bars known as Soi Twilight, a narrow street adjacent to Bangkok's oldest red light...

The Mafia Files presents the rap sheets of key figures in the Italian-American underworld, featuring Lupo the Wolf, the Teflon Don, Joey 'the Clown' Lombardo, Tony 'Joe Batters' Accardo and many more.These case studies chart the mobsters' careers, showing how Mafia tentacles have delved into a host of new ventures over the past 100 years. Including portraits of victims and crime-busters, this full-colour book is perfect bedtime reading from the dark side of life - brutal, ...

The act of killing itself, is taboo in society. People kill for many reasons though, some of them understandable, but others are totally unfathomable. However, more gruesome than killing by usual means like stabbing, shooting or poisoning, is the act of butchery after the murder.The motives for murder and serial killing, according to psychologists, ranges from thrill seeking and anger to attention seeking and financial gain. Although it might seem sickening, these killers and psych...

The resonant ruins of Pompeii are perhaps the most direct route back to the living, breathing world of the ancient Romans. Two million visitors annually now walk the paved streets which re-emerged, miraculously preserved, from their layers of volcanic ash. Yet for all the fame and unique importance of the site, there is a surprising lack of a handy archaeological guide in English to reveal and explain its public spaces and private residences. This compact and user-friendly handbook, writte...