This novella explores the War of 1812 through the eyes of an 18 year old. Benny Stuart's father was "impressed", or kidnapped, by the British Navy in 1807. It is now 1814 and the United States is two years into fighting it's second War of Independence from Great Britain. The British land forces have burned Washington D.C. and have plans to march into Baltimore, with assistance from the Royal Navy in the Chesapeake Bay. The only thing that stands in their way is what they consider to be an ...

Military Police Sergeant Ryan Quinn's transfer from 1971 Vietnam to a small obscure Dept. of Defense base in Virginia was a perfect way to ride out his term of enlistment. Or so he thought. When a dead body shows up, followed by a shady underworld type and two ex-Secret Service agents looking for a politically dangerous file, things get complicated. Quinn and his squad of three find themselves in a political plot with far-reaching implications that started from the aftermath of the Kennedy...

"Martin King tells the human side of the story of the Battle of the Bulge better than anyone."Commander Jeffrey Barta, US Navy (retired)"I have walked the battlefields with Martin King, who has traversed them countless times with veterans of the Bulge. No one knows this story like Martin, and no one can tell it quite the way he does."Rick Beyer, New York Times bestselling author of The Ghost Army of World War II

Pirates have an almost mythical status in the public imagination - we think of rogue heroes riding the high seas and 'X marks the spot'. But this image is flawed at best.Using contemporary sources, Nigel Cawthorne turns the spotlight on the reality of pirate life, revealing the truth behind the legends. It gives us an insight into infamous the men and women who plundered ship and shore, including Captain Kidd, Blackbeard and Mary Read. We learn of the hazy distinct...

The diminutive Joaquín Guzmán Loera, known universally by his nickname of 'El Chapo' ('Shorty' in Spanish), is the highest-profile narco-terrorist since the demise of Pablo Escobar in the 1990s. Loera began work at the age of nine as a gomero - a farmhand harvesting opium - and as he grew up he shot and murdered his way to the top. In 2009, he made the Forbes annual billionaires list and, before his capture by Mexican marines in 2016, the Sinaloa cartel which he commanded was turn...

The astonishing true story of a boy who survived the war by hiding in the Polish forestMaxwell Smart was eleven years old when his entire family was killed before his eyes. He might have died along with them, but his mother selflessly ordered him to save himself. Alone in the forest, he dug a hole in the ground for shelter and foraged for food in farmers’ fields. His clothes in rags and close to starvation, he repeatedly escaped death at the hands of Nazis and Ukra...

Beneath the outward appearance of legitimate government and accountable officials there lurk hidden agendas, shadowy personalities and special interest groups seeking to seize control of the nation for their own ends. These 'states within a state', unfettered by legal norms and unworried by public opinion, are known as 'deep states'.In this fascinating account, Ian Fitzgerald examines what a deep state really is and how they have emerged in various places across th...

Some individuals have such a magnetic personality that they can attract a hugely devoted following, ignoring the misdeeds of their leader and even committing evil on their behalf. With religious, spiritual or philosophical beliefs to guide them, cults can lead to some of the disturbing events of the modern era. Filled with shadowy rituals and sinister hierarchies and led by masterful manipulators, they can easily become the site of unthinkable horror - and it is only after the leader is br...

From their promising beginnings at Stanford to their founding of Google and beyond, this fascinating biography charts the extraordinary rise of tech duo Sergey Brin and Larry Page.As PhD students at Stanford University, Larry Page and Sergey Brin devised a powerful search engine. Google, the company they founded in 1998 became a brand, the world's pre-eminent search engine, a centre of artificial intelligence and a source of data collection. This fascinating biogra...

What dark thoughts roam the mind of a murderer?Serial killers like Ed Kemper, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer and David Berkowitz have committed some of the most horrible crimes known to man. Their evil deeds seem unthinkable to the rest of us. Yet each had their own twisted logic for their dastardly deeds. In this book, author Al Cimino examines these serial killers by their own words - through the confessions they gave to police, their outbursts in court and the chilli...

Sent to Reformatory at the age of 10, Sicilian-American Sam Giancana lived a gilded life as mobster and mob boss at a pivotal point in history when the mafia decided who ruled America, who lived and who died.Born in 1908, in The Patch, Chicago, Giancana joined the Forty-Two gang of lawless juvenile punks in 1921 and quickly proved himself as a skilled 'wheel man' (or getaway driver), extortionist and vicious killer. Called up to the ranks of the Outfit, he reputedly held talks with...

This anthology brings together 20 texts which were vital in forging the United States and its constitution as we know it.Since the founding of the republic, great thinkers and politicians have set out their visions for America through formal documents, impassioned speeches and momentous treaties. This collection includes some of the most important works that helped define the country that America was to become.Politicians like George Washington, Benjamin Fr...