Goodfellas meets Savages meets Catch Me If You Can in this true tale of high-stakes smuggling from pot’s outlaw years.Richard Stratton was the unlikeliest of kingpins. A clean-cut Wellesley boy who entered outlaw culture on a trip to Mexico, he saw his search for a joint morph into a thrill-filled dope run smuggling two kilos across the border in his car door. He became a member of the Hippie Mafia, traveling the world to keep America hig...

This fast-paced sequel to Smuggler's Blues is a harrowing and at times comical journey through the criminal justice system at the height of America's War on Plants.Captured in the lobby of the Sheraton Senator Hotel at LAX following a fifteen-year run smuggling marijuana and hashish as part of the hippie mafia, Richard Stratton began a new journey. Kingpin tells the story of the eight years that followed, through two federal trials and the underwo...

“Gripping courtroom drama and social commentary . . . the story flows well . . . [the author is] masterful in building suspense.”—Kirkus ReviewsSet in 1920s New York, an addictively readable, thoroughly entertaining historical novel involving sex and secrets, race and redemption, and power and privilege—based on a sensational real-life case that made international headlines—in which the marriage between a working-class black woman and the scion of ...

The Hollywood Ending of an Adrenaline-Filled and, By Turns, Harrowing and Funny Odyssey of Crime and Redemption in America's War on DrugsSmuggler's Blues, the first book in Richard Stratton's memoir of his criminal career, detailed his years as a kingpin in the Hippie Mafia. Kingpin, the second book, traced his eight-year journey through the criminal justice system, through two federal trials and myriad jails and prisons, and culminating in his suc...

“Gripping courtroom drama and social commentary . . . the story flows well . . . [the author is] masterful in building suspense.”—Kirkus ReviewsSet in 1920s New York, an addictively readable, thoroughly entertaining historical novel involving sex and secrets, race and redemption, and power and privilege—based on a sensational real-life case that made international headlines—in which the marriage between a working-class black woman and the scion of ...

An immigrant woman and her son are accused of murder and witchcraft in this powerful true crime story of corruption in 1930s Detroit .In 1931, the tensions of the Great Depression took hold of Detroit at every level—even spilling over into the investigation of a mysterious murder at the Delray boardinghouse. Amid accusations of witchcraft, Hungarian immigrant Rose Veres and her son Bill were convicted of the brutal killing and suspected in a dozen ...

The Incredible True Story of the Most Hunted Man in Pacific Coast History––and the Woman He LovedBefore the 1920s found their roar, a charismatic gambling addict named Roy Gardner dominated news headlines with daring train robberies and escapes from incarceration. Nicknamed "the Smiling Bandit," Gardner spilled no blood––except his own––as he cut a felonious path across the western United States, as the country hobbled through a recession in the aftermath of the Fi...

"The murder of Joseph Gatto captivated Los Angeles. Many veteran journalists still wonder how and why it happened. The details of this horrible crime and those affected by it continue to fascinate." –Robert Kovacik, Anchor and Reporter, NBC Los AngelesMike Gatto was an up-and-coming young lawmaker when his father was brutally murdered.The act sucked him into the world of noir: wild theories, intransigent detectives, and unimaginable violence.This tr...

The true crime story of a 1960 murder that rocked a tranquil Michigan vacation spot and the search for justice that followed.When widow Frances Lacey was murdered in July 1960 on Mackinac Island, only a few meager clues were found by police, and the case soon turned cold. But more than sixty years later, will those same clues finally solve the mystery?On July 24, 1960, the quaint charm and serenity of Mackinac, nestled between Michigan's Upper and Lower Penin...

A true crime account of the Kansas City police investigation of the murder of a three-year-old girl, whose brutalized body took four years to identify.On an unseasonably warm April evening in 2001, the headless body of a tiny girl was found discarded in a makeshift dump site in the woods on the southeast side of Kansas City, Missouri. One long night turned into four long years for Sgt. David Bernard and the Kansas City Police Department's 1020 Squad. They followed ...

"Death, drugs and the occult meet in grisly inquiry at the Mexican border" in this true crime account of a mass murder by a serial killing cult leader ( The New York Times).When Mark Kilroy vanished while on spring break in Matamoros, Mexico, the search for the missing pre-med student led to a gruesome discovery on a lonely stretch of land called Rancho Santa Elena: a mass grave containing Mark's mutilated corpse along with the remains of ...

**Jeffrey Epstein. Harvey Weinstein. Bill Cosby. Peter Nygard.With this book, the infamous hall of fame for billionaire sex predators has inducted another member.**Peter Nygard is the most famous and successful fashion designer that you might never have heard of. A Finnish-Canadian crowned the “polyester phenom” by Forbes, he built a nearly billion-dollar fortune shilling pants and blouses for the thirty-five and older set. Dillard’s, Sears, and Wal-Mart all called...