One of the most feared Chicago mobsters Sam Giancana clawed his way to the top of the Mafia hierarchy by starting as a hit man for Al Capone. He was known as one of the best vehicle escape artists, a tenacious business man, and a ruthless killer. He partied with major stars such as Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe and did business with agents ranging from the CIA to the Vatican to the shah of Iran. When politician Joe Kennedy gave Giancana the chance to use mob muscle to get his son John e...

The true story of the vicious Chicago underworld from a New York Times bestselling author.With a contract out on his life, Nicholas "Nicky Breeze" Calabrese turned government witness and revealed the truth about the murders of a notorious Mob enforcer and his brother-culminating in a criminal case that would challenge the Mob from the street to the highest seats of power.

"A treasure trove for true crime buffs and mob aficionados—the mug shots alone are worth the price of admission." —Nicholas Pileggi, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of WiseguyForeword by Sam GiancanaSome time in the early 1960s, during the golden age of organized crime in America—the era that would inspire The Godfather, Goodfellas, and even The Sopranos—federal investigators pulled every know...

One of the most feared Chicago mobsters, Sam Giancana, clawed his way to the top of the Mafia hierarchy by starting as a hit man for Al Capone. He was known as one of the best vehicle escape artists, a tenacious business man, and a ruthless killer. He partied with major stars such as Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe and did business with agents ranging from the CIA to the Vatican to the shah of Iran. When politician Joe Kennedy gave Giancana the chance to use mob muscle to get his son John...

The twelve-year rampage of "Missoula Mauler" Wayne Nance—and the shocking end to his murder spreeTo his neighbors, Wayne Nance, a furniture mover from Missoula, Montana, appeared to be an affable, considerate, and trustworthy guy. No one knew that Nance was the "Missoula Mauler," a psychopath responsible for a series of sadistic sex slayings that rocked the idyllic town between 1974 and 1986.Nance's only requirement for murder was accessibility—a preacher's...

In 1967, during the time of peace, free love, and hitchhiking, nineteen-year-old Mary Terese Fleszar was last seen walking home to her apartment in Ypsilanti, Michigan. One month later, her naked body stabbed over thirty times and missing both feet and a forearm was discovered on an abandoned farm. A year later, the body of twenty-year-old Joan Schell was found, similarly violated. Over the next two years, five more bodies of female students were uncovered around the area. In the wake of t...

On July 14th, 1966, Richard Franklin Speck swept through a quiet Chicago townhouse like a summer tornado and stabbed, strangled, and killed eight young nurses in a violent sexual rampage. By morning, only one nurse, Corazon Amurao, had miraculously survived, and her scream of terror was heard around the world. As the eight bodies were carried out of the small building, the coroner, who had seen the carnage up close, told a gathering crowd: "It is the crime of the century!"Now, the ...

“He promised to kill me when he got out. I believed him. If I wanted justice, I had to fight both him and the courts...maybe kill him first. If I didn’t do something, I was going to die.”This is not a manufactured dialogue from a thriller but the words of attorney Sharon Muse. They came after she survived an attempted kidnapping, rape, and murder at the hands of Hank Morrison, a former client. On April 7, 2006, Muse miraculously escaped from the sociopathic Morriso...

The terrifying #1 New York Times bestseller about the unbreakable ties of blood The first bodies found were those of a feisty millionaire widow and her daughter in their posh Louisville, Kentucky, home. Months later, another wealthy widow and her prominent son and daughter-in-law were found savagely slain in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Mystified police first suspected a professional in the bizarre gangland-style killings that shattered the quiet tranquility of two well-to-do southern co...

In 1962, Jerry Sherwood gave up her newborn son, Dennis, for adoption. Twenty years later, she set out to find him—only to discover he had died before his fourth birthday. The immediate cause was peritonitis, but the coroner had never decided the mode of death, writing "deferred" rather than indicate accident, natural causes, or homicide. This he did even though the autopsy photos showed Dennis covered from head to toe in ugly bruises, his clenched fists and twisted facial expression sugge...

The never-before-told story of the great Chicago crime family called The Outfit.It is a common misperception that all the true-life organized crime stories have been written. Yet perhaps the most compelling gangster tale is one that has been, until now, too well-hidden. This is the story of the Outfit: the secretive organized crime cartel that began its reign in prohibition-era Chicago before becoming the real puppet master of Hollywood, Las Vegas, and Washington D.C.The Ou...

“He promised to kill me when he got out. I believed him. If I wanted justice, I had to fight both him and the courts...maybe kill him first. If I didn’t do something, I was going to die.”This is not a manufactured dialogue from a thriller but the words of attorney Sharon Muse. They came after she survived an attempted kidnapping, rape, and murder at the hands of Larry Morrison, a former client. On April 7, 2006, Muse miraculously escaped from the sociopathic Morris...