Straight from the Pig's Mouth - The Life and Crimes of a Kiwi Detective by Al Lester

$38.00 NZD

Category: True Crime

'This book takes you into the life of a New Zealand police detective.I tell it how it was and spare few details so that you too can see the world through one policeman's eyes. The stories contained in this bookrange from the humorous, strange and bizarre to extreme violence and murders. This is the lot of a Kiwi policeman and was the life I lived for 31 years.' From his fledgling days as a constable to being a detective sergeant on high-profile cases, retired policeman Al Lester has many a story to tell as he reflects on a career on the wafer-thin blue line. Al's a man who took policing seriously, always doing his level best to keep criminals in check and turn chaos into order. He never lost sight, however, of how to see the lighter side of the job, enjoying a laugh when the occasion arose, often at his own expense. Welcome to the world of a Kiwi cop. (No actual pigs were harmed in the making of this book.) ...Show more

The Killing in the Consulate by Jonathan Rugman

$37.99 NZD

Category: True Crime

The Irishman ( I Heard You Paint Houses) FTI by Charles Brandt

$24.99 NZD

Category: True Crime

'I heard you paint houses' are the first words Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke to Frank 'the Irishman' Sheeran. To paint a house is to kill a man. The paint is the blood that splatters on the wall and floors. In the course of nearly five years of recorded interviews Frank Sheeran confessed to Charles Brandt that he handled more than twenty-five hits for the Mob, and for his friend Hoffa. Sheeran learned to kill in the US Army, where he saw an astonishing 411 days of active combat during World War 2. After returning home he became a hustler and a hit man, working for legenday crime boss Russell Bufalino. Eventually Sheeran would rise to a position of such prominence that he was named as one of only two non-Italians on a list of the twenty-six most wanted Mob figures. When Bufalino ordered Sheeran to kill Hoffa, the Irishman did the deed, knowing that if he refused, he would have been killed himself. Sheeran's important and fascinating story includes brand new information on other famous murders, and provides rare insight into an infamous chapter in US and Mafia history. This is a page turner that is destined to become a true-crime classic. ...Show more

The Laundromat: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite by Jake Bernstein

$26.00 NZD

Category: True Crime

Now a major motion picture. The two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jake Bernstien takes us inside the world revealed by the Panama Papers, illicit money, political corruption, and fraud on a global scale. A hidden circulatory system flows beneath the surface of global finance, carrying trillion s of dollars from drug trafficking, tax evasion, bribery, and other illegal enterprises. This network masks the identities of the individuals who benefit, aided by bankers, lawyers, and auditors who get paid to look the other way. In The Laundromat, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Jake Bernstein explores this shadow economy and how it evolved, drawing on millions of leaked documents from the files of the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca - a trove now known as the Panama Papers - as well as other journalistic and government investigations. Bernstein shows how shell companies operate, how they allow the superwealthy and celebrities to escape taxes, and how they provide cover for illicit activities on a massive scale by crime bosses and corrupt politicians across the globe. The Laundromat offers a disturbing and sobering view of how the world really works and raises critical questions about financial and legal institutions we may once have trusted. ...Show more

Mrs Escobar: My Life with Pablo by Victoria Eugenia Henao

$40.00 NZD

Category: True Crime

The closest you'll ever get to the most infamous drug kingpin in modern history, told by the person who stood by his side The story of Pablo Escobar, one of the wealthiest, powerful and violent criminals of all time has fascinated the world. Yet the one person closest to him has never spoken out - until now. Maria Victoria Henao met Pablo when she was 13, eloped with him at 15, and despite his numerous infidelities and violence, stayed by his side for the following 16 years until his death. At the same time, she urged him to make peace with his enemies and managed to negotiate her and her children's freedom after Pablo's demise. On the 25th anniversary of Pablo's death, the most intriguing character in the Escobar narrative is ready to share her story and reveal the real man behind the legend. ...Show more

The Central Park Five by Sarah Burns

$27.99 NZD

Category: True Crime | Reading Level: near fine

On April 20th, 1989, two passersby discovered the body of the "Central Park jogger" crumpled in a ravine. She'd been raped and severely beaten. Within days five black and Latino teenagers were apprehended, all five confessing to the crime. The staggering torrent of media coverage that ensued, coupled w ith fierce public outcry, exposed the deep-seated race and class divisions in New York City at the time. The minors were tried and convicted as adults despite no evidence linking them to the victim. Over a decade later, when DNA tests connected serial rapist Matias Reyes to the crime, the government, law enforcement, social institutions and media of New York were exposed as having undermined the individuals they were designed to protect. Here, Sarah Burns recounts this historic case for the first time since the young men's convictions were overturned, telling, at last, the full story of one of New York's most legendary crimes. The events surrounding the Central Park Five are soon to be dramatised in When They See Us - a Netflix series directed by Ava Duvernay. ...Show more

Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties by Tom ONeill, Dan Piepenbring

$40.00 NZD

Category: True Crime

A journalist's twenty-year obsession with the Manson murders leads to shocking new conspiracy theories about the FBI's involvement in this fascinating re-evaluation of one of the most infamous cases in American history. In 1999, when Tom O'Neill was assigned a magazine piece about the thirtieth annivers ary of the Manson murders, he worried there was nothing new to say. Weren't the facts indisputable? Charles Manson had ordered his teenage followers to commit seven brutal murders, and in his thrall, they'd gladly complied. But when O'Neill began reporting the story, he kept finding holes in the prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi's narrative, long enshrined in the bestselling Helter Skelter. Before long, O'Neill had questions about everything from the motive to the manhunt. Though he'd never considered himself a conspiracy theorist, the Manson murders swallowed the next two decades of his career. He was obsessed. Searching but never speculative, CHAOS follows O'Neill's twenty-year effort to rebut the 'official' story behind Manson. Who were his real friends in Hollywood, and how far would they go to hide their ties? Why didn't law enforcement act on their many chances to stop him? And how did he turn a group of peaceful hippies into remorseless killers? O'Neill's hunt for answers leads him from reclusive celebrities to seasoned spies, from the Summer of Love to the shadowy sites of the CIA's mind-control experiments, on a trail rife with cover-ups and coincidences. Featuring hundreds of new interviews and dozens of never-before-seen documents from the LAPD, the FBI and the CIA, CHAOS mounts an argument that could be, according to Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Stephen Kay, strong enough to overturn the verdicts on the Manson murders. In those two dark nights in Los Angeles, O'Neill finds the story of California in the sixties- when charlatans mixed with prodigies, free love was as possible as brainwashing, and utopia-or dystopia-was just an acid trip away. ...Show more

The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective: Secrets and Lies in the Golden Age of Crime by Susannah Stapleton

$37.99 NZD

Category: True Crime

Maud West ran her detective agency in London for more than thirty years, having started sleuthing on behalf of society's finest in 1905. Her exploits grabbed headlines throughout the world but, beneath the public persona, she was forced to hide vital aspects of her own identity in order to thrive in a c lass-obsessed and male-dominated world. And - as Susannah Stapleton reveals - she was a most unreliable witness to her own life. Who was Maud? And what was the reality of being a female private detective in the Golden Age of Crime? Interweaving tales from Maud West's own 'casebook' with social history and extensive original research, Stapleton investigates the stories Maud West told about herself in a quest to uncover the truth. With walk-on parts by Dr Crippen and Dorothy L. Sayers, Parisian gangsters and Continental blackmailers, The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective is both a portrait of a woman ahead of her time and a deliciously salacious glimpse into the underbelly of 'good society' during the first half of the twentieth century. ...Show more

The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule

$29.99 NZD

Category: True Crime

Ann Rule was working on the biggest story of her career, tracking the trail of victims left by a brutal serial-killer. Little did this future bestselling author know that the savage slayer she was hunting was the young man she counted among her closest friends.   Everyone's picture of a natural w inner, Ted Bundy was a bright, charming, and handsome man with a promising future as an attorney. But on January 24, 1989 Bundy was executed for the murders of three young women - and had confessed to taking the lives of at least thirty-five more women from coast to coast. Ann Rule, who kept in constant contact with Bundy throughout the investigation, tells his story as no other person can, capturing the essence of his magnetic power, unholy compulsion and demonic double life.   Available for the first time on audio, this shocking true story is an unforgettable listening experience. In an emotional reading, Rule tells us about Ted Bundy - the man she thought she really knew...the stranger beside her. ...Show more

Elementary : The Explosive File of Scott Watson and the Disappearance of Ben & Olivia by Ian Wishart

$38.99 NZD

Category: True Crime

OF ALL THE BOOKS ON THIS CASE, YOU NEED TO READ THIS ONE...It's a murder mystery worthy of Sherlock Holmes. It even has a Watson. Yet, solving the disappearance of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope has proved anything but elementary. Some books on the case have argued so strongly for either innocence or guilt t hat they leave out evidence that is "inconvenient" to their argument. This isn't one of those books. Elementary blows open the Scott Watson case with evidence you've never been told before. Now that Scott Watson has broken his silence, it's time to break the story... ...Show more

Unbelievable (aka A False Report) by T. Christian Miller; Ken Armstrong

$28.00 NZD

Category: True Crime

Previously published as 'A False Report' The real-life investigation behind the forthcoming NETFLIX series: two Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists uncover the story of Marie, an eighteen-year-old girl who was branded a liar after reporting her brutal rape, and the detectives who followed a twisting pat h to arrive at the truth. One of Stylist Magazine's 20 Must-Read Books of 2018 ***SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLD DAGGER AWARD*** She said she was raped. Police said she lied. On 11 August 2008, eighteen-year-old Marie reported that a masked man had broken into her home and raped her. Within days, police - and even those closest to Marie - became suspicious of her story. Confronted by inconsistencies and doubt, Marie broke down and said her story was a lie. The police convicted her of making a false report. More than two years later, Colorado detective Stacy Galbraith was assigned to a case of sexual assault. It bore an eerie resemblance to a rape that had taken place months earlier in a nearby town. Joining forces with the detective on that case, Edna Hendershot, the two soon discovered they were dealing with a serial rapist, and yet another victim. Unbelievable is a chilling tale of doubt, lies, and the hunt for justice, unveiling the disturbing reality of how sexual assault is investigated and the long history of scepticism toward its victims. ...Show more

The Outlaw Ocean: Crime and Survival in the Last Untamed Frontier by Ian Urbina

$40.00 NZD

Category: True Crime

The Outlaw Ocean is a riveting, adrenaline-fuelled tour of a vast, lawless and rampantly criminal world that few have ever seen- the high seas. There are few remaining frontiers on our planet. But perhaps the wildest, and least understood, are the world's oceans- too big to police, and under no clear i nternational authority, these immense regions of treacherous water play host to the unbridled extremes of human behaviour and activity. Traffickers and smugglers, pirates and mercenaries, wreck thieves and repo men, vigilante conservationists and elusive poachers, seabound abortionists, clandestine oil-dumpers, shackled slaves and cast-adrift stowaways- drawing on five years of perilous and intrepid reporting, often hundreds of miles from shore, Urbina introduces us to the inhabitants of this hidden world and their risk-fraught lives. Through their stories of astonishing courage and brutality, survival and tragedy, he uncovers a globe-spanning network of crime and exploitation that emanates from the fishing, oil and shipping industries, and on which the world's economies rely. Both a gripping adventure story and a stunning expose, this unique work of reportage brings fully into view for the first time the disturbing reality of a floating world that connects us all, a place where anyone can do anything because no one is watching. ...Show more