McLeods Booksellers

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 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 winner, T ed 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

The Real Lolita - The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World by Sarah Weinman

$34.99 NZD

Category: True Crime

Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita is one of the most beloved and notorious novels of all time. And yet, very few of its readers know that the subject of the novel was inspired by a real-life case: the 1948 abduction of eleven-year-old Sally Horner. Weaving together suspenseful crime narrative, cultural and soc ial history, and literary investigation, The Real Lolita tells Sally Horner's full story for the very first time. Drawing upon extensive investigations, legal documents, public records, and interviews with remaining relatives, Sarah Weinman uncovers how much Nabokov knew of the Sally Horner case and the efforts he took to disguise that knowledge during the process of writing and publishing Lolita. Sally Horner's story echoes the stories of countless girls and women who never had the chance to speak for themselves. By diving deeper in the publication history of Lolita and restoring Sally to her rightful place in the lore of the novel's creation, The Real Lolita casts a new light on the dark inspiration for a modern classic. ...Show more

Red Card - FIFA and the Fall of the Most Powerful Men in Sports by Ken Bensinger

$36.99 NZD

Category: True Crime

'Spellbinding. A gripping account of how the beautiful game got grotesquely ugly. Highly recommended.' Gary Lineker'Gripping...Bensinger's impeccably sourced account serves as a sharp reminder of the gargantuan levels of largesse and excess during Fifa's bad, bad days - as well as a warning that not eno ugh has been done to prevent them returning.' Sean Ingle, Guardian'Bensinger deftly deploys novelistic devices to turn it into a real-life detective thriller...[it] resembles John Grisham' Private EyeThe story of FIFA's fall from grace has it all: power, betrayal, revenge, sports stars, hustlers, corruption, sex and phenomenal quantities of money, all set against exotic locales stretching from Caribbean beaches to the formal staterooms of the Kremlin and the sun-blasted streets of Doha, Qatar. In Red Card, investigative journalist Ken Bensinger takes a journey to FIFA's dark heart. He introduces the flamboyant villains of the piece - the FIFA kingpins who flaunted their wealth in private jets and New York's grandest skyscrapers - and the dogged team of American FBI and IRS agents, headed by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who finally brought them to book. Providing fresh insights on a scandal which has gripped the world, he shows how greed and arrogance brought down the most powerful institution in sporting history. A wild, gritty, gripping, and at times blackly comic story, Red Card combines world-class journalism with the pace of a thriller. Red Card (filmed as Houses of Deceit) will be a major film, produced by Pearl Street Films, the production company owned by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. ...Show more

A Shrink in the Clink by Tim Watson-Munro

$37.99 NZD

Category: True Crime

From the author of the extraordinary memoir, Dancing with DemonsDRUG LORDS. DEVIANTS. BLACK WIDOWS. HIT MEN. RIOT GIRLS. MASS MURDERERS. PSYCHOS.No one gets closer to Australia's craziest characters than 'Doc' Tim Watson-Munro, a criminal psychologist with 40 years' experience assessing the mad, bad and dangerous.In a riveting series of weird, funny and terrifying tales sure to thrill and chill true-crime readers, Tim reveals the warped minds behind crimes that shocked and intrigued Australia. Go with Tim to an underworld funeral of a master jewel thief who terrorised London. Meet 'Chooka' who was caught kissing the chicken of a shotgun-toting Mafia boss. Read a poem slipped to Tim by the Hoddle Street gunman after the massacre. Get up close with evil geniuses, terrorists, nuns on the run and natural born killers.Along the way Tim explains what triggers acts of madness in ordinary folks like you. Often confronting but always entertaining, A Shrink in the Clink is an extraordinary journey into the shadows and a brilliant insight into the shifting realities of the criminal mind. ...Show more

Signature Killers by Robert Keppel; William J. Birnes

$30.00 NZD

Category: True Crime

'This book will make you think... it will frighten you, and it will shock you... Frankly I could not read it at night.' - Ann Rule Sparked by a growing concern over the steady rise of signature murders, Robert Keppel explores in unflinching detail the monstrous patterns, sadiistic compulsions and deprav ed motives of this breed of killer. Interpreting the calling cards of the serial murderer, Keppel reveals the answers hidden among the grisly evidence, the common threads that link each devastating act of brutal violence. From The Lovely Hearts Killer who haunted the most desperate of women in 1950s America, to the savage Midtown Torso Murders that stunned the NYPD, to such infamous symbols of evil as Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy and John Gacy, these are the cases - horrifying,graphic and unforgettable - that Keppel ingeniously taps to shed light on the darkest corners of the pathological mind. ...Show more

The Cause of Death by Cynric Temple-Camp

$29.99 NZD

Category: True Crime

A Different Class of Murder by Laura Thompson

$22.99 NZD

Category: True Crime

Laura Thompson re-examines the truths behind one of post-war Britain's most notorious murders: the bludgeoning to death of nanny Sandra Rivett in a Belgravia basement on 7 November 1974. Lord Lucan, found guilty of the murder, was only granted a death certificate in 2016. His wife Veronica - last surviv ing participant in this dark episode - died in September 2017. In this revised edition, Laura Thompson sheds new light on the volatile mental state of Veronica Lucan, and on the theories surrounding the murder, to which she adds a new, extraordinary and shocking possibility. ...Show more

Blood, Bullets, and Bones: The Story of Forensic Science from Sherlock Holmes to DNA by Bridget Heos

$19.99 NZD

Category: True Crime

Acclaimed author Heos uses real-life cases to tell the fascinating history of modern forensic science, from the first test for arsenic poisoning to fingerprinting, firearm and blood spatter analysis, DNA evidence, and all the important milestones in between. Illustrations.

Murder on the Maungatapu: A Narrative History of the Burgess Gang and Their Greatest Crime by Wayne Martin

$45.00 NZD

Category: True Crime

In the winter of 1866 New Zealand s most notorious bushranger, Richard Burgess, knelt at a small desk in his Nelson prison cell, took up his quill pen and began to write. His life, he knew, was beyond salvation but words were the last weapon at his disposal to consign his mortal enemy, gang turncoat Jos eph Sullivan, to the gallows. The blood-soaked confession that followed was described by Mark Twain as without its peer in the literature of murder . Five bodies had been recovered from Maungatapu Mountain in the upper South Island, and another from the West Coast. But who had done the killing, and how many other victims were there? What had brought the ruthless Burgess Gang to this point? Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, including little-known original accounts by Sullivan, Murder on the Maungatapu tells the fascinating full story of a dark episode in New Zealand's history. It is a superbly written tale of blood and gold, of betrayal and vengeance, which draws some startling conclusions about New Zealand s crime of the nineteenth century." ...Show more

Art Thieves, Fakers and Fraudsters: A New Zealand Story by Penelope Jackson

$40.00 NZD

Category: True Crime

Art crime is soaring. Every year as much as $10 billion worth of artworks are stolen. Many more are vandalised, damaged or destroyed. Added to this is a flourishing world of fakes and forgeries, often sold for millions of dollars and hanging in the world's most prestigious galleries. If you think this i s happening only in Paris, London and New York, prepare to be surprised as art curator Penelope Jackson reveals the underbelly of the New Zealand art world.  ...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