Modern True Crime

Revisiting Dr. Michael Stone's groundbreaking 22-level Gradations of Evil Scale, a hierarchy of evil behavior first introduced in the book The Anatomy of Evil, Stone and Dr. Gary Brucato, a fellow violence and serious psychopathology expert, here provide even more detail, using dozens of cases to exemplify the categories along the continuum. The New Evil also presents compelling evidence that, since a cultural tipping-point in the 1960s, certain types of violent crime have emerged that in earlier decades never or very rarely occurred.

“A fast-burning fuse of a book, every page bursting with revelatory detail.”—ERIK LARSON A sweeping account of the anarchists who terrorized the streets of New York and the detective duo who transformed policing to meet the threat—a tale of fanaticism, forensic science, and dynamite from...

In 1927, while the majority of the township of Bath, Michigan, was celebrating a new primary school - one of the most modern in the Midwest - Andrew P. Kehoe had other plans. The local farmer and school board treasurer was educated, respected, and an accommodating neighbor and friend. But behind his ordinary demeanor was a narcissistic sadist seething with rage, resentment, and paranoia. On May 18 he detonated a set of rigged explosives with the sole purpose of destroying the school and everyone in it.

Murder in the 19th century was rare. But murder as sensation and entertainment became ubiquitous, with cold-blooded killings transformed into novels, broadsides, ballads, opera, and melodrama - even into puppet shows and performing-dog acts. Detective fiction and the new police force developed in parallel, each imitating the other - the founders of Scotland Yard gave rise to Dickens's Inspector Bucket, the first fictional police detective, who in turn influenced Sherlock Holmes and, ultimately, even P. D. James and Patricia Cornwell.

Frances Glessner Lee, born a socialite to a wealthy and influential Chicago family in the 1870s, was never meant to have a career, let alone one steeped in death and depravity. Yet she developed a fascination with the investigation of violent crimes and made it her life's work. Best known for creating the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, a series of dollhouses that appear charming - until you notice the macabre little details: an overturned chair, or a blood-spattered comforter.

Craig Glazer was an ordinary college student when he planned and successfully executed his first fake sting to get back at some drug dealers who had robbed him. The rush he got from the experience led him and a crew of 11 accomplices to mastermind a two-year, 33-sting spree that stretched coast to coast, posing as everything from local police to IRS agents and hotel managers.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER The gripping story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos—one of the biggest corporate frauds in history—a tale of ambition and hubris set amid the bold promises of Silicon Valley, rigorously reported by the prize-winning journalist. With a new Afterword. “Chilling...

With 20 custom illustrations, Medieval Torture and Execution of Modern Serial Killers explores the real life atrocities of both ancient and modern man. This shocking yet morbidly amusing book examines nine real life serial killers and discusses their crimes and motives. In each biopic, their most deplorable acts are reviewed and reckoned, for they will be the determining factors for punishment. As a thought experiment, each serial killer is placed in a primitive time where justice is carried out by way of a medieval executioner. Through documented eye-witness accounts, you will read how ...

Shadows of the Anatomy Room: The True Story of Burke and Hare and the Birth of Modern Murder by The Practical Atlas explores one of the most shocking and transformative true crime stories in history. In the cobbled streets of early nineteenth-century Edinburgh, science and sin walked side by side. The city stood at the height of the Enlightenment, its surgeons and scholars pioneering medical knowledge that would change the world. But behind the grandeur of its lecture halls and anatomy theatres lay a darker reality. The demand for human cadavers was growing faster than the law could supply ...

Former CNN/HLN anchor and veteran broadcast journalist Susan Hendricks takes an investigative deep-dive into the still-unsolved double homicide of two teens in Delphi, Indiana—and its lasting impact on the community On February 13, 2017, two teenage girls—13-year-old Abby Williams and...

A power-hungry baroness with two lovers disrupts life on an Eden-like island in the Galápagos, and an isolated community descends into madness and murder—a true story of utopia gone wrong from New York Times bestselling author Abbott Kahler. “Abbott Kahler’s wickedly gothic tale confronts...

How a Modern Democracy Slowly Turns Into a Narco-State A nation in denial. A system collapsing from within. The true story no one else dares to tell. Cocaine in the ports. Weapons in the suburbs. Money in the banks. Silence in the Republic. This is not fiction. This is the slow drift of a Western democracy toward the unthinkable: a narco-state in the heart of Europe. Investigative in tone but paced like a thriller, NarcoFrance exposes how organized crime has quietly embedded itself inside France’s institutions — from local municipalities to national politics, from housing estates to ...

On a sunny May morning in 1998 in Cortez, Colorado, three desperados in a stolen truck opened fire on the town cop, shooting him 20 times; then they blasted their way past dozens of police cars and disappeared into 10,000 square miles of the harshest wilderness terrain on the North American continent. Self-trained survivalists, the outlaws eluded the most sophisticated law enforcement technology on the planet and a pursuit force that represented more than 75 local, state, and federal police agencies with dozens of SWAT teams, U.S. Army Special Forces....

In 1979, Brenda Spencer, a seemingly average teenage girl living in a nice suburban neighborhood, made and executed plans that would place her in infamy and set a violent and terrifying national precedent. She recieved a rifle for Christmas and a month later set her sights and opens fire on the elementary school across the street. The event is forever glorified by the song "I Don't Like Mondays" by The Boomtown Rats and marks the bloody beginning of the American phenomenon of school shootings.

This 21st Century thriller may be just up your street if you are already a fan of Patterson, Clancy or Larsson and like a storyline with more twists and turns than a sun bathing rattlesnake. For example, did greed ridden Atlanta billionaire Levi Goldman really understand that once he made a contract with the ‘Yegg’ man … he was committed? A secret vault nearly 200 feet below London’s Bryanston Street, built by the controversial wartime British Special Operations Executive to protect the names of its spies, is now the resting place for other priceless WWII memorabilia … billions of...

From the beginnings of big-city police work to the rise of the Mafia, Rogues' Gallery is a colorful and captivating history of crime and punishment in the bustling streets of Old New York. Rogues' Gallery is a sweeping, epic tale of two revolutions, one feeding off the other, that played out on...

Demonic possession. Exorcism. Haunted Houses. Satanic Rituals. For most people this is the stuff of nightmares, horror movies, folklore, and superstition. For New York City police Sergeant Ralph Sarchie, it's as real—and dangerous—as midnight patrol . . . A sixteen-year NYPD veteran, Ralph...

Like See No Evil and At the Center of the Storm, this is a vivid and gripping account of the Central Intelligence Agency, a life of secrets, and a war in the shadows. Called the "Bob Gates of his generation" by Politico, Michael Morell was a top CIA officer who played a critical role in the most...

This is the never-before-told story of Harold Derber, the debonair British Merchant Navy veteran who pioneered the modern drug trade with his groundbreaking invention: the drug mothership. Through his ghost fleet of drug ships, Derber eventually became the chief supplier of marijuana to post-war America. This gripping true tale follows Derber from humble beginnings in Manchester, England, to his assassination in the sun-kissed streets of Miami.

My City Is Under Siege is a searing look at the unraveling of American cities — where sirens are constant, fear is routine, and denial has become policy. What was once the hum of everyday life has turned into the echo of crisis. Corner stores close early. Parents keep their children inside. Elderly residents lock their doors in broad daylight. And while citizens live in fear, their leaders stand before cameras insisting everything is under control. Through gripping, ground-level storytelling, My City Is Under Siege reveals the human cost of rising crime and political complacency. From the...