Résultats de recherche de titre
Articles 6001 à 6020 sur 6153
The Happy Dust Gang: How Sex, Scandal and Deceit Founded a Drugs Empire
Par David Leslie. 2006
Charlie, snow, toot, white: cocaine goes by many different names. But in Glasgow in the early 1980s, they called it…
Happy Dust. At no-holds-barred parties of the glamorous and wealthy, cocaine was the new aphrodisiac. A few lines of Charlie and a humdrum party could become an orgy. Hot from the forests of Colombia, Charlie flooded onto the streets of Glasgow and was passed along the line to the cocktail set, highly paid sports stars and yuppies desperate for kicks and thrills. Behind it all was a man they called the Parachutist. But all too soon, the party was over. People became too greedy and the Parachutist was double-crossed. Some of the gang did shady deals with detectives in hotel rooms; others flew to seek shelter in the sun, their reputations destroyed but not their fortunes. The good times might have been over for the Happy Dust Gang, but their legacy lives on to this day.Handstands In The Dark: A True Story of Growing Up and Survival
Par Janey Godley. 2020
Brought up amid near-Dickensian squalour in the tough East End of Glasgow and sexually abused by her uncle, Janey married…
into a Glasgow criminal family as a teenager, then found herself having to cope with the murder of her mother, violence, religious sectarianism, abject poverty and a frightening family of in-laws.First-hand, Janey saw the gangland violence and met extraordinary characters within an enclosed and seldom-revealed Glasgow underworld - from the grim and far-from-Swinging 60s, to the discos of the 70s, to the tidal wave of heroin addiction which swept through and engulfed Glasgow's East End during the 1980s.This evocative, intimate and moving portrayal of a woman forced to fight every day for her family's future will strike a chord with anyone who has ever struggled against adversity.The Gypsy Code: The true story of hide-and-seek in a violent underworld
Par Mike Woodhouse. 2019
The Gypsy Code is a true story of secret identity, revenge and forbidden love that's perfect for fans of Running…
with the Firm, Undercover and Soldier Spy.Mike Woodhouse had everything: an engineering business, a wine bar, a home, a Range Rover and a boat. Then he caught a group of travellers stealing from his warehouse. A car chase, petrol bombing and court case later, and everything had changed.A marked man, Mike was forced to leave everything behind and move to the Peak District for a fresh start. But his old life was never far behind and when he fell for Rhoda, a Romany Gypsy, kin to the very people he was hiding from, he knew he wouldn't be safe for much longer . . .Gypsy Empire
Par Eamon Dillon. 2013
Irish Travellers have never enjoyed a higher profile, at home and abroad, for good reasons and bad. On the one…
hand are the positive stories like the success of boxers such as John Joe Nevin and Tyson Fury, the popularity of Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and Paddy Doherty’s victory on Celebrity Big Brother. On the other are controversial news stories such as the Dale Farm stand-off and the recent convictions for slavery. Gypsy Empire delves into the heart of Traveller life, focusing on three aspects that have coloured perceptions of Travellers among the wider community: family feuds, bare-knuckle fights and trading. Many Irish Travellers are driven by the need to prove their status among their own, a powerful instinct epitomised by those who engage in brutal bare-knuckle fights. These bouts are fuelled by family feuds which sometimes erupt in vicious acts of violence. We meet many colourful characters, among them some of the world’s most prolific and gifted criminals, their self-reliance providing an edge over other crime gangs.This is a golden era for the Traveller clans which are expanding and growing like never before. Gypsy Empire takes the reader inside the hidden world of Irish Travellers.The Guv'nor and Me: My Life with Lenny McLean
Par John ‘The Houchin, Lee Wortley, Anthony Thomas. 2021
Don't cross The Neck.As the right-hand man to 'The Guv’nor' himself, Lenny McLean, John 'The Neck' Houchin is a living…
legend and is now telling his story for the first time. John trained daily with Lenny in the gym to achieve his huge bulk and neck, all 23 inches of it, required to frighten the hell out of troublemakers. As the enforcers for the Krays and the Richardsons, they worked together regularly over many years 'sorting out' whatever needed sorting. These are the mean streets of London back when swift justice as well as fearless loyalty were the order of the day. A new insider take from one of the most notorious characters of the time, this book is full of chippy dialogue, gangster banter, the biggest brawls, old school honour codes and pithy reflection on the changing times – from the hard men to the high life.Frenzy!: How the tabloid press turned three evil serial killers into celebrities
Par Neil Root. 2011
Murder has transfixed the popular press for centuries. But it was only in the second half of the twentieth century…
that murder began saturating front pages and making these monsters what we today recognise as modern celebrities. It was three serial killers, caught and executed in the few years after the end of the Second World War, who precipitated a level of public furore never seen before. Neville Heath, a 'charming' sadist who killed two women; John George Haigh, the Acid Bath Killer who killed between six and nine men and women; and John Christie, the ineffectual necrophile, who killed between six and eight women. The modern news coverage finds its roots with these three men whom the crime historian Donald Thomas called the 'Postwar Psychopaths'. Their crimes were the first to generate a tabloid frenzy the like of which we see all around us today. It was not only the murderers who captured the public's imagination. It was the detectives who hunted them down, the judiciary who tried them, and the man who executed them, the legendary hangman Albert Pierrepoint.This book tells the stories of these three infamous serial killers against the backdrop of the tabloid frenzy that surrounded them.The last time that anyone heard from 35-year-old Claudia Lawrence, a chef at the University of York, was when she…
sent a text message to a friend on 18 March 2009 at 8.23 p.m. She has never been heard from or seen again, and her disappearance is a mystery that endures to this day.What happened to Claudia that early spring evening – or was it early the following morning on her way to work? There had been nothing abnormal about her behaviour before she vanished, and there were no signs of a struggle at her home. A Crimewatch reconstruction has been broadcast, and the police investigation into the case has cost more than £750,000. Dozens of interviews have thrown up numerous leads, but there are no concrete clues.With extensive access to her family and friends, in Gone, Neil Root assesses the facts and theories and asks: where is Claudia?The Gold: The real story behind Brink’s-Mat: Britain’s biggest heist
Par Neil Forsyth, Thomas Turner. 2023
The real story that inspired the BBC drama, The GoldOn Saturday, 26 November 1983, an armed gang stole gold bullion…
worth almost £26 million from the Brink's-Mat security depot near London's Heathrow Airport. It was the largest robbery in world history, and only the start of an extraordinary story. For forty years, myths and legends have grown around the Brink's-Mat heist and the events that followed.The heist led to a wave of international money laundering, provided dirty money that helped fuel the London Docklands property boom, caused seismic changes in both British crime and policing, and has been linked to a series of deaths that continued until 2015.The Gold is the conclusion of extensive research and includes exclusive testimony from one of the original robbers who gives his version of events for the first time. The result is the astonishing true story of the robbery of the century.Fat Freddie: A gangster’s life – the bloody career of Freddie Thompson
Par Stephen Breen. 2020
The No 1 Bestseller'A fascinating read' Seán O'Rourke, RTÉ Radio One'Fat' Freddie Thompson first appeared in court in 1997. He…
was sixteen and already aspiring to be a major crime boss. Over the next twenty years his criminal career would be marked by mayhem, brutality and murder.In 2000 a row over a failed drugs deal ignited a murderous feud in Dublin's south inner city. The Crumlin-Drimnagh feud's first victim was a friend of Thompson's and he led his Crumlin crew in a series of tit-for-tat killings. Sixteen young men would lose their lives over the next fifteen years.Meanwhile, childhood friend, Daniel Kinahan, had become a senior figure in his father Christy Kinahan's international crime cartel. Working with the Kinahan Cartel Thompson launched himself as a drugs dealer in Dublin. When another deadly feud broke out in 2016 - between the powerful Kinahans and veteran Dublin criminal, Gerry 'The Monk ' Hutch - Thompson was ready to get his hands dirty. But Thompson's loyalty would be his undoing. In August 2018 he was convicted of murder and jailed.Fat Freddie is a gripping account of the rise and fall of Freddie Thompson. Award-winning crime journalist, Stephen Breen, co-author of the No 1 bestselling The Cartel, has written the definitive portrait of a notorious Dublin gangster, a shocking story of double-crossing, vengeance and murder.Football Dynamo: Modern Russia and the People's Game
Par Marc Bennetts. 2008
In 1991, the collapse of the USSR seemed to signal the death of the Russian football industry, as the money,…
the players and the fans left. But now the oligarchs who profited from the post-Soviet turmoil are supporting the nation's football clubs and their dreams of glory, resulting in unprecedented success. Along this journey into the heart of Russian football, Marc Bennetts meets the managers, oligarchs, players, pundits and fans that define the Russian Premier league, now the fastest-growing and most intriguing football league in the world. From Andrei Arshavin and the national team's adventures at Euro 2008 to the symbolism of a club from war-torn Chechnya lifting the Russian FA Cup, Football Dynamo uncovers shocking revelations about corruption, hooliganism and racism, but also the true beauty of the game and the country.Famous Trials: Unwanted Spouses (Penguin Specials)
Par Alex McBride. 2012
From the legendary Famous Trials series of real-life courtroom dramas, two classic murder trials abridged and refreshed as Penguin Specials…
for modern readers, selected and introduced by Alex McBride, author of Defending the GuiltyA respectable solicitor in the town of Hay-on-Wye, harried by his troubled wife, slowly and carefully poisons her to death. Pleased with the results, he sees an opportunity for another quick-fix solution and turns his murderous attentions to his business rival... Trapped in a marriage of convenience to an aging man almost thirty years her senior, thirty-eight year-old Alma falls in love with seventeen year-old George, when he answers her advertisement for a 'willing lad' to do the housework. It's the perfect set up - a well-disposed husband and a passionate lover - until George destroys it all by trying to get the husband out of the way...These two classic cases of spousal murder - one chillingly domestic, the other bizarre and touching - took place in 1922 and 1935. In these brilliant reconstructions, they continue to confound our expectations of how murderers are meant to proceed.The legendary Famous Trials series set the benchmark for historical crime writing with its accounts of the most notorious and intriguing criminal trials of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Expertly reconstructed from court transcripts, these often sensational narratives have gripped generations of readers since they first appeared in 1941. In this digital edition, two of the very best Famous Trials have been selected, introduced and further abridged by criminal barrister and author Alex McBride to provide modern readers with the most compelling versions yet of these court-room classics.Alex McBride is a criminal barrister. His book Defending the Guilty: Truth and Lies in the Criminal Courtroom was shortlisted for the 2010 Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction and is available in Penguin. He has written for the Guardian, Independent, Prospect and New Statesman, and has contributed to various BBC programmes, including From Our Own Correspondent.'Expert, authoritative, hilarious - an insider's fearless account of life at the criminal bar'Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year on Defending the GuiltyFamous Trials: Thrill-Killers (Penguin Specials)
Par Alex McBride. 2012
From the legendary Famous Trials series of real-life courtroom dramas, two classic murder trials abridged and refreshed as Penguin Specials…
for modern readers, selected and introduced by Alex McBride, author of Defending the GuiltyThomas Cream, erstwhile Sunday school teacher and serial poisoner, has an unsettling air and wonky eye. He also happens to be a doctor, which provides him with ample means and an ideal cover for his murderous activities. His victims are vulnerable young women, whose trust he gains with drinks and trips to the music hall, before offering them pills or swigs from a medicine bottle. A few hours later, they are dying in agony.The Honourable Thomas Ley, meanwhile, has an even better disguise: he's the former Justice Minister for New South Wales and a successful businessman, albeit with a shady past. Rumours abound when a political opponent disappears without trace and a business partner winds up at the bottom of a cliff.Neither killer can help themselves - and this, in the end, leads to their downfall - and both defy our comprehension. Brilliantly reconstructed here, their trials, in 1892 and 1947, reveal a deeply sinister conundrum: by the time you've discovered the secrets in their heart, it's inevitably much too late.The legendary Famous Trials series set the benchmark for historical crime writing with its accounts of the most notorious and intriguing criminal trials of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Expertly reconstructed from court transcripts, these often sensational narratives have gripped generations of readers since they first appeared in 1941. In this digital edition, two of the very best Famous Trials have been selected, introduced and further abridged by criminal barrister and author Alex McBride to provide modern readers with the most compelling versions yet of these court-room classics.Alex McBride is a criminal barrister. His book Defending the Guilty: Truth and Lies in the Criminal Courtroom was shortlisted for the 2010 Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction and is available in Penguin. He has written for the Guardian, Independent, Prospect and New Statesman, and has contributed to various BBC programmes, including From Our Own Correspondent.'Expert, authoritative, hilarious - an insider's fearless account of life at the criminal bar'Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year on Defending the GuiltyFamous Trials: Lucky Escapes (Penguin Specials)
Par Alex McBride. 2012
From the legendary Famous Trials series of real-life courtroom dramas, two classic murder trials abridged and refreshed as Penguin Specials…
for modern readers, selected and introduced by Alex McBride, author of Defending the GuiltyNineteen year-old Madeleine Smith may have been charged in 1857 with poisoning her lover, Emile L'Angelier, but her real sin was having sex - a lot of sex - out of wedlock. Her mistake was to write him frank and passionate letters, described by the trial judge as 'without any sense of decency', which L'Angelier threatened to send to her father when she cooled on the idea of marriage, having secretly engaged herself to someone else.Some fifty years later, the trial of Robert Wood, a respectable, hard-working illustrator by day, who frolicked with prostitutes by night, including the unfortunate Emily Dimmock, also hinged on a dangerous correspondence. Dimmock's murderer had evidently ransacked her rooms for a postcard written by Wood. Was there something he was desperate to hide? The author of his trial is certain he was guilty.But both escaped conviction - in Wood's case, thanks to the defence of the best defence barrister in the land. In Madeleine Smith's, the three judges ruled two-to-one to exclude from evidence L'Angelier's pocket book, which recorded her meetings with him on the day of the murder. These two salacious and controversial trials demonstrate how the dramatic difference between 'guilty' and 'not guilty' can sometimes be decided by a mere scrap of paper.The legendary Famous Trials series set the benchmark for historical crime writing with its accounts of the most notorious and intriguing criminal trials of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Expertly reconstructed from court transcripts, these often sensational narratives have gripped generations of readers since they first appeared in 1941. In this digital edition, two of the very best Famous Trials have been selected, introduced and further abridged by criminal barrister and author Alex McBride to provide modern readers with the most compelling versions yet of these court-room classics.Alex McBride is a criminal barrister. His book Defending the Guilty: Truth and Lies in the Criminal Courtroom was shortlisted for the 2010 Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction and is available in Penguin. He has written for the Guardian, Independent, Prospect and New Statesman, and has contributed to various BBC programmes, including From Our Own Correspondent.'Expert, authoritative, hilarious - an insider's fearless account of life at the criminal bar' Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year on Defending the GuiltyYou May Never See Us Again: The Barclay Dynasty: A Story of Survival, Secrecy and Succession
Par Jane Martinson. 2023
'A tour de force' - Guardian'Forensic ... Strong on financial detail' - Financial TimesA Financial Times Book of the Year…
2023The untold story of post-war Britain. Told through the lives of the two men who helped shape it: Sir David Barclay and Sir Frederick Barclay.You May Never See Us Again is the only definitive story of David and Frederick Barclay - commonly known as the Barclay brothers. Born poor, these enigmatic twins built one of the biggest fortunes in Britain together from scratch and spent six decades at the epicentre of British business, media and politics. Their empire, said to be worth £7bn at its height, included Littlewoods, the Ritz Hotel, The Daily Telegraph and the channel island of Brecqhou. They were major advocates for Brexit and well-connected with influential politicians including Margaret Thatcher, Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage.And yet despite their fortune and influence, their fiercely guarded desire for privacy has meant that their story remained largely unknown - until a very public family dispute pitched Barclay against Barclay in the High Court.Journalist Jane Martinson unravels the fascinating story of these once inseparable billionaire brothers. Through their lives she offers compelling insights into post-war Britain, from the conditions that enabled their way of doing business to thrive through to the tightly enmeshed webs of influence between capitalism, politics and the media that shape Britain today.Essex Boy: Last Man Standing
Par Bernard O'Mahoney, Steven Ellis. 2009
Two films and numerous books have attempted to tell the shocking story of two of Britain's most ruthless gangs. For…
20 years, the Essex Boys firm and their successors, the New Generation, controlled a lucrative drugs empire in Essex and throughout the south east of England by using intimidation, gratuitous violence and murder. Rampaging through the streets and clubland, they destroyed anything and anybody that dared to get in their way. Eventually torn apart by greed and paranoia, the gang members became victims of their own vile trade and hate-filled actions. Pat Tate, Tony Tucker and Craig Rolfe were all blasted repeatedly with a shotgun as they sat in their Range Rover down a remote farm track. Dean Boshell was lured to allotments, then beaten and shot execution-style three times through the head. Others, such as Darren Nicholls and Damon Alvin, turned Super Grass and disappeared into the witness protection scheme never to be seen again, while three other men are in prison serving life sentences. Steve `Nipper` Ellis is the last man standing, the only member to have survived the bloody reign of both gangs. In Essex Boy, he tells his shocking story for the first time, and reveals just how close he came to being both murderer and murder victim.El Infierno: My time inside Ecuador’s toughest prisons
Par Pieter Tritton. 2017
“Gato’s head snapped back… We could make out the shots of several 9mms, a couple of 38s and one or…
two 45s. I hurled myself through the doorway and into the room. I didn’t look back.”Caught in an Ecuador hotel room with 8kg of cocaine, Pieter Tritton was no mule or dupe. He had planned and organised everything. The consequence: a 12-year sentence inside one of the world’s deadliest prison systems, where gun fights, executions and riots are a part of everyday life. As a Brit banged up abroad, Pieter had to learn how to survive – and fast – because one wrong move would mean death.This is the insider account of what it’s like to live in a place worse than hell and come out a changed man on the other side.Female Terror
Par Ann Magma. 2002
'IT WAS NOT MURDER. WE ARE NOT MURDERERS. IT WAS THE EXECUTION OF AN ORDER, SATAN ORDERED US AND WE…
HAD TO COMPLY. IT WAS NOT SOMETHING BAD. IT SIMPLY HAD TO BE. WE WANTED TO MAKE SURE THAT THE VICTIM SUFFERED WELL. MY KNIFE STARTED TO GLOW AND I HEARD THE COMMAND TO STAB HIM.' - 'Satanic' Murderess, Manuela RudaWomen are becoming as active as men in shocking and heinous crimes across the globe, from rape and murder to extortion and street crime, as well as the occasional satanic slaying. Statistics show that female crime and female violence is on the rise, particularly in America, where violent offences committed by women have risen by over 100 percent in the past two years.Women are now a major force in both organised crime and terrorism. In the last ten years they have also come to the fore as gun-toting leaders of Los Angeles street gangs, whose members are every bit as ruthless and aggressive as their male counterparts. They are running organised crime syndicates and shooting down their enemies.From Ulrike Meinhof to Rose West, from suicide bombers to mafia godmothers. Ann Magma looks at the rise and rise of the dangerous female.Essex Boys: A Terrifying Expose Of The British Drugs Scene
Par Bernard O'Mahoney. 2000
ESSEX BOYS is the brand new edition of the shocking bestseller known as SO THIS IS ECSTASY?. It is the…
true story of the rise of one of the most violent and successful criminal gangs of the 90's whose reign of terror was finally terminated when the three leaders were brutally murdered in their Range Rover one winter's evening. On their way they had built the drug-dealing organisation that which supplied the pill that killed Leah Betts. They were responsible for a wave of intimidation, beatings and murder. Until, it seems, they took one step too far. Now there is compelling evidence that the men convicted of shooting the dead men are innocent. Which means the real murderers are still at large. Bernard O'Mahoney was a key member of what has been one of the most feared gangs of the decade. His inside account of their cold-blooded violence reveals that facts can be more terryfing than fiction.The Dublin Railway Murder: The sensational true story of a Victorian murder mystery
Par Thomas Morris. 2021
A thrilling and perplexing investigation of a true Victorian crime at Dublin railway station.Dublin, November 1856: George Little, the chief…
cashier of the Broadstone railway terminus, is found dead, lying in a pool of blood beneath his desk.He has been savagely beaten, his head almost severed; there is no sign of a murder weapon, and the office door is locked, apparently from the inside. Thousands of pounds in gold and silver are left untouched at the scene of the crime.Augustus Guy, Ireland's most experienced detective, teams up with Dublin's leading lawyer to investigate the murder. But the mystery defies all explanation, and two celebrated sleuths sent by Scotland Yard soon return to London, baffled.Five suspects are arrested then released, with every step of the salacious case followed by the press, clamouring for answers. But then a local woman comes forward, claiming to know the murderer...'The Dublin Railway Murder is a true-crime masterclass' Philip Gray, author of Two Storm WoodDruglord: Guns, Powder and Pay-Offs
Par Graham Johnson. 2006
When ruthless drug baron John Haase was sentenced to 18 years' imprisonment for heroin-trafficking in 1995, it was a major…
victory for Customs and the police. But in a shock move, after Haase and his partner Paul Bennett had served only 11 months, then Home Secretary Michael Howard signed a Royal Pardon for their release. Howard defended his decision by revealing that Haase and Bennett had become invaluable informants. But Haase had in fact duped the authorities, and far from being forced into hiding as a supergrass, he gained new kudos among the criminal underworld for beating the system so audaciously. Graham Johnson interviewed Haase at Whitemoor prison and has obtained a copy of his sworn affidavit revealing the truth behind the Royal Pardon scandal. Allegations of huge bribes, mass fabrication of evidence and dark powers at the heart of the justice system make this an explosive exposé of Britain's number-one drug kingpin.