Showing titles in Historical

The Great Villains of History takes you into the riveting world of charisma and crime, evil and opportunity, ambition and bloodshed. Taught by esteemed Dr. Richard B. Spence, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Idaho, these 24 lectures tell the stories of more than 70 villains from Ancient Rome to Jeffrey Epstein, exploring not just what they did, but why they did it—and what their choices reveal about the darkest corners of the human heart.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NOW AN FX LIMITED SERIES STREAMING ON HULU NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER From the author of Empire of Pain—a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions. One of The New York...

“A provocative and page-turning work of true crime.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “A provocative, eerily lyrical study of the heyday of American serial killers . . . A true-crime story written with compassion, fury, and scientific sense.” —Kirkus (starred review) Named a Most...

Crime Scenes takes you behind the police tape and immerses you in the stories of astonishing crimes from around the world. A town created by Disney, a luxury yacht in the Caribbean, an impenetrable Australian forest, the backstreets of Liverpool and a bungalow in Wales all provide settings for a series of sinister, and at times unbelievable, true crimes.

Throughout the seventeenth century, medical lecturers demonstrated human anatomy by dissecting a cadaver while surrounded by students. After the Revolutionary War, though, instructors realized that they needed many more cadavers to serve a growing number of medical students. Enter the “resurrectionists”–body snatchers. Resurrectionists were a cruel lot; men (almost always men and often medical students themselves) who would sneak into a cemetery under the cover of darkness, remove a body, and then sell it to a physician or anatomist–usually for around $100.

"Absorbing history of an unlikely alliance.” - Kirkus Reviews From the New York Times bestselling authors of Ghosts of Honolulu comes their most harrowing true story yet. It's 1942, and New York City is at war. German U-boats are sinking ships just miles offshore, and Washington, DC, is...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Read by the author. "A fast-paced debut...Espionage buffs will savor this vibrant account." — Publishers Weekly A U.S. naval counterintelligence officer working to safeguard Pearl Harbor; a Japanese spy ordered to Hawaii to gather information on the American fleet. On...

The gripping story of the Ruby Ridge siege, showing how the historic standoff between federal agents and a white-separatist family set the stage for the conspiracy-laced politics of the Trump era. “Vivid, frightening, and fascinating…This book blew me away and opened my eyes.”—Walter...

In the lawless frontier of 19th-century Minnesota, a shocking series of crimes rocked the small township of Ward and East Ward in Todd County, setting off a chain of events that blurred the line between justice and vengeance.

Meyer Lansky was more than a cofounder of the Mafia. He was a truly transformative figure, a key player who balanced criminal enterprise and legitimate business, ushering in a "Golden Age" of the Mafia that lasted half of the twentieth century. His impact lives on today—in the lavish casinos...

In January 1980, a secret review quietly rewired Britain’s war in Northern Ireland. Commissioned by the Chief Constable of the RUC and led by future MI5 Director General Sir Patrick Walker, it placed intelligence above the law - and changed everything. What followed was a vast, covert...

In 1985 John Corcoran, a garda informer within the ranks of the Cork IRA, was abducted and brutally executed by the IRA. No one has ever been charged with his murder, but for decades, speculation was rife that gardaí of the highest rank allowed Corcoran – a father of eight – to be murdered...

Now a major motion picture! The exciting and definitive narrative of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. In Parkland (originally titled Four Days in November), author Vincent Bugliosi “has definitively explained the murder that recalibrated modern America”...

The instant New York Times bestseller Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, Slate, Vanity Fair, TIME, Buzzfeed, Smithsonian, BookPage, KCUR, Kirkus, and Boston Globe Nominated for a PEN America Literary Award “It literally changed my outlook on the world…incredible...

Delaware Behaving Badly opens the case files of the First State to reveal true stories of crime, corruption, and human folly drawn from newspapers, court records, and eyewitness accounts. These episodes show how ordinary people slid into extraordinary—and often disastrous—moments that shaped communities and lingered in memory.

A Jacket Off the Gorge peels back the layers of the criminal mind, revealing a fascinating look at one man's struggles within himself and with others. Jon's story raises questions about incarceration versus rehabilitation, lack of mental health treatment for offenders, and abuses by those we entrust to uphold the law.

The first serious external threat to the mafia's existence in America comes from U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who repeatedly expresses his desire to eradicate organized crime in America. Kennedy unleashes the full force of the U.S. Justice Department to the apparent dismay of long-time FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. The mafia's unforgiving response is executed by Louisiana don Carlos Marcello along with Florida don Santo Trafficante, who together take aim at the attorney general's brother, the president of the United States. 

Illuminating and captivating, New York Times bestselling author of Tinseltown and Bogart offers the first definitive account of the Black Dahlia murder—the most famous unsolved true crime case in American history—which humanizes the victim and situates the notorious case within an anxious...

Mafia Hits, Misses, Wars, and Prosecutions is about pivotal events that changed the way the Italian American Mafia has done business since its establishment in the United States. This book covers the murders and wars that ended the careers of Mafia bosses from the Five Families and the prosecutors who built successful political careers following noteworthy mob convictions for ambitious prosecutors like Thomas Dewey, Robert F. Kennedy, and Rudolph Giuliani.

Committed in utmost secrecy in April-May 1940 by the NKVD on the direct orders of Joseph Stalin, for nearly 50 years the Soviet regime succeeded in maintaining the fiction that Katyn was a Nazi crime, their story unchallenged by Western governments fearful of upsetting a powerful wartime ally and Cold War adversary. Surviving Katyn explores the decades-long search for answers, focusing on the experience of those individuals with the most at stake.