Top list: True stories

The Bronx-born son of a Jewish bootlegger, "Joey the Hit Man" was introduced to crime when he was just eleven years old. For the next thirty years he was a numbers king, scalper, loan shark, enforcer, and drug smuggler. He hijacked trucks, fenced stolen goods, and trafficked in pornography. But Joey really made his name as a Mafia assassin, racking up thirty-eight cold-blooded hits—thirty-five for cash, three for revenge.

In Killer, Joey tells the true story of life in organized crime. He exposes the reality of gang wars, discusses how he raised a family while living on the wrong side of the law, and documents the day-to-day business of crime—from making and breaking alliances to staying one step ahead of the cops. "People think because they saw [The Godfather] they know everything there is to know about organized crime," Joey contends. In this no-holds-barred account, he reveals the brutal truth behind the Hollywood fantasy.

This new edition of Killer includes an afterword by coauthor David Fisher that unmasks Joey's real identity—and the circumstances behind his death that add another layer of mystery to his complicated, colorful, and fascinating life.

Contains mature themes.

From eldest daughter Shari Franke, the shocking true story behind the viral 8 Passengers family vlog – now the subject of a new Disney+ docuseries – and the hidden abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, and how, in the face of unimaginable pain, she found freedom and healing.

Shari Franke’s childhood was a constant battle for survival. Her mother, Ruby Franke, enforced a severe moral code while maintaining a façade of a picture-perfect family for their wildly popular YouTube channel 8 Passengers, which documented the day-to-day life of raising six children for a staggering 2.5 million subscribers. But a darker truth lurked beneath the surface – Ruby’s wholesome online persona masked a more tyrannical parenting style than anyone could have imagined.

As the family’s YouTube notoriety grew, so too did Ruby’s delusions of righteousness. Fueled by the sadistic influence of relationship coach Jodi Hildebrandt, together they implemented an inhumane and merciless disciplinary regime.

Ruby and Jodi were arrested in Utah in 2023 on multiple charges of aggravated child abuse. On that fateful day, Shari shared a photo online of a police car outside their home. Her caption had one word: 'Finally'.

For the first time, Shari will reveal the disturbing truth behind 8 Passengers and her family’s devastating involvement with Jodi Hildebrandt’s cultish life coaching program, 'ConneXions'. No stone is left unturned as Shari exposes the perils of influencer culture and shares for the first time her battle for truth and survival in the face of her mother’s cruelty.

PARIS: A MILLION MEANINGS IN A SINGLE NAME

Heiress. Party girl. Problem child. Selfie taker. Model. Reality star. Self-created.

The labels attached to Paris Hilton.

Founder. Entrepreneur. Pop Culture Maker. Innovator. Survivor. Activist. Daughter. Sister. Wife. Mother.

The roles Paris embraces as a fully realized woman.

Paris rose to prominence as an heiress to the Hilton hotel empire but cultivated her fame and fortune as the IT Girl of the aughts, a time marked by the burgeoning 24-hour entertainment news cycle and the advent of the celebrity blog. Using her celebrity brand, Paris set in motion her innovative business ventures, while being the constant target of tabloid culture that dismissively wrote her off as “famous for being famous.” With tenacity, sharp business acumen and grit, she built a global empire and, in the process, became a truly modern icon beloved around the world.

Now, with courage, honesty, and humour, Paris Hilton is ready to take stock, place it all in context and share her story with the world. Separating the creation from the creator, the brand from the ambassador, Paris: The Memoir strips away all we thought we knew about a celebrity icon, taking us back to a privileged childhood lived through the lens of undiagnosed ADHD, a teenage rebellion that triggered a panicked – and perilous – decision by her parents. Led to believe they were saving their child’s life, Paris’s mother and father had her kidnapped and saw her sent to a series of ‘emotional growth boarding schools’, where she survived almost two years of verbal, physical and sexual abuse. In the midst of a hell we now call the ‘troubled teen industry’, Paris created a beautiful inner world where the ugliness couldn’t touch her. She came out, resolving to trust no-one but herself as she transformed that fantasy world into a multibillion-dollar reality.

Recounting her perilous journey through pre-#MeToo sexual politics with grace, dignity and just the right amount of sass. Paris: The Memoir tracks the evolution of celebrity culture through the story of the figure at its leading edge, full of defining moments and marquee names. Most important, Paris shows us her path to peace while she challenges us to question our role in her story and in our own.

Welcome to Paris.

Reminiscent of Wiseguy, Mob Boss is a compelling biography from two prominent mob experts recounting the life and times of the first acting boss of an American Mafia family to turn government witness.

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE 21ST CENTURY

Now an FX TV series streaming on DISNEY+

'Unquestionably one of the greatest literary achievements of the 21st century' Nick Hornby

From the author of Empire of Pain – a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions.

One night in December 1972, Jean McConville, a mother of ten, was abducted from her home in Belfast and never seen alive again. Her disappearance would haunt her orphaned children, the perpetrators of this terrible crime and a whole society in Northern Ireland for decades.

In this powerful, scrupulously reported book, Patrick Radden Keefe offers not just a forensic account of a brutal crime but a vivid portrait of the world in which it happened. The tragedy of an entire country is captured in the spellbinding narrative of a handful of characters, presented in lyrical and unforgettable detail.

A poem by Seamus Heaney inspires the title: ‘Whatever You Say, Say Nothing’. By defying the culture of silence, Keefe illuminates how a close-knit society fractured; how people chose sides in a conflict and turned to violence; and how, when the shooting stopped, some ex-combatants came to look back in horror at the atrocities they had committed, while others continue to advocate violence even today.

Say Nothing deftly weaves the stories of Jean McConville and her family with those of Dolours Price, the first woman to join the IRA as a front-line soldier, who bombed the Old Bailey when barely out of her teens; Gerry Adams, who helped bring an end to the fighting, but denied his own IRA past; Brendan Hughes, a fearsome IRA commander who turned on Adams after the peace process and broke the IRA’s code of silence; and other indelible figures. By capturing the intrigue, the drama and the profound human cost of the Troubles, the book presents a searing chronicle of the lengths that people are willing to go to in pursuit of a political ideal, and the ways in which societies mend – or don’t – in the aftermath of a long and bloody conflict.

An instant #1 New York Times bestseller—Jaycee Dugard’s raw and powerful memoir, her own story of being kidnapped in 1991 and held captive for more than eighteen years.

In the summer of June of 1991, I was a normal kid. I did normal things. I had friends and a mother that loved me. I was just like you. Until the day my life was stolen.

For eighteen years I was a prisoner. I was an object for someone to use and abuse. For eighteen years I was not allowed to speak my own name. I became a mother and was forced to be a sister. For eighteen years I survived an impossible situation.

On August 26, 2009, I took my name back. My name is Jaycee Lee Dugard. I don’t think of myself as a victim, I simply survived an intolerable situation. A Stolen Life is my story—in my own words, in my own way, exactly as I remember it.

WHEN PARADISE TURNS TO CHAOS, WHO WILL SURVIVE?

An incredible true story of murder, romance and a fateful search for utopia in the Galápagos from the New York Times bestselling author of The Ghosts of Eden Park

At the height of the Great Depression, Los Angeles oil mogul George Allan Hancock and his crew of Smithsonian scientists, who had spent four years travelling the South Seas collecting rare specimens for scientific research, came upon a gruesome scene on reaching the Galápagos: two bodies, mummified by the searing heat, on the shore of the remote island. Hancock was surprised to discover an equally exotic group of humans: European exiles who had fled political and economic unrest, hoping to create a utopian paradise.

As Hancock and his fellow American explorers would witness, paradise had turned into chaos. The three sets of exiles – a Berlin doctor and his lover, a traumatised World War I veteran and his young family, and an Austrian baroness with two adoring paramours – were riven by conflict. Petty slights led to angry confrontations. The baroness, wielding a riding crop and a pearl-handled revolver, staged fights between her two lovers and brazenly seduced American tourists. The conclusion was deadly: two exiles missing, two others dead, and the survivors hurling accusations of murder.

Using previously unpublished archives, Abbott Kahler weaves a chilling, stranger-than-fiction tale worthy of Agatha Christie, a mystery as alluring and curious as the Galápagos themselves. Eden Undone explores our universal desire to seek utopia, while laying bare the human fallibility that, inevitably, renders such a quest doomed.

From real-life "Mafia Survivor" Frank Dimatteo, the gripping account of the life and crimes of the most feared mafia boss of all time: Carmine "Lilo" Galante, the prime mover behind the legendary French Connection.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ann Rule, “America’s best true-crime writer” (Kirkus Reviews), her unforgettable classic account of the horrifying murders in the Pacific Northwest and her shock when she discovered her friend—Ted Bundy—was not only a suspect but also one of the most prolific serial killers in American history.

Meeting in 1971 at a Seattle crisis clinic, Ann Rule and Ted Bundy developed a friendship and correspondence that would span the rest of his life. Rule had no idea that when they went their separate ways, their paths would cross again under shocking circumstances.

The Stranger Beside Me is Rule’s compelling firsthand account of not just her relationship with Bundy, but also his life—from his complicated childhood to the media circus of his trials. Astonishing in its intimacy and with Rule’s clear-eyed prose, you can’t help but share in her growing horror at discovering that her friend was one of the most notorious American serial killers.

An unforgettable and haunting work of research, journalism, and personal memories, The Stranger Beside Me is “as dramatic and chilling as a bedroom window shattering at midnight” (The New York Times).

From critically acclaimed true crime writer Kathryn Casey comes the story of the brutal murders of a mother and child in a quiet suburb of Houston-at the hands of the one closest to them.

A suburban housewife's picture-perfect life is shattered in this riveting true crime book from the author of Evil Next Door.

The harrowing true story of a high-school senior, her parents, her secret online relationship with a handsome, manipulative stranger, and her well-laid plan to leave home and country to marry a man in Kosovo she thought she loved.

The Baldwins were a strong, tight-knit family living in Texas. When their seventeen-year-old daughter, Mackenzie, met Aadam in an online chat room, she fell for his good looks, his charm, and his respectful conversation. He lived in Kosovo, and they began talking regularly. The more attached Mackenzie became to Aadam, the more detached she became from her family.

Mackenzie’s parents, John and Stephanie Baldwin, had no clue there was a man behind their daughter’s sudden change in personality, her surprising interest in Islam, and her withdrawal from friends and family. When Mackenzie’s attachment to Aadam increased and they became “engaged,” Mackenzie started making plans to fly secretly to Kosovo and marry Aadam.

But twenty-five days before Mackenzie was scheduled to leave the country, three friends in whom Mackenzie had confided told Mackenzie’s father. Through the help of their pastor, John Baldwin contacted the FBI and asked for help. The FBI did not believe Aadam was involved with ISIS or that he was trying to radicalize her, but they were concerned about Aadam’s intentions, as that part of Kosovo was known for sex-trafficking and money scams. With just 72 hours left before Mackenzie’s planned departure, three FBI agents confronted her and urged her to stay.

Told from the viewpoint of both father and daughter, Almost Gone allows us to walk with this family through Mackenzie’s network of lies and deceit and John and Stephanie’s escalating bewilderment and alarm. More than a cautionary tale, this is the story of unconditional parental love and unwavering faith, and how God helped a family save their daughter from a relationship that jeopardized not only her happiness, but also her safety.

The first and only full biography on legendary Harlem gangster Bumpy Johnson, who was depicted in the movies Cotton Club, Hoodlum and American Gangster

Al Capone may have ruled Chicago. Lucky Luciano may have run most of New York City. But from the 1930s to the late 1960s, when it came to Harlem, the undisputed king of the underworld was Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson.

Bumpy was a man whose contradictions are still the root of many an argument in Harlem. But there is one thing on which both his supporters and detractors agree: In his lifetime, Bumpy was the man in Harlem.

Harlem Godfather: The Rap on My Husband, Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson is the first complete biography of a man who for years was Harlem's best kept, and most cherished, secret.

There is also a full chapter on Madame Stephanie St. Clair, the infamous Harlem numbers banker who instigated the famous fight with Jewish mobster Dutch Schultz.

The book is written by Bumpy's widow, Mayme Johnson, and details not only his criminal life but also his personal life.

This book also details Bumpy's relationship with Harlem dope dealer Frank Lucas, who has called himself Bumpy's right-hand man but was—according to Mrs. Johnson—little more than a flunky.

From an award-winning investigative reporter: the shocking story of the mob killer who terrorized the streets of New York City for decades . . . while working for the FBI

In Deal with the Devil, five-time Emmy Award–winning investigative reporter Peter Lance draws on three decades of once-secret FBI files and exclusive new interviews to disclose the epic saga of Colombo family capo Gregory Scarpa Sr., who spent more than thirty years as a paid Top Echelon FBI informant while wreaking havoc as a drug dealer, loan shark, bank robber, hijacker, high-end securities thief—and killer.

A Mafia capo who "stopped counting" after fifty murders—earning nicknames including "the Grim Reaper" and "the Killing Machine"—Greg Scarpa was enlisted by the FBI as early as 1960. His detailed debriefings on Mafia practices and activities went straight to J. Edgar Hoover and revealed the structure of Cosa Nostra long before the celebrated Valachi hearings. In forty-two years of murder and racketeering, Scarpa served only thirty days in jail, thanks to his secret relationship with the Feds. But Scarpa's most deadly reign of terror came in the period from 1980 to 1992, when more than half his homicides occurred—even as Scarpa was serving as a paid informant under Supervisory Special Agent R. Lindley DeVecchio, who ran two organized crime squads in the FBI's New York Office.

The celebrated case agent on the 1985–1986 Mafia Commission prosecution, DeVecchio had persuaded Scarpa to return to the fold as an informant, under laws that explicitly forbid organized crime insiders from committing murder or other crimes while receiving compensation from the Bureau. And yet, drawing on secret memos that went to every FBI director from Hoover to Louis Freeh, Lance documents that Scarpa not only continued his violent rampage during these years, but actually launched a new war for control of the Colombo crime family—a conflict that left fourteen dead and dozens injured.

Before he died of AIDS, contracted through a tainted blood transfusion, Scarpa committed or ordered twenty-six murders—including the violent rubout of his own brother Sal in 1987 and the drive-by slaying of his nephew Gus Farace, which triggered a five-hundred-agent manhunt—all while serving as an informant for Lin DeVecchio. When DeVecchio himself was indicted on four counts of murder in 2007, Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes called the case "the most stunning example of official corruption . . . I have ever seen." Yet the murder charges against DeVecchio were dismissed a short time later—even as a New York State Supreme Court judge described the FBI's association with Scarpa as a "deal with the devil."

After the case's abrupt dismissal, Lance started peeling back the layers on what defense attorneys called Scarpa's "unholy alliance" with the FBI. Through exclusive interviews with Scarpa's son Greg Jr. and former Lucchese boss Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, among others, as well as more than 1,150 pages of confidential briefing memos, many revealed here for the first time, Lance traces links between the Scarpa case, the infamous Mafia Cops case, and more.

Written with the same astounding capacity for penetrating criminal networks that marked Lance's previous books, Deal with the Devil is a page-turning work of investigative journalism that reads like a Scorsese film.

Robert Coram finally brings to light the remarkable story of John Boyd, a man who polarized all who knew him, but who left a legacy that will influence the military-and all of America-for decades to come.

I Survived is Victoria Cilliers' chilling, eye-opening story of marriage and attempted murder, revealing the truth about a case that made headlines around the world. Now the subject of a major Channel 4 documentary The Fall: Skydive Murder Plot.

On Easter Sunday 2015, experienced skydiver Victoria Cilliers undertook a parachute jump, a gift from her husband, British army sergeant Emile Cilliers. Her parachutes failed to open and she plummeted 4,000 feet to the ground, sustaining life-threatening injuries. Miraculously, she survived. Then the police arrived at her door. Someone had tampered with her parachute and they suspected Emile.

In I Survived Victoria describes how she fell for Emile, and how the charming man she thought she knew gradually revealed a darker side, chipping away at her self-worth until she found it impossible to sift truth from lies. Can she really believe that her husband – the father of their two young children – tried to kill her? As more shocking revelations come to light, and she has to face his trial and relentless media scrutiny, she struggles to come to terms with the past. Even a guilty verdict does not free her because Emile is not ready to let her go . . .

Powerful and honest, this is the story of a woman who was put through hell and yet found the strength to forge a new life for herself and her children.

The untold story behind the hit true crime podcast The Clearing, this unforgettable memoir traces one daughter’s moving quest to understand her larger-than-life childhood as she searches for the truth about her father, the serial killer Edward Wayne Edwards.

One evening in 2009, April Balascio was searching online, as she had been every night, for unsolved murders in the towns her family had lived growing up, when she stumbled across the latest investigations into the “Sweetheart Murders” cold case. All at once, the buried memories of her father’s dark history were awakened, and she knew she had to take action. She picked up the phone to call a detective and the rest is infamous true crime history.

In her unflinching memoir, Balascio bravely reveals an astonishing tale of a lifetime of manipulation, unexplained upheavals, and silent fear. Some part of her had always known what her father was capable of, but the full truth of how she came to these revelations is as riveting as it is quietly terrifying. Through searing storytelling, dedicated research, and intimate insight, Raised by a Serial Killer is a gripping, courageous memoir unlike any other.

On 22 February 2006, £53 million was stolen from a cash warehouse belonging to the Securitas company in Tonbridge, Kent. In terms of value, the robbery puts previous British capers, such as the Great Train Robbery, in the shade.

This was a crime notable for its audacity, carried out by an unlikely crew of players that included a used car salesman, two Albanian casual workers and a roofer. Five men were convicted at the Old Bailey in January 2008, which attracted nationwide media coverage. A sixth man, Paul Allen, was sentenced in October 2009 for his part. Having become close to the Tonbridge gang and the police during three years of research, Sounes relates a classic crime caper in irresistible, almost forensic detail.

After the robbery comes the exciting, sometimes comical story of the getaway. Money is found and arrests are made but key characters slip out of the country, and millions of pounds are still missing. Heist, the definitive account of these compelling events, is wildly entertaining, and a must for all fans of well-written true crime.