True stories Books

On 11th September 2006 - exactly five years after the attacks on the Twin Towers - a modern day Rorke's Drift was played out in the town of Garmsir, known as the Taliban gateway to Helmand Province. 40-year-old Capt. Doug Beattie of the 1st Battalion Royal Irish Regiment was charged with the mission...

How do you make it as a pop star? Why does one boy band make it big and another disappear off the pages of the magazines altogether? Why do girls cost more than boys? And who should you sleep with to get to number one? Packed with scandal and intrigue, Pop Babylon takes you to the dark heart of one ...

At the age of seventeen, Eustace Conway ditched the comforts of his suburban existence to escape to the wild. Away from the crushing disapproval of his father, he lived alone in a teepee in the mountains. Everything he needed he built, grew or killed. He made his clothes from deer he killed and skin...

THE DEFINITIVE WORK OF AMERICAN TRUE CRIME FROM "AMERICA'S BEST TRUE-CRIME WRITER" "(Kirkus Reviews)" Utterly unique in its astonishing intimacy, as jarringly frightening as when it first appeared, Ann Rule's "The Stranger Beside Me" defies our expectation that we woul...

Ross Kemp once again squares up to the world's deadliest gangsters in this breathtaking follow up to the bestselling "Gangs". This time his travels take him as close to home as Liverpool and as far away as Colombia and East Timor. And the gangs he meets just get meaner: Ross is tear-gassed...

Foreman's dramatic kidnap and arrest for Britain's biggest cash robbery made headlines around the world, yet this daring raid was just the peak of the safe-blowing, bank-robbing career that spanned decades. His story is a fascinating, yet chilling account of life as a freelance enforcer for the Kray...

It is midnight on 30th June 1860 and all is quiet in the Kent family's elegant house in Road, Wiltshire. The next morning, however, they wake to find that their youngest son has been the victim of an unimaginably gruesome murder. Even worse, the guilty party is surely one of their number - the house...

In 1968, the Sunday Times organised the Golden Globe race - an incredible test of endurance never before attempted - a round the world yacht race that must be completed single-handed and non-stop, going into port for repairs or supplies would mean disqualification. This remarkable challenge inspi...

What is it about air travel that brings out the craziest, rudest and most ridiculous side of human nature? After fourteen years as an air steward Elliot Hester still doesn't know. However, he does know all about crazy passengers, stressed-out crew and the infamous Mile High club. A tell-all expose f...

Chuck it all in and buy a zoo? Why not? thought Benjamin Mee, unaware of the grim living conditions, creditors and escaped big cat that lay in wait...A few years ago, Ben and his wife, Katherine, sold their small flat in Primrose Hill and moved to France to pursue their dream of restoring an old bar...

This work includes three heart-stopping stories of children trapped by their parents' pasts...Craig, the little boy who can't speak English, isn't allowed to use his real name and hides food around his playschool, afraid he'll be hungry again. His parents are trying to make a fresh start, but their ...

'In a market awash with true-life memoirs, it is refreshing to find a book that really feels different. As Alex tells each of [the childrens' ] stories, there are traumatic episodes, lots of humour and plenty of heartache - but more than anything, a genuine insight into the redemptive power of love....

The big daddy of the conspiracy books on the JFK assassination, and one that can't be taken lightly. A sheer tour de force that may be the final word until 2039--when government files on the case can be unlocked. --Kirkus Reviews

In the summer of 1933 an amazing group of chancers, misfits and psychopaths took to the American road. Fuelled by the Depression, fast cars and cheap guns, these freelance gangsters terrorized a vast swathe of banks and drugstores across the Midwest. Bonnie and Clyde, Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, B...

'It is amazing to think that a game that people take for granted all around the world, was the very same game that gave a group of prisoners sanity - and in a way, gave us the resolve to carry on the struggle'. Anthony Suze, Robben Island Prisoner This is the astonishing story of how a unique gr...

Charlie Bronson has spent three decades in solitary confinement, and yet has stayed as fit as a fiddle, gaining several world strength and fitness records in the process. Now, in this no-nonsense guide to getting fit and staying fit, he reveals just how he's done it. Forget fancy gyms, expensive run...

"The Iceman chilleth! Not for the faint of heart, but a rousing, riveting read. I read it in one (scary) gulp." -Jack Olson, author of I: The Creation of a Serial Killer At home Richard Kuklinski was a dedicated suburban family man. On the street he was the Iceman, a professional hit man a...

Sir Peter Blake was a much loved and greatly admired yachtsman and adventurer, and this book is a wonderful tribute to his achievements. It is drawn entirely from Peter's logbooks of his last voyage, written up by his friend and colleague Alan Sefton, who was manager of blakexpeditions and was with ...

Mark Brandon Read, known to his friends and enemies alike as "Chopper", has spent more than 17 years in prison and has a reputation for violence earned in a blood-spattered career as a streetfighter, standover man, gunman and underworld executioner. He has been shot, stabbed, hit with a cl...

The Deadliest Catch is the hit TV series featuring the harrowingstruggles of fishermen on the wild and freezing Bering Sea - it's theperfect storm but for real. It was Discovery Channel's highest-ratedseries in 2006, the third season finale had 3.85 million viewers, itreceived four Emmy nominations ...

The perfect murder. The ideal getaway. The criminal mastermind. If you're a fan of TV dramas and detective novels, you might be under the impression that the underworld is stuffed with geniuses and Mensa members, PC Plod forever plodding two steps behind the latest Moriarty. And yes, there may be th...

Stranger than fiction and every bit as gripping, this non-fiction collection contains an introduction by Michael Connelly and an afterword by Michael Carlson. A definitive collection of true crime, from the #1 bestselling author of The Lincoln Lawyer. Michael Connelly was an award-winning journa...

"From the moment I got to Auschwitz I was completely detached. I disconnected my heart and intellect in an act of self-defense, despair, and hopelessness." With these words Sara Nomberg-Przytyk begins this painful and compelling account of her experiences while imprisoned for two years in ...

Jonny Kennedy was the star of the unforgettable Emmy award-winning documentary "The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off". He was an extraordinary character determined to live an ordinary life despite being born with the agonising condition Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB), which meant that his skin could l...

From pranks gone wrong to sexual abuse and murder, these stories will motivate readers to reflect on their own lives. In one case, 14-year old twin girls rob a bank in a desperate bid to save the family home, while another tale tells of a mother who makes a horrifying decision for her pregnant daugh...

A series of child-murders that took place in Yorkshire in the 1960s shocked and scandalised the country. The two people responsible, Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, were tried in a sensational case and have become notorious as the human face of evil. It is a story that has captivated for forty years. Fo...

In June 2005 four US Navy SEALs left their base in Afghanistan for the Pakistani border. Their mission was to capture or kill a notorious al Qaeda leader known to be ensconced in a Taliban stronghold surrounded by a small but heavily armed force. Less than twenty-four hours later, only one of thos...

In the early days of April 1941, the 14,000 Australian forces garrisoned in the Libyan town of Tobruk were told to expect reinforcement and supplies within eight weeks. eight months later, these heroic, gallant determined men were rescued by the British Navy having held the fort against the might of...

It was April 7th 2004: a year to the day since the city had fallen. Saddam had been deposed. The Marines and the Para's were long gone and Southern Iraq rarely made it into the news. When Sgt Dan Mills and the rest of the 1st Batallion, The Princess of Wales' Royal Regiment flew in, they were suppos...

A new edition of a book formerly known as "So This is Ecstacy?", this is the true story of the rise of one of the most violent and successful criminal gangs of the 90s. The author of the book was a key member of that gang, and this is his inside account of their violent ways. Their reign e...

This skillfully compiled anthology draws on the phenomenally successful "Forgotten Voices" series. "Lest We Forget" brings together first-hand recollections from the Great War to the Second World War, to vividly illustrate the impact of war. Told in the actual words of the men, women and children wh...

Following on from the great success of Escape: Kiwi POWs on the run in World War 2, this is another accessible and fascinating account of New Zealanders' extraordinary exploits during World War 2. Torpedo is an anthology of fascinating first-person stories about New Zealand's naval and convoy work i...

A classic memoir of prison breaks and adventure -- a bestselling phenomenon of the 1960s Condemned for a murder he had not committed, Henri Charriere (nicknamed Papillon) was sent to the penal colony of French Guiana. Forty-two days after his arrival he made his first break, travelling a thousand gr...

'Soldier Boy takes us into the world of Harry Gilbert, a slim, young (in fact under-age) New Zealand trooper who served in the 7th Canterbury Mounted Rifles during the latter stages of the Boer War in South Africa. Though more than a century has passed since that conflict, Harry's tour of duty is br...

In spite of the perpetrators' intentions, the Tokyo gas attack left only twelve people dead, but thousands were injured and many suffered serious after-effects. The novelist Haruki Murakami interviews the victims to try and establish precisely what happened on the subway that day. He also interviews...

In November 1965, 450 men of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, under the command of Lt.Col. Hal Moore, were dropped by helicopter into a small clearing in the Ia Drang Valley. They were immediately surrounded by 2000 North Vietnamese soldiers. Three days later, only two and a half miles away, a sister...

In the 1960s Jimmy Evans was one of Britain's leading safe-blowers, his own boss in an era when London's underworld was dominated by parasitical gangs such as the Krays and Richardsons. In 1964 Jimmy's world fell apart. He discovered that his wife was having an affair with George Foreman, brother of...

'In a world of one, I am alone, more alone than I have ever been in my life.Locked up in a box within a box where no one can enter and I cannot leave. I am to await my death.' In 1976 a twenty-eight-year-old mother of two and her partner were wrongfully sentenced to death by the Florida courts for t...

What makes a serial killer? Only one man really knows. John Douglas. A man who has looked evil in the eye and made a vocation of understanding it. Now retired, Douglas can let us inside the FBI elite serial crime unit and into the disturbed minds of some of the most savage killers in the world. The ...

This is McNab's account of the mission - a chronicle of courage, endurance and dark humour in the face of extreme cold, enemy attack, capture, and torture of a savagery and relentlessness for which not even their intensive SAS training had prepared them.