Non-Fiction & True Crime

July 8, 2008

Breslin, Jimmy. THE GOOD RAT: A True Story. Ecco. March '08. $24.95. "Of course Pulitzer Prize winner Jimmy Breslin recognized Burton Kaplan right away as the Mafia witness of the ages. Breslin comes from the same Queens streets as mob bosses John Gotti and Vito Genovese. But even they couldn't match Kaplan in crime - and neither could anybody else. In his inimitable New York voice, Breslin gives us a look through the keyhole at the people and places that define the mafia-characters like Sammy 'The Bull' Gravano, Gaspipe Casso (named for his weapon of choice), Thomas 'Three-Finger Brown' Lucchese, and Jimmy 'The Clam' Eppolito, interwoven with the good rat himself, Burt Kaplan of Bensonhurst, the star witness in the recent trial of two New York City detectives indicted for acting as hit men in eight gangland executions. Breslin takes us to the old-time hangouts like Pep McGuire's, the legendary watering hole where reporters and gangsters (all hailing from the same working-class neighborhoods) rubbed elbows and traded stories; the dog-fight circles and body dumps at Ozone Park; and the back room at Midnight Rose's candy store, where Murder, Inc., hired and fired. Most compelling of all, Breslin captures the moments in which the Mafia was made and broken - Breslin was there the night John Gotti celebrated his acquittal at his Ravenite Social Club on Mulberry, having bribed his way to innocence only to incite the wrath of the FBI, who would later crush Gotti and others with the full force of the RICO laws. As in his unforgettable novel THE GANG THAT COULDN'T SHOOT STRAIGHT, Breslin brings together these real-life and long-forgotten Mafia stories to brilliantly create a sharp-eyed portrait of the mob as it lived and breathed,as it sounded and survived."

English, T.J. HAVANA NOCTURNE: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It to the Revolution. William Morrow. June'08. $27.95. "In modern-day Havana, the remnants of the glamorous past are everywhere - the old hotel-casinos, vintage American cars, and flickering neon signs speak of a bygone era that is widely familiar and often romanticized, but little understood. In HAVANA NOCTURNE, T.J. English offers a riveting, multifaceted true tale of organized crime, political corruption, roaring nightlife, revolution, and international conflict that interweaves the dual stories of the Mob in Havana and the event that would overshadow it, the Cuban Revolution. As the Cuban people labored under a violently repressive regime throughout the 1950s, Mob leaders Meyer Lansky and Charles 'Lucky' Luciano turned their eye to Havana. To them, Cuba was the ultimate dream, the greatest hope for the future of the American Mob in the post-Prohibition years of intensified government crackdowns. But when it came time to make their move, it was Lansky, the brilliant Jewish mobster, who reigned supreme. Having cultivated strong ties with the Cuban government and in particular the brutal dictator Fulgencio Batista, Lansky brought key mobsters to Havana to put his ambitious business plans in motion. Before long, the Mob, with Batista's corrupt government in its pocket, owned the biggest luxury hotels and casinos in Havana, launching an unprecedented tourism boom complete with the most lavish entertainment, the world's biggest celebrities, the most beautiful women, and gambling galore. But their dreams collided with those of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and other's who would lead the country's disenfranchised to overthrow their corrupt government and its foreign partners - an epic cultural battle that English captures in all its sexy, decadent, ugly glory. Bringing together long-buried historical information with English's own research in Havana - including interviews with the era's key survivors - HAVANA NOCTURNE takes readers back to Cuba in the years when it was a veritable devil's playground for mob leaders. English deftly weaves together the parallel stories of the Havana Mob - featuring notorious criminals such as Santo Trafficante Jr. and Albert Anastasia - and Castro's 26th of July Movement in a riveting, up-close look at how the Mob nearly attained its biggest dream in Havana - and how Fidel Castro trumped it all with the Cuban Revolution."

TRUE CRIME

Butcher, Lee. TO LOVE, HONOR, AND KILL. Pinnacle Books. May '08. $6.99. "THE PERFECT COUPLE... On a hot summer night, near St. Augustine, Florida, a beautiful couple - who had everything going for them - went for a walk on the beach. By midnight, April Barber was dead, her husband Justin was riddled with bullets, and police had a baffling mystery on their hands... THE PERFECT MOTIVE... Investigators soon suspected that Justin himself was the killer and that the attack was a carefully planned sham. The motive: Justin had carried out multiple affairs and was strapped for the kind of cash April's life insurance would pay. But the cops' had a problem. They had no murder weapon, no witnesses, no DNA - no hard evidence at all... THE PERFECT CRIME? For months investigators built their case. But as a nation turned its attention to a riveting courtroom confrontation, the duel between investigators and suspect exploded into a shocking drams. Now a jury would have to decide Justin's fate - and whether or not he'd carried out the perfect crime. Includes 16 pages or shocking photos!"

Carlo, Philip. THE ICE MAN: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer. Griffin. October '07. $14.95. "For more than forty years, Richard 'the Iceman' Kuklinski led a double life beyond anything ever seen on The Sopranos, becoming one of the most notorious professional assassins in American history while hosting neighborhood barbecues in suburban New Jersey. Richard Kuklinski, on the orders of Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, took part in the killing of Paul Castellano at Spark's Steakhouse. John Gotti hired him to help kill the neighbor who accidentally ran over his child. He also was intimately involved in the killing of Jimmy Hoffa. For an additional price, Kuklinski would make his victims suffer; he conducted this sadistic business with cold-hearted intensity and efficiency, never disappointing his customers. By his own estimate, he killed over two hundred men, taking enormous pride in his cunning and the variety and ferocity of his technique. This trail of murder lasted forty years and took Kuklinski all over America and to the far corners of the earth, including Europe and South America. Along the way, he married, had three children, and put them through Catholic school. His daughter had a medical condition that required regular stays in children's hospitals, where he was remembered as an affectionate father, extremely kind to children. Each Christmas found the Kuklinski home festooned in light; each summer was a succession of barbecues and block and pool parties. His family never suspected a thing. Several years after police finally brought Kuklinski to justice in 1986, he agreed to sit for a series of interviews with a documentary filmmaker. The chilling results aired in three hugely successful HBO documentaries about Kuklinski's life.... Philip Carlo, highly acclaimed author of The Night Stalker, spent more than 240 hours with Kuklinski, and hundreds more with his wife and his daughter, as well as with police and underworld sources, researching and ultimately writing this book. The result is an intimate and definitive portrait of a Mafia killer...."

Hudson, Dale. ALL I WANT TO DO IS KILL. Pinnacle Books. November '07. $6.99. " An Illicit Passion...A Deadly Rage... TEENAGE LESBIAN LOVERS... Holly Harvey was a Barbie doll beauty. Sandy Ketchum a dark, troubled soul. Fueled by sex, drugs, and obsession, they swore that nothing would ever tear them apart. Even if it meant killing anyone who got in their way... WITH A SHOPPING LIST... A good and decent couple, Holly Harvey's grandparents Carl and Sarah Collier wanted Holly to stop getting high and seeing Sandy. When the teenagers struck, it was with a depraved savagery few investigators had ever seen before. Dozens of deep, bloody stab wounds were found on each body. The Colliers fought for their lives - but never had a chance against their granddaughter's rage. FOR MURDER. Soaked in blood, Holly and Sandy took off in the Colliers' truck. When police arrested them, Holly had a to-do list written in pen on her arm: 'Kill, keys, money, jewelry.' The girls' lawyers battled furiously for an acquittal. Then it was up to a jury to decide: What price would they finally pay for their love, their rage - and their evil? 16 Pages Of Exclusive Photos."

Hudson, Dale. KISS AND KILL. Pinnacle pbo. February '08. $6.99. "LOVE AND LOSS. Rick Pulley was a highly respected member of his Virginia community, a youth pastor and music director at his River of Life Church. When his devoted wife mysteriously vanished, few would suspect that Rick was somehow involved. Three-and-a-half years later, police found Patty Jo's exposed, decomposed body under a bridge, and a cold case suddenly turned red hot. SECRETS AND LIES. Soon, the dark secrets beneath a life of lies was brought to light, with sordid details of adultery, phone sex, rage, madness - and finally murder. As a dramatic trial unfolded, a shocked community realized that Rick Pulley had nearly gotten away with the cold-blooded killing of Patty Jo. MURDER AND JUSTICE. This extraordinary true story looks inside the heart of a close-knit community, behind bedroom doors, church doors, and jail cell doors - where a diabolical drama led to murder, a relentless investigation shattered innocence and illusions, and a monster was finally convicted of murder in the first degree. Includes 16 Pages Of Shocking Photos."

Johnson, Sheila. BLOOD LUST. Pinnacle Books pbo. October '07. $6.99. "HIS VICTIMS WERE UNCOUNTED... From the time he was a teenager, Jeremy Bryan Jones had let his violet passions run wild: attacking, raping, and mutilating. Then, in Mobile County, Alabama, Jones's rampage was stopped. But no one knew how many bodies were in his past. HIS EVIL WAS UNMEASURED... Convicted and sentenced to die for the brutal murder of Lisa Nichols, an Alabama mother of two children, Jones shocked authorities with the story of his life - and his claims of snuffing out over a dozen victims in thirteen years. But was he telling the truth, or was he simply taunting his captors? UNTIL THE TERRIBLE TRUTH EMERGED... Detectives from across the South scrambled to prove Jones's claims. At every turn, the man dubbed 'the redneck Ted Bundy' made a mockery of investigators, the courts, and the media. In the end, he would be convicted on three murders, but investigations into the horrifying crimes attributed to him told about a psychopath who enjoyed confessing almost as much as he enjoyed killing.... 16 PAGES OF REVEALING PHOTOS."

Lasseter, Don. MEET ME FOR MURDER. Pinnacle Books. April '08. $6.99. "AN ASPIRING MODEL. Hopeful beauty Kristi Johnson, 21, thought she was auditioning to model for a James Bond promotion. Following the directions of the man who approached her in a shopping mail, she drove to a mansion in the Hollywood Hills with a black mini-skirt and stiletto heels. A HOLLYWOOD CASTING COUCH. Weeks later, Kristi's body was finally photographed - by the county coroner. Her partially clad body had been found on a slope off Skyline Drive. Not one iota of forensic evidence was recovered. All investigators had was another Hollywood dream gone nightmare. A COURTROOM DRAMA. But what seemed like a dead end soon found its lucky break. Responding to new reports about Kristi's murder, calls from women came pouring in - all of them victims of bogus modeling gigs. One composite sketch later, Victor Paleologus, 40, already on parole for sexual assault, was taken into custody. Halfway through his sensational trial, Paleologus stunned everyone by entering a guilty plea and was sentenced to 25 years t life. Includes 16 pages of shocking photos."

Leake, John. ENTERING HADES: The Double Life of a Serial killer. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. November '07. $25.00. "'I was a greedy, ravenous individual, determined to rise from the bottom to the top... It wasn't me!' - Jack Unterweger's final words to his jury. Serial killers rarely travel internationally. So in the early 1990s, when detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department began to find bodies of women strangled with their own bras, it didn't occur to them at first to make a connection with the bodies being uncovered in the woods outside of Vienna, Austria. The LAPD waited for the killer to strike again. Meanwhile, in Austria, the police followed what few clues they had. The case intrigued many reporters, but few as keenly as Jack Unterweger, a local celebrity. He cut a striking figure, this little man in expensive white suits. His expertise on Vienna's criminal underworld was hard-earned. He had been sentenced to life in jail as a young man. But while incarcerated, he began to write - and his work earned him the glowing attention of the literary elite. The intelligentsia lobbied for his release and by 1990, Jack was free again. He continued writing, nurturing his career as a journalist. But though he now traveled in the highest circles, he had a secret life. He was killing again, and in the greatest of ironies, reporting on the very crimes he had committed. With unprecedented access to Jack's diaries and letters, John Leake peels back the layers of deception to reveal the life and crimes of Jack Unterweger, and in unnerving detail, exposes the thrilling twists - both in the United States and Europe -that led to Jack's capture and Austria's 'trial of the century.'"

McGinniss, Joe. NEVER ENOUGH. Simon & Schuster. November '07. $25.00. "At thirty-nine, Nancy Kissel had it all: glamour, gusto, garishly flaunted wealth and the lifestyle of the expatriate wife. Not to mention three young children and what a friend described as 'the best marriage in the universe.' That marriage - to Merrill Lynch and former Goldman Sachs investment banker Robert Kissel - ended abruptly one November night in 2003 in the bedroom of their luxury apartment high above Hong Kong's glittering Victoria Harbour. Why? Hong Kong prosecutors, who charged Nancy with murder, said she wanted to inherit Rob's millions and start a new life with a shadowy blue-collar lover who lived in a New Hampshire trailer park. She said she'd killed in self defense, while fighting for her life against an abusive, cocaine-addicted husband who had forced her for years to submit to his brutal sexual demands. Her 2005 trial, lasting for months and rich in lurid detail, captivated Hong Kong's expatriate community and attracted attention worldwide. Less than a year after the jury of seven chinese citizens returned its unexpected verdict, Rob's brother, Andrew, a Connecticut real estate tycoon facing prison for fraud and embezzlement, was also found dead: stabbed in the back in the basement of his multi-dollar Greenwich mansion by person or persons unknown. NEVER ENOUGH is the harrowing true story of these two brothers, Robert and Andrew Kissel, who grew up wanting to own the world but instead wound up murdered half a world apart; and of Nancy Kissel, a riddle wrapped inside an enigma, a modern American woman for whom having it all might not have been enough." paperback. August '08. $7.99. BR>

Mitchell, Corey. PURE MURDER. Pinnacle Books pbo. July '08. $6.99. "Two Innocent Teens.... The crime was unspeakable. On a summer night in Houston, two bright, success-bound teenage girls crossed paths with a group of young men fueled with alcohol and rage. Four days later, when searchers finally found Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena, their bodies were unrecognizable. An Orgy Of Violence.... At first, the teenage boys grabbed Elizabeth, while Jennifer escaped. But Elizabeth's desperate cries brought Jennifer back to help her best friend. Both girls were subjected to sexual assaults of every conceivable kind...and long, painful, drawn-out deaths.... No Mercy.... For days afterward, the killers bragged openly about their crime. By the time prosecutors got the case, convictions for double murder looked like a 'slam dunk.' But the families of the victims were in for a horrible surprise. In this terrifying case, justice would be a tortuous journey.... Includes sixteen pages of photos."

Mitchell, Corey. STRANGLER. Pinnacle Books pbo. September '07. $6.99. "To the outside world Anthony Allen Shore was an average guy: a twice-divorced father who drove a low truck in suburban Houston. Handsome and charismatic, he generally kept a low profile. But in his mind he was a superstar. THE MIND OF A GENIUS... A musical prodigy who never realized his potential, Shore found a way to outsmart society - by getting away with murder. And he wanted the whole world to know it. After brutally killing a 16-year-old girl, he called the local NBC affiliate and told an editor precisely where to find the body. AND THE HEART OF A KILLER... Eight years passed before DNA evidence caught up with Shore. Subsequent police investigations revealed a violent megalomaniac who had sexually abused his own daughters. He quickly confessed to murdering four females, one only nine years old. And he hinted at many more - leading authorities to believe that Anthony Allen Shore could even be the notorious 'I-45 Serial Killer,' whose bloody legacy had earned for one Texas highway the grisly moniker 'Corridor of Blood.' INCLUDES SIXTEEN PAGES OF PHOTOS."

Phelps, M. William. BECAUSE YOU LOVED ME. Pinnacle Books pbo. December '07. $6.99. "A Life Taken. Jeanne Dominico's fiance found her body on her kitchen floor. More than forty stab wounds and blows to her head with a blunt instrument had cut her life short. What monster had struck in the heart of a peaceful New England town? A Trust Betrayed. Jeanne was a hard-working single mother. Nicole, her fourteen-year-old daughter was on the honor-roll and head over heels in love - with an eighteen-year-old man she'd known only through the Internet. Once the lovers met in person, Jeanne's motherly instincts sensed trouble. If only she'd known that the life in danger was her own. In The Name Of Love. With a history of psychological trouble and family misfortune, Billy Sullivan's obsessive and controlling power over Nicole contributed to the brutal slaying of her mother. But it was Nicole's stunning confession and guilty plea that led to Billy's sensational trial, where a sordid tale of love, loss, betrayal and murder finally took a cold-blooded killer offline - and on line for justice. Includes 16 Pages Of Shocking Photos."

Phelps, M. William. IF LOOKS COULD KILL. Pinnacle Books pbo. March '08. $6.99. "Big and brash, Jeff Zack didn't hide his rough lifestyle. And when he died, it was in plain sight: executed in the parking lot of a BJ's Wholesale Club in Akron, Ohio, by a motorcycle-riding assassin dressed in black. Jeff Zack's murder stunned investigators - but then, so did his life. A long list of people might have had reasons to want Zack dead, including the loyal wife he had humiliated and the wealthy nightclub owner whose wife - a blond, hard-bodied beauty queen - he openly dated. But the truth would get even stranger... In this shocking true story of adultery, mind games, lies, wealth and sexual liaisons in upscale Middle America, true-crime master M. William Phelps tells the astounding story of a man who loved the wrong woman - and was brutally murdered by a killer with the deadliest possible motive of all... Includes 16 Pages Of Shocking Photos."

Scott, Robert. DRIVEN TO MURDER. Pinnacle True Crime pbo. January '08. $6.99. "A Brutally Murdered Family... TV journalist Sam Donaldson hired Paul Posey as the new manager for his sprawling New Mexico ranch. Paul and his family settled into their new life. Then, in July 2004, Donaldson was stunned to discover that his ranch had become a blood-soaked crime scene. The bullet-ripped bodies of Paul, his wife, and stepdaughter were found buried in a pile of manure. Paul's fourteen-year-old son Cody was soon in custody. But the shocking revelations had only just begun... A Teenager On Trial... The Poseys appeared to be like any other ordinary American family. But did their carefully constructed veneer hide a dysfunctional family with dark secrets? Cody claimed he had suffered years of relentless physical and psychological abuse at the hands of his father, step-mother, and even his step-sister... A Bitterly Divided Community... Witnesses at the trial included Sam Donaldson, as well as neighbors who supported Cody's claims and others who disputed them. Was Cody a cold-blooded killer - or the victim of post-traumatic shock syndrome? Now, a judge and jury had to separate the lies from the truth - and decide a teenager's fate... With 16 Pages of Revealing Photos!"

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