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The astonishing but true story of one of the most notorious spy cases from the Cold War—and the international manhunt…
that seized global attention as it revealed the shadowy world of deep cover KGB operatives. The dramatic arrest in London on January 7, 1961 of five Soviet spies made headlines worldwide and had repercussions around the globe. Alerted by the CIA, Britain's security service, MI5, had discovered two British spies stealing invaluable secrets from the highly sensitive submarine research center at Portland, UK. Their controller, Gordon Lonsdale, was a Canadian who frequently visited a middle-aged couple, the Krogers, in their sleepy London suburb. But the seemingly unassuming Krogers were revealed to be deep cover American KGB spies—infamous undercover agents the FBI had been hunting for years—and they were just one part of an extensive network of Soviet operatives in the UK.In the wake of the spies' sensational trial, the FBI uncovered the true identity of the enigmatic Lonsdale—Konon Molody, a Russian who had lived in California before being recruited by the KGB. Molody opened secret talks with MI5 to betray Russia, but before he had the chance, the KGB blackmailed Britain into spy swaps for him and the Krogers.Based on revelatory, newly-released archival material and inside sources from around the world, Dead Doubles follows the hunt for the highly damaging Portland Spy Ring. As gripping as a le Carré novel, this incredible narrative, layered with false identities, deceptions, and betrayal, crisscrosses from the UK to the USSR to the US, Canada, Europe and New Zealand, and brings to life one of the most extraordinary spy stories of the Cold War.Deal with the Devil: The FBI's Secret Thirty-Year Relationship with a Mafia Killer
By Peter Lance. 2014
In Deal with the Devil, five-time Emmy Award–winning investigative reporter Peter Lance draws on three decades of once-secret FBI files…
to tell the definitive story of Greg Scarpa Sr., a Mafia capo who “stopped counting” after fifty murders, while secretly betraying the Colombo crime family as a Top Echelon FBI informant.Lance traces Scarpa’s shadowy relationship with the FBI all the way back to 1960, when his debriefings went straight to J. Edgar Hoover. In forty-two years of murder and racketeering, Scarpa served only thirty days in jail thanks to his secret relationship with the Feds. This is the untold story that will rewrite Mafia history as we know it —a page-turning work of journalism that reads like a Scorsese film. Deal with the Devil includes more than 130 illustrations, crime scene photos, and never-before-seen FBI documents.In the tradition of Agent Zigzag comes this breathtaking biography, as fast-paced and emotionally intuitive as the very best spy…
thrillers, which illuminates an unsung hero of the French Resistance during World War II—Robert de La Rochefoucald, an aristocrat turned anti-Nazi saboteur—and his daring exploits as a résistant trained by Britain’s Special Operations Executive.A scion of one of the most storied families in France, Robert de La Rochefoucald was raised in magnificent chateaux and educated in Europe's finest schools. When the Nazis invaded and imprisoned his father, La Rochefoucald escaped to England and learned the dark arts of anarchy and combat—cracking safes and planting bombs and killing with his bare hands—from the officers of Special Operations Executive, the collection of British spies, beloved by Winston Churchill, who altered the war in Europe with tactics that earned it notoriety as the “Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” With his newfound skills, La Rochefoucauld returned to France and organized Resistance cells, blew up fortified compounds and munitions factories, interfered with Germans’ war-time missions, and executed Nazi officers. Caught by the Germans, La Rochefoucald withstood months of torture without cracking, and escaped his own death, not once but twice.The Saboteur recounts La Rochefoucauld’s enthralling adventures, from jumping from a moving truck on his way to his execution to stealing Nazi limos to dressing up in a nun’s habit—one of his many disguises and impersonations. Whatever the mission, whatever the dire circumstance, La Rochefoucauld acquitted himself nobly, with the straight-back aplomb of a man of aristocratic breeding: James Bond before Ian Fleming conjured him.More than just a fast-paced, true thriller, The Saboteur is also a deep dive into an endlessly fascinating historical moment, telling the untold story of a network of commandos that battled evil, bravely worked to change the course of history, and inspired the creation of America’s own Central Intelligence Agency.Blood Brother: 33 Reasons My Brother Scott Peterson Is Guilty
By Anne Bird. 2005
What happens if, after being given up for adoption in childhood, you reestablish contact with your biological family -- only…
to discover that your newfound brother is a killer?Anne Bird, the sister of Scott Peterson, knows firsthand.Soon after her birth in 1965, Anne was given up for adoption by her mother, Jackie Latham. Welcomed into the well-adjusted Grady family, she lived a happy life. Then, in the late 1990s, she came back into contact with her mother, now Jackie Peterson, and her family -- including Jackie's son Scott Peterson and his wife, Laci. Anne was welcomed into the family, and over the next several years she grew close to Scott and especially Laci. Together they shared holidays, family reunions, and even a trip to Disneyland. Anne and Laci became pregnant at roughly the same time, and the two became confidantes.Then, on Christmas Eve 2002, Laci Peterson went missing -- and the happy façade of the Peterson family slowly began to crumble. Anne rushed to the family's aid, helping in the search for Laci, even allowing Scott to stay in her home while police tried to find his wife. Yet Scott's behavior grew increasingly bizarre during the search, and Anne grew suspicious that her brother knew more than he was telling. Finally she began keeping a list of his disturbing behavior. And by the time Laci's body -- and that of her unborn son, Conner -- were found, Anne was becoming convinced: Her brother Scott Peterson had murdered his wife and unborn child in cold blood.Filled with news-making revelations and intimate glimpses of Scott and Laci, the Peterson family, and the investigation that followed the murder, Blood Brother is a provocative account of how long-dormant family ties dragged one woman into one of the most notorious crimes of our time.Your Government Failed You: Breaking the Cycle of National Security Disasters
By Richard A. Clarke. 2008
Richard Clarke's dramatic statement to the grieving families during the 9/11 Commission hearings touched a raw nerve across America. Not…
only had our government failed to prevent the 2001 terrorist attacks but it has proven itself, time and again, incapable of handling the majority of our most crucial national-security issues, from Iraq to Katrina and beyond. This is not just a temporary failure of any one administration, Mr. Clarke insists, but rather an endemic problem, the result of a pattern of incompetence that must be understood, confronted, and prevented. In Your Government Failed You, Clarke goes far beyond terrorism to examine the inexcusable chain of recurring U.S. government disasters and strategic blunders in recent years. Drawing on his thirty years in the White House, Pentagon, State Department, and intelligence community, Clarke gives us a privileged, if gravely troubling, look into the debacle of government policies, discovering patterns in the failures and offering ways to halt the catastrophic cycle once and for all.The Illusionist: The True Story of the Man Who Fooled Hitler
By Robert Hutton. 2024
Cairo, 1942: If you had asked a British officer who Colonel Clarke was, they would have been able to point…
him out: always ready with a drink and a story, he was a well-known figure in the local bars. If you then asked what he did, you would have less success. Those who knew didn't tell, and almost no one really knew at all.Clarke thought of himself as developing a new kind of weapon. Its components? Rumour, stagecraft, a sense of fun. Its target? The mind of Erwin Rommel, Hitler's greatest general. Throughout history, military commanders have sought to mislead their opponents. Dudley Clarke set out to do it on a scale no one had imagined before. Even afterwards, almost no one understood the magnitude of his achievement. Drawing on recently released documents and hugely expanding on the louche portrait of Clarke as seen in SAS: Rogue Heroes, journalist and historian Robert Hutton reveals the amazing story of Clarke's A Force, the invention of the SAS and the Commandos, and the masterful hoodwinking of the Desert Fox at the battle of El Alamein. The Illusionist tells for the first time the dazzling tale of how, at a pivotal moment in the war, British eccentricity and imagination combined to thwart the Nazis and save innumerable lives - on both sides.The Illusionist: The True Story of the Man Who Fooled Hitler
By Robert Hutton. 2024
Cairo, 1942: If you had asked a British officer who Colonel Clarke was, they would have been able to point…
him out: always ready with a drink and a story, he was a well-known figure in the local bars. If you then asked what he did, you would have less success. Those who knew didn't tell, and almost no one really knew at all.Clarke thought of himself as developing a new kind of weapon. Its components? Rumour, stagecraft, a sense of fun. Its target? The mind of Erwin Rommel, Hitler's greatest general. Throughout history, military commanders have sought to mislead their opponents. Dudley Clarke set out to do it on a scale no one had imagined before. Even afterwards, almost no one understood the magnitude of his achievement. Drawing on recently released documents and hugely expanding on the louche portrait of Clarke as seen in SAS: Rogue Heroes, journalist and historian Robert Hutton reveals the amazing story of Clarke's A Force, the invention of the SAS and the Commandos, and the masterful hoodwinking of the Desert Fox at the battle of El Alamein. The Illusionist tells for the first time the dazzling tale of how, at a pivotal moment in the war, British eccentricity and imagination combined to thwart the Nazis and save innumerable lives - on both sides.Ten-Thirty-Three: The Inside Story of Britain's Secret Killing Machine in Northern Ireland
By Nicholas Davies. 1999
This explosive book reveals the conspiracy between British Military Intelligence and the gunman of the UDA who targeted and killed…
both Republican terrorists and ordinary Catholics. The secret partnership was sanctioned at the highest level of the British government and full details of planned operations, including killings, were passed directly to its Joint Intelligence Committee in London. Ten-Thirty-Three was the codename given to the agent who was fed with all the details necessary for Loyalist gunmen to carry out their murderous activities. But somewhere along the line the power went to Ten-Thirty-Three’s head and he became increasingly unpredictable. It wasn’t long before he was completely out of control, and his Military Intelligence bosses had the makings of a major catastrophe on their hands… This extraordinary true story lifts the lid on shocking abuses of power in Belfast in the 1980s and 1990s.Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes
By Richard A. Clarke, R. P. Eddy. 2017
From President Bill Clinton's recommended reading listPublishers Weekly BestsellerWarnings is the story of the future of national security, threatening technologies,…
the U.S. economy, and possibly the fate of civilization.In Greek mythology Cassandra foresaw calamities, but was cursed by the gods to be ignored. Modern-day Cassandras clearly predicted the disasters of Katrina, Fukushima, the Great Recession, the rise of ISIS, the spread of viruses and many more. Like the mythological Cassandra, they were ignored. There are others right now warning of impending disasters—from cyber attacks to pandemics—but how do we know which warnings are likely to be right? Through riveting explorations in a variety of fields, the authors—both accomplished CEOs and White House National Security Council veterans—discover a method to separate the accurate Cassandras from the crazy doomsayers. They then investigate the experts who today are warning of future disasters: the threats from artificial intelligence, bio-hacking, malware attacks, and more, and whose calls are not being heeded. Clarke’s and Eddy’s penetrating insights are essential for any person, any business, or any government that doesn’t want to be a blind victim of tomorrow’s catastrophe.Eliot Ness and the Mad Butcher: Hunting America's Deadliest Unidentified Serial Killer at the Dawn of Modern Criminology
By Max Allan Collins, A. Brad Schwartz. 2020
"The thrilling history of the torso murderer. The tale of the ‘Untouchable’ who got Al Capone but failed to solve…
his goriest case." —Dan Jones, The Sunday TimesIn the spirit of Devil in the White City comes a true detective tale of the highest standard: the haunting story of Eliot Ness's forgotten final case–his years-long hunt for "The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run," a serial killer who terrorized Cleveland through the Great Depression. “After helping to put Al Capone behind bars, lawman Eliot Ness came to Cleveland, where he did battle with a vicious killer. ... Even Ness was stumped trying to apprehend the ‘torso murderer’ responsible for a series of ghoulish killings. ... The authors have done Ness justice." —Wall Street JournalIn 1934, the nation’s most legendary crime-fighter–fresh from taking on the greatest gangster in American history–arrived in Cleveland, a corrupt and dangerous town about to host a world's fair. It was to be his coronation, as well as the city's. Instead, terror descended, as headless bodies started turning up. The young detective, already battling the mob and crooked cops, found his drive to transform American policing subverted by a menace largely unknown to law enforcement: a serial murderer.Eliot Ness's greatest case had begun. Now, Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz–the acclaimed writing team behind Scarface and the Untouchable–uncover this lost crime epic, delivering a gripping and unforgettable nonfiction account based on decades of groundbreaking research.Ness had risen to fame in 1931 for leading the “Untouchables,” which helped put Chicago’s Al Capone behind bars. As Cleveland's public safety director, in charge of the police and fire departments, Ness offered a radical new vision for better law enforcement. Crime-ridden and devastated by the Depression, Cleveland was preparing for a star-turn itself: in 1936, it would host the "Great Lakes Exposition," which would be visited by seven million people. Late in the summer of 1934, however, pieces of a woman’s body began washing up on the Lake Erie shore–first her ribs, then part of her backbone, then the lower half of her torso. The body count soon grew to five, then ten, then more, all dismembered in gruesome ways.As Ness zeroed in on a suspect–a doctor tied to a prominent political family–powerful forces thwarted his quest for justice. In this battle between a flawed hero and a twisted monster–by turns horror story, political drama, and detective thriller–Collins and Schwartz find an American tragedy, classic in structure, epic in scope.Covert City: The Cold War and the Making of Miami
By Vince Houghton, Eric Driggs. 2024
Secret operations, corruption, crime, and a city teeming with spies: why Miami was as crucial to winning the Cold War…
as Washington DC or Moscow. The Cuban Missile Crisis was perhaps the most dramatic and dangerous period of the Cold War. What's less well known is that the city of Miami, mere miles away, was a pivotal, though less well known, part of Cold War history. With its population of Communist exiles from Cuba, its strategic value for military operations, and its lax business laws, Miami was an ideal environment for espionage.Covert City tells the history of how the entire city of Miami was constructed in the image of the US-Cuba rivalry. From the Bay of Pigs invasion to the death of Fidel Castro, the book shows how Miami is a hub for money and cocaine but also secrets and ideologies. Cuban exiles built criminal and political organizations in the city, leading Washington to set up a CIA station there, codenamed JMWAVE. It monitored gang activities, plotted secret operations against Castro, and became a base for surveilling Latin American neighbors. The money and infrastructure built for the CIA was integral to the development of Miami.Covert City is a sweeping and entertaining history, full of stunning experimental operations and colorful characters--a story of a place like no other.Sonny: The Last of the Old Time Mafia Bosses, John "Sonny" Franzese
By S. J. Peddie. 2022
&“Couldn&’t put it down.&” —Nicholas Pileggi, author of Wiseguy (Goodfellas) and CasinoThe extraordinary life and times of a legendary crime boss who refused…
to squeal—but who finally agreed to talk to an award-winning New York Newsday reporter shortly before his death at age 103 . . . John &“Sonny&” Franzese reportedly committed his first murder at the age of fourteen. As a &“made man&” for the Colombo crime family, he operated out of his Long Island home specializing in racketeering, fraud, loansharking, and other illicit deeds he would deny to his dying day. His career in organized crime spanned over eight decades—and he was sentenced to fifty years in prison for robbery charges. But even behind bars, Sonny Franzese never stopped doing business . . . This is the true story of an old-school mafioso as it&’s never been told before. Newsday reporter S. J. Peddie interviewed Franzese in prison—and uncovered a lifetime of shocking secrets from the legend himself: * Why FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had a very personal interest in Sonny. * How Sonny managed to juggle numerous affairs with women, including a famous model. * How Sonny spent a third of his life in prison—and still managed to earn untold millions for the mob. * How Sonny accidentally revealed some of his worst crimes—to a &“friend&” wearing a wire. Through it all, Franzese refused to break the Mafia&’s code of silence. Authorities believe he may have murdered, or ordered the murders of, forty to fifty people. Yet he earned a grudging respect from law enforcement and an absolute reverence from his fellow gangsters. Eventually he managed to outlive them all—until his death in 2020 of natural causes, a rare event in the Mafia. Thanks to a series of exclusive firsthand interviews, the astonishing life story of John &“Sonny&” Franzese can be told in all its bold, brutal, and blood-spattered glory. This is a must-read for anyone fascinated with Mafia history—and a rare look inside a criminal mind that has become the stuff of legend.Stars and Spies: The story of Intelligence Operations…
By Christopher Andrew, Julius Green. 2021
A vastly entertaining and unique history of the interaction between spying and showbiz, from the Elizabethan age to the Cold…
War and beyond.'A treasure trove of human ingenuity' The TimesWritten by two experts in their fields, Stars and Spies is the first history of the extraordinary connections between the intelligence services and show business.We travel back to the golden age of theatre and intelligence in the reign of Elizabeth I. We meet the writers, actors and entertainers drawn into espionage in the Restoration, the Ancien Régime and Civil War America. And we witness the entry of spying into mainstream popular culture throughout the twentieth century and beyond - from the adventures of James Bond to the thrillers of John le Carré and long-running TV series such as The Americans.'Thoroughly entertaining' Spectator'Perfect...read as you settle into James Bond on Christmas afternoon.' Daily Telegraph'I cannot think of a better biography of a spy chief'Richard Davenport-Hines, The SpectatorSir Maurice Oldfield was one of the…
most important British spies of the Cold War era. _________A farmer’s son from a provincial grammar school who found himself accidentally plunged into the world of espionage, Sir Maurice was the first Chief of MI6 who didn’t come to the role via the traditional public school and Oxbridge route. Oldfield was the voice of British Intelligence in Washington at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the assassination of JFK, and was largely responsible for keeping the UK out of the Vietnam War. Working his way to the top of the secret service, he took on the job of rebuilding confidence in the British Secret Service in the wake of the Philby, Burgess and Maclean spy scandals.This is the fascinating life story, told in detail for the first time, of a complex, likeable character as well as a formidable intelligence chief.Spider Woman: A Life – by the former President of the Supreme Court
By Lady Hale. 2021
Lady Hale is an inspirational figure admired for her historic achievements and for the causes she has championed. Spider Woman…
is her story. As 'a little girl from a little school in a little village in North Yorkshire', she only went into the law because her headteacher told her she wasn't clever enough to study history. She became the most senior judge in the country but it was an unconventional path to the top. How does a self-professed 'girly swot' get ahead in a profession dominated by men? Was it a surprise that the perspectives of women and other disadvantaged groups had been overlooked, or that children's interests were marginalised? A lifelong smasher of glass-ceilings, who took as her motto 'women are equal to everything', her landmark rulings in areas including domestic violence, divorce, mental health and equality were her attempt to correct that. As President of the Supreme Court, Lady Hale won global attention in finding the 2019 prorogation of Parliament to be unlawful. Yet that dramatic moment was merely the pinnacle of a career throughout which she was hailed as a pioneering reformer. Wise, warm and inspiring, Spider Woman shows how the law shapes our world and supports us in crisis. It is the story of how Lady Hale found that she could overcome the odds, which shows that anyone from similar beginnings will find that they can cope too.Soldier Spy
By Tom Marcus. 2016
The explosive, shocking and honest account from an MI5 officer, revealing never-before-seen detail into MI5's operation 'I do it because…
it is all I know. I'm a hunter of people and I'm damn good at it.' Recruited after the 7/7 attacks on London, Tom quickly found himself immersed in the tense world of watching, following and infiltrating networks of terrorists, spies and foreign agents. It was a job that took over his life and cost him dear, taking him to the limit of physical and mental endurance. Filled with extraordinary accounts of operations that saved countless lives, Soldier Spy is the only authentic account by an ex-MI5 officer of the round-the-clock battle to keep this country safe. ________ 'Very well written, gives a startling amount of operational detail, the biggest shock of all - MI5 agreed to its publication' Sunday Times 'A blistering, visceral insight into life on the front line against terror, revealed in remarkable detail' Daily Telegraph 'Startling, absolutely fascinating. A footsoldier's account out on the street.' Radio 4 'Gripping. One of the most successful MI5 undercover surveillance officers of his time' Sun“A famous account of abduction and escape from hostile Indians in the old West.In July, 1864 hostile Oglala Sioux Indians…
attacked the wagon train of the pioneering Kelly and Larimer families approximately 80 miles west of Fort Laramie, Wyoming. Several people were killed or wounded but Sarah Larimer and Fanny Kelly, together with some of their children, were taken into captivity by the Indians. On the second night of their captivity Sarah Larimer and her son managed to escape from the Indian camp and after many difficulties and privations they reached the Deer Creek telegraph station and safety. This book is Sarah Larimer’s story of her ordeal. Fanny Kelly’s captivity with the Sioux lasted longer and on her release she also wrote a book about her experiences. She also sued Sarah Larimer over her memoir and several trials took place over ten years before the matter was settled. [This Book] provides fascinating insights into the westward passage of pioneer families in North America, and those interested in the Indian tribes of the Great Plains during their struggle to maintain their traditional way of life will also find much to interest them in the pages of these books.”-Print ed.“With Crook in pursuit of Geronimo and his band.The author of this book was a U.S. soldier in addition to…
being a well known and highly regarded author on the Apache Wars of the later nineteenth century-in which he was an active participant. He maintained an interest, respect for and in some measure an affection for the Apaches and he also made a serious study of and wrote notable works on their customs and culture. He is perhaps best known for his classic account of the Apache Wars, 'On the Border with Crook.' This small account was written prior to his larger and more expansive work. It originally appeared as a series of articles in the Boston published 'Outing Magazine.' Bourke decided to bring his earlier writings back into print in book form, at a time when the Apaches had once again taken the war trail, to provide the American public with context to then current events. This fascinating account, which centres on the events of the Spring of 1883, concerns Crook's pursuit of the Chiricahua Apaches who broke out of San Carlos reservation to raid through Arizona and Mexico before vanishing into the fastness of the Sierra Madre. Those with any interest or knowledge in this subject will find themselves familiarly introduced to the corps of Apache Scouts, Al Sieber (Zieber), the scout and interpreter, Crook, Gatewood, Chato and of course the renowned Geronimo, as well as other names long associated with this remarkable time in the history of the Apaches and Arizona.”-Print ed.“A great river and those who sailed it.This well known and highly regarded classic of the opening up of the…
American West concentrates on the great rivers of North America and the Missouri in particular. Focus is, of course, placed to the iconic paddle-steamers, their captains and crews, that plied its waters and that have become emblematic of river navigation in 19th century America. The scope of the narrative is significant. Events are described from the mid-1850s and through the American Civil War. However, the book principally deals with the post Civil war period of westward expansion and the role of the vessels and the river itself in the wars against the plains Indians. The transportation of troops and materials played a significant part in these campaigns and this is, of course, is recounted here in some detail. Readers will learn about the exploits of boats including the 'Far West, ' 'Key West, ' Rosebud, ' 'Luella' and 'North Alabama' in this fascinating account of the American frontier afloat.”-Print ed.Following the Drum: A U. S. Infantry Officer's Wife on the Texas Frontier in the Early 1850's
By Teresa Griffin Viele. 2024
“A view of the early Texan frontier from a female view pointTeresa Viele was a strong minded woman with clear…
cut views. Fate would dictate that her life would not be defined by her experiences as an army wife, but in this book she has left us a significant insight into the activities of the officers, soldiers and families of a United States Infantry regiment on the Texas frontier in the pre-Civil War period. Her account encompasses everything that came under her eye and into her active mind-from travel, landscape, flora, fauna and food. Less domestically, she turned her thoughts and pen to the subject of Mexicans and United States political relations with Mexico, the omnipresent threat of Comanche raiders and the ability and capacity of the army to fulfil its border protection duties. Viele also provides an interesting perspective on Jose Maria Jesus Carbajal and the Merchants War. This is an unusual female viewpoint on life on the early South Western American frontier and is an important chronicle of a woman in Texas during the pioneer period.”-Print ed.