A Recommended Read from: The Los Angeles Times * Town and Country * The Seattle Times * Publishers Weekly * Lit Hub * Crime Reads * Alma From the author of The Real Lolita and editor of Unspeakable Acts, the astonishing story of a murderer who conned the people around him—including conservative thinker William F. Buckley—into helping set him free In the 1960s, Edgar Smith, in priso[Bokinfo]

Nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime Book of the Year, this "New York Times" bestseller tells the true story of NYPD detective Rick Cowan, whose undercover odyssey led to the biggest mob takedown in the history of New York City.

It's 2008, and it's been a while since Jake Adelstein was the only gaijin crime reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun . The global economy is in shambles, Jake is off the police beat but still chain-smoking clove cigarettes, and Tadamasa Goto, the most powerful boss in the Japanese organised-crime world, has been banished from the yakuza, giving Adelstein one less enemy to worry about - for the time being. But as he puts his life back together, he discovers that he may be no match for his greatest enemy - himself. And Adelstein has a different gig these days- due-diligence work, or using his investigative skills to dig up information on entities whose bosses would prefer that some things stay hidden. The underworld isn't what it used to be. Underneath layers of paperwork, corporations are thinly veiled fronts for the yakuza. Pachinko parlours are a hidden battleground between disenfranchised Japanese Koreans and North Korean extortion plots. TEPCO, the electric power corporation keeping the lights on for all of Tokyo, scrambles to hide its willful oversights that ultimately led to the 2011 Fukushima meltdown. And the Japanese government shows levels of corruption that make the yakuza look like philanthropists in comparison. All this is punctuated by personal tragedies no one could have seen coming. In this ambitious and riveting work, Jake Adelstein explores what it's like when you're in too deep to distinguish the story you chase from the life you live. 'Journalist Adelstein follows up The Last Yakuza with another illuminating blend of memoir and reportage ... As always, the author's ability to boil down Japan's complex sociopolitical dynamics in sharp, often-humorous prose impresses ... For true crime fans, this is a treat.' - Publishers Weekly Praise for The Last Yakuza - 'Journalist Adelstein parlays decades of reporting on Japanese organised crime into a propulsive history of the yakuza. Drawing on interviews with both his yakuza and Japanese law enforcement contacts, he examines how yakuza groups obtained power ... He's especially good at tracing the yakuza's political influence in Japan, explaining how they bribed and blackmailed legislators into opposing bills that would have curbed their influence. Painstakingly reported and paced like a thriller, this is a must read for anyone interested in organised crime.' - Publishers Weekly Praise for Tokyo Vice - ' Tokyo Vice is about Japanese subculture. Adelstein instructs us in the vagaries of Japanese journalism and provides a gamy, colourful tour of the morally flexible areas of Japan, particularly in Tokyo. He also shows how Japanese police work and interact with journalists. Adelstein shares juicy, salty, and occasionally funny anecdotes, but many are frightening ... Adelstein doesn't lack for self-confidence ... but beneath the bravado are a big heart and a relentless drive for justice.' -Carlo Wolff, The Boston Globe

Renowned investigative journalist Richard Behar delivers the definitive account of history’s largest—and longest-running—financial fraud, “the scale of the deception…beggars belief” ( New York Post ). Some $68 billion evaporated during Bernie Madoff’s epic confidence game. Two people were driven to suicide in the wake of the Ponzi Scheme’s exposure. Others went to prison. But there has never been a satisfying accounting for how Bernie got away with so much, for so long. Until now. Richard Behar’s relationship with Madoff began in 2011 with a simple email request from the conman. By the time Madoff died in 2021, he had sent Behar more than 300 emails and dozens of handwritten letters, participated in some fifty phone conversations, and sat for three in-person jailhouse interviews—a level of access provided to no other reporter. Behar also established relationships with hundreds of regulators, prosecutors, FBI agents, investors, Wall Street experts, ex-employees of Madoff’s, family members, school classmates, and others. The result is the final word on the criminal behind history’s most enduring fraud—and on those who believed him, covered for him, or locked him up. Behar illuminates not only the fraud’s origins—decades earlier than Madoff claimed in his confession—but also the complicity of investors, Wall Street insiders, family members, and some of the largest banks in the US and Europe. Shocking, infuriating, riveting (and at times absurdly funny), Madoff shows us how Bernie ensnared thousands of investors. As Behar’s dogged reporting over the last fifteen years makes clear, however, there aren’t many innocents left standing by the end of this tale. Just about everyone involved is guilty, at a minimum, of humanity’s most consistent weakness: greed.

Following on from Noam Chomsky's bestselling September 11 , this hard-hitting book presents the most up-to-date thinking on war, terrorism and the new global order by one of America's most articulate historians and a high profile defender of civil rights.

Americans rank crime among the most urgent of social concerns. Overflowing prisons and public outcry have led many to propose that the criminal justice system could control crime more effectively by focusing on dangerous offenders. Recent social studies have suggested that serious criminality is highly concentrated and that high-rate offenders can be distinguished from others on the basis of prior criminal conduct, drug abuse, and employment record. Such studies urge judges to shift from rehabilitative sentencing to selective incapacitation, with longer prison sentences for convicted criminals who are deemed unusually dangerous. In response to these recommendations, some prosecutors' offices have established career criminal units designed to assure that repeat offenders will be prosecuted to the full measure of the law. Some police departments are experimenting with "perpetrator-oriented patrols" targeted on suspected high-rate offenders. The authors of this major book in criminal jurisprudence describe and analyze the intellectual and social challenge posed to public officials by this new thrust in criminal justice policy. They develop a framework for evaluating policies that focus on dangerous offenders. They first examine the general issues that arise as society considers the benefits and risks of concentrating on a particular category of criminals. They then outline how that approach might work at each stage of the criminal justice system--sentencing, pretrial detention, prosecution, and investigation. This cogently argued book provides much needed guidance on the crucial questions of whether sharpened attention to dangerous offenders is just, whether such a policy can be effective in managing the problem of crime, which applications seem particularly valuable, what the long-term risks to social institutions are, and what uncertainties must be monitored and resolved as the policy evolves.

Bobby Comfort wanted to be a good something. He turned out to be a great criminal.January 2nd, 1972: Men in tuxedos rob the Pierre, a New York hotel. They get away with $11 million worth of cash and jewelry. The police are baffled by how large-scale a heist could go off so smoothly.The answer was in the leader of the thieves, a man by the name of Bobby Comfort.Comfort took to crime from a young age, card sharping, petty theft, and eventually robbery. Taking money from the rich, though, was where he excelled. Like Robin Hood (only keeping the loot himself), Comfort masterminded what was, at the time, the most lucrative heist in history.Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ira Berkow chronicles the crime, using first-hand accounts to weave together a ripping cops-and-robbers yarn, and a portrait of a truly American rogue.

The international bestseller The New York Times called "a gripping synthesis of philosophy and reportage," Lévy's undercover investigation into the gruesome killing of journalist Daniel Pearl leads to stunning revelations about Pakistan's secret nuclear arms trading.

A newly revised and expanded edition of Dr. Lewis Yablonsky's classic study of violent urban gangs. Drawing on "live research" gathered while he was director of community crime-prevention program Yablonsky traces the "natural history" of two infamous New York City gangs. In their own words gang members tell why they murdered a fifteen-year-old polio victim and describe patterns of gang organization, leadership, alliances, warfare, and violence. Yablonsky also discusses programs for dealing with such groups and offers a new plan for gang control. In his introduction to his new edition, Dr. Yablonsky outlines significant parallels between the activities of teen-age gangs and the rebellious behavior of many of today's young people. There is also a new and vital chapter in the "patters of violence" that plague contemporary society. "... a model of powerful and incisive writing in the field of sociology.... An important and immensely useful work." - Los Angeles Times

In 1988, in what was probably one of the last trials of a Nazi war criminal and the first of such trials to take place in France, Klaus Barbie, the notorious "Butcher of Lyon", was found guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison. Yet despite the memories stirred, despite the verdict, to Alain Finkielkraut the trial was a moral failure. In Remembering in Vain, Finkielkraut maintains that the Barbie trial attests to the failure of international society to take responsibility for criminals of state. Trying Barbie not only for actions against Jews but also for actions against the Resistance―actions heretofore considered war crimes, on which the statute of limitations had run out―blurred the definition of crimes against humanity. Finkielkraut finds most disturbing how seriously taken were the arguments of the defence. By manipulating the guilty conscience of the West, Barbie's Vietnamese-French, Congolese, and Algerian lawyers became accusers, disputing the special significance of the Holocaust and portraying nearly everyone as a Nazi―except the former Nazi himself. Finkielkraut points to the ultimate irony of this Third World defense of a Nazi.

Why young people participate in violent gang behavior The effects of gang violence are witnessed every day on the streets, in the news, and on the movie screen. In all these forums, gangs of young adults are associated with drugs and violence. Yet what is it that prompts young people to participate in violent behavior? And what can be done to extract adolescents from the gangster world of crime, death, and incarceration once they have become involved? In Gangsters: 50 Years of Madness, Drugs, and Death on the Streets of America , Lewis Yablonsky provides answers to the most baffling and crucial questions regarding gangs. Using information gathered from over forty years of experience working with gang members and based on hundreds of personal interviews, many conducted in prisons and in gang neighborhoods, Yablonsky explores the pathology of the gangsters' apparent addiction to incarceration and death. Gangsters is divided into four parts, including a brief history of gangs, the characteristics of gangs, successful approaches for treating gangsters in prison and the community, and concluding with a review and analysis of notable behavioral and social scientific theories of gangs. While condemning their violent behavior in no uncertain terms, Yablonsky offers hope through his belief that, given a chance in an effective treatment program, youths trapped in violent behavior can change their lives in positive ways and, in turn, facilitate positive change in their communities and society at large.

Show business junkies, magic fans and lovers of the variety arts, put your hands on your wallets and read on. Cutting Up Touches is the first book ever written on the history of exhibition pickpocketing. This specialty act features dynamic performers who deftly steal watches and wallets - even neckties and belts from unsuspecting volunteers. F.D.R., J. Edgar Hoover, Pierce Brosnan and Michael Douglas are some of the many celebrities and political figures who've found their pockets emptied by these light-fingered showmen. David Avadon, one of the smoothest pickpockets in the country, unveils the rich history of this fascinating entertainment from its music hall beginnings to the largest showrooms in the world. He explores the powerful subliminal emotions touched by each act of theatrical theivery. This street crime turned performance art is unique among all entertainments. It is the human-to-human activity which most closely resembles bull fighting. Avadon puts the reader wise to the wires, dips and cannons of the street corner variety then, in elegant prose, limns the masters of stealing on stage: Dr. Giovanni, Borra, Dominique and many, many more. Illustrated with photos, playbills and posters, many published here for the first time.

It was the summer of '81 and the brokers at the shabby offices of Bache & Co. couldn't have been happier: After years of their business being tainted by one scandal after another, the beleaguered firm was being purchased by one of America's most respected institutions, Prudential Insurance. Soon rechristened as Prudential-Bache Securities, the brokerage firm would continued the trust needed to attract thousands of new investors eager to put their savings into rock-solid investments. Yet as billions of dollars began pouring in from around the country, Pru-Bache executives and their outside sponsors of investment deals were secretly eating into the very cash Pru-Bache was supposed to be protecting - and indeed growing - for their customers. As their brokers were touting financially shaky limited partnership deals as safe and solid investments, everyone from elderly retirees to sophisticated investors was being duped, with hundreds of thousands of them losing their homes, their retirement funds, or massive chunks of their savings. Meanwhile, executives at Pru-Bache and their colleagues were enjoying lavish party vacations, exorbitant personal gifts, and business trips aboard ships like the QE2 - all paid for by the investor capital with which they were entrusted. By the time regulators could pin anything on Pru-Bache, what began as the comeback story of the '80s had become the most destructive scandal Wall Street had ever known. In Serpent on the Rock, award-winning reporter Kurt Eichenwald, who investigated the scandal for the New York Times, tells the whole devastating story of the rot behind the dignified facade of Wall Street. With intricate detail of the crimes and lies behind the "rock-solid" image, Eichenwald re-creates the colorful characters who were the primary enablers of the massive scandal the company is still reeling from today.

An illustrated & informative history of the beginnings of organized crime as originally printed in the best-selling trading card set. This book contains all the art & the complete text of series one of the controversial trading cards.

A true crime story with a fascinating psychic twist, it began oneght when club owner Mickey McCann, the go-go girl who lived with him, and McCann's elderly mother, were found shot to death in McCann's home. One month later Claudia Elaine Yasko confessed to the most explosive murder case in the history of Columbus, Ohio. After three years of research, Keyes (The Minds of Billy Milligan, Flowers for Algernon) provides the answers.