Tag: True Crime

AUDIBLE Deal of the Day 🎧 Catch Me If You Can

A new deal every day from Audible. Today’s deal ends 01/23/2018 @ 11:59PM PT.

Catch Me If You Can by Frank W. Abagnale

Over 1,300 5-Star Reviews!

Frank W. Abagnale was one of the most daring con men, forgers, imposters, and escape artists in history. In his brief but notorious criminal career, Abagnale donned a pilot’s uniform and copiloted a Pan Am jet, masqueraded as the supervising resident of a hospital, practiced law without a license, and cashed over $2.5 million in forged checks, all before he was twenty-one.

Known by the police of twenty-six foreign countries and all fifty states as ‘The Skywayman,’ Abagnale lived a sumptuous life on the lam — until the law caught up with him. Now recognized as the nation’s leading authority on financial foul play, Abagnale was a charming rogue whose hilarious, stranger-than-fiction international escapades, and ingenious escapes — including one from an airplane — make Catch Me If You Can an irresistible tale of deceit.

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January 23, 2018
Book of the Day: Ghettoside

Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America
by Jill Leovy

⭐⭐⭐ TODAY ONLY ⭐⭐⭐
Over 400 5-Star Reviews!

A masterly work of literary journalism about a senseless murder, a relentless detective, and the great plague of homicide in America.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • The Washington Post • The Boston Globe • The Economist • The Globe and Mail • BookPage

On a warm spring evening in South Los Angeles, a young man is shot and killed on a sidewalk minutes away from his home, one of the thousands of black Americans murdered that year. His assailant runs down the street, jumps into an SUV, and vanishes, hoping to join the scores of killers in American cities who are never arrested for their crimes.

But as soon as the case is assigned to Detective John Skaggs, the odds shift.

Here is the kaleidoscopic story of the quintessential, but mostly ignored, American murder—a “ghettoside” killing, one young black man slaying another—and a brilliant and driven cadre of detectives whose creed is to pursue justice for forgotten victims at all costs. Ghettoside is a fast-paced narrative of a devastating crime, an intimate portrait of detectives and a community bonded in tragedy, and a surprising new lens into the great subject of why murder happens in our cities—and how the epidemic of killings might yet be stopped.

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January 12, 2018
AUDIBLE Deal of the Day 🎧 City of Light, City of Poison

A new deal every day from Audible. Today’s deal ends 01/04/2018 @ 11:59PM PT.

City of Light, City of Poison: Murder, Magic, and the First Police Chief of Paris
by Holly Tucker

Appointed to conquer the "crime capital of the world", the first police chief of Paris faces an epidemic of murder in the late 1600s. Assigned by Louis XIV, Nicolas de La Reynie begins by clearing the streets of filth and installing lanterns throughout Paris, turning it into the City of Light.

The fearless La Reynie pursues criminals through the labyrinthine neighborhoods of the city. He unearths a tightly knit cabal of poisoners, witches, and renegade priests. As he exposes their unholy work, he soon learns that no one is safe from black magic – not even the Sun King. In a world where a royal glance can turn success into disgrace, the distance between the quietly back-stabbing world of the king’s court and the criminal underground proves disturbingly short. Nobles settle scores by employing witches to craft poisons and by hiring priests to perform dark rituals in Paris’ most illustrious churches and cathedrals.

As La Reynie continues his investigations, he is haunted by a single question: could Louis’ mistresses be involved in such nefarious plots? The pragmatic and principled La Reynie must decide just how far he will go to protect his king.

From secret courtrooms to torture chambers, City of Light, City of Poison is a gripping true-crime tale of deception and murder. Based on thousands of pages of court transcripts and La Reynie’s compulsive note taking, as well as on letters and diaries, Tucker’s riveting narrative makes the fascinating, real-life characters breathe and live.

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January 4, 2018
Book of the Day: A Criminal Injustice

A Criminal Injustice: A True Crime, a False Confession, and the Fight to Free Marty Tankleff
by Richard Firstman, Jay Salpeter

When he went to bed on the night of September 6, 1988, seventeen-year-old Marty Tankleff was a typical kid in upscale Long Island. He was looking forward to starting his senior year at Vandermeulen High School the next day. But instead, Marty woke in the morning to find his parents brutally bludgeoned, their throats slashed. His mother, Arlene, was dead. His father, Seymour, was barely alive and would die a month later.

With remarkable self-possession, Marty called 911 to summon help. And when homicide detective James McCready arrived on the scene an hour later, Marty told him he believed he knew who was responsible: Jerry Steuerman, his father’s business partner. Steuerman owed Seymour more than half a million dollars, had recently threatened him, and had been the last to leave a high-stakes poker game at the Tankleffs’ home the night before. However, McCready inexplicably dismissed Steuerman as a suspect. Instead, he fastened on Marty as the prime suspect–indeed, his only one.

Before the day was out, the police announced that Marty had confessed to the crimes. But Marty insisted the confession was fabricated by the police. And a week later, Steuerman faked his own death and fled to California under an alias. Yet the police and prosecutors remained fixated on Marty–and two years later, he was convicted on murder charges and sentenced to fifty years in prison.

But Marty’s unbelievable odyssey was just beginning…

As gripping as a Grisham novel, A Criminal Injustice is the story of an innocent man’s tenacious fight for freedom, an investigator’s dogged search for the truth. It is a searing indictment of justice in America.

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November 12, 2017

Wednesday’s Free & Bargain Kindle Book Deals

Thriller, Romance, Nonfiction, Fantasy, Paranormal, Contemporary Fiction, True Crime… today’s featured books have a little something for everyone!

Like what you see? Got friends who like to read? Use Facebook to SHARE Pixel of Ink and share the joy!

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Tom Clancy Commander in Chief (A Jack Ryan Novel Book 16)

This electrifying thriller in the #1 New York Times bestselling series has President Jack Ryan and his allies facing a treacherous foe threatening to unleash chaos around the globe…

When Russian President Valeri Volodin’s ambitions are foiled in Dagestan, he faces a difficult choice. The oligarchs who support him expect a constant flow of graft, but with energy prices cratering, the Russian economy sputters to a virtual halt. Unable to grow the Russian market at home, his hold on power relies on expansion abroad—a plan that has been thwarted by the United States in the past.

But this time Volodin has determined that an indirect approach is the best. A floating natural gas facility in Lithuania is blown up. A Venezuelan prosecutor is assassinated. A devastating attack on a Russian troop train kills dozens. A chaotic world is the best camouflage for a series of seemingly unrelated attacks.

Only one man recognizes an ominous pattern in the reports of terror from around the globe. U.S. President Jack Ryan sees a guiding hand in the worldwide chaos, but before he can act he needs proof…

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📚 2-Books-in-1 📚

Country Bride by Debbie Macomber

Luke Rivers is a man of his word.

He agrees to marry Kate Logan when she foolishly proposes to him—after one glass of champagne too many—at her former fiancé’s wedding reception. And Luke, stubborn rancher that he is, refuses to renege on his promise.

Kate was devastated when the man she’d always loved married another woman, a newcomer to their Oregon town. But now, not only does Luke refuse to break their engagement, he insists that Kate doesn’t love Clay—she actually loves him!

Woodrose Mountain by RaeAnne Thayne

Brodie Thorne is a man who knows what he wants.

And that’s Evie Blanchard, a physical therapist from LA who recently moved to Hope’s Crossing, Colorado. He wants her to work with his injured daughter, Taryn. A wealthy, self-made man, Brodie will do anything to get Taryn the rehab she needs—and that includes convincing the reluctant Evie to move in with them.

Despite her vow to keep an emotional distance between them, Evie starts to fall for Brodie’s adorable little girl…and for Brodie himself.

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Honor Bound: My Journey to Hell and Back with Amanda Knox

They were accused of one of the most infamous murders of our time.

Targeted by the media, sentenced by the courts, and wrongfully imprisoned for four excruciating years for a crime neither could fathom let alone perpetrate, Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox were the victims in a trial so bizarre it defied all reason. Now, for the first time since his acquittal, Raffaele reveals what really happened between him and his then girlfriend before, during, and after Amanda’s roommate Meredith Kercher’s brutal murder.

Filled with family drama, wild reversals of fortune, and a blow-by-blow account of the legal catastrophe as it unfolded, this harrowing firsthand account sheds fascinating new light on one of the world’s most controversial murder cases. With startling candor, Raffaele shares intimate details about his changing relationship with Amanda—one that veered in a matter of days from giddy romance to grueling police interrogations. Over the next four years, Raffaele was the only solid alibi Amanda had for the night of the murder. He came under unrelenting pressure—from his own family and lawyers as much as the police and prosecution—to change his testimony and stop vouching for her. But he wouldn’t do it. He refused to testify against her to save his own skin, because he knew she would be lost forever.

Emotional, disturbing, and ultimately galvanizing, this memoir is more than a true-crime story—it is a riveting account of an egregious miscarriage of justice, of public condemnation, and personal survival. Honor Bound is also, at its heart, a tragic love story about a young man who trusted his feelings, refused to give up hope, and ultimately triumphed.

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Magic Hunter (The Vampire's Mage Series Book 1)

Rosalind lives for the hunt. Now she might die for it.

Rosalind’s mission is simple: hunt demons and mages. As a member of the Brotherhood, she’s dedicated to protecting the world from dark magic. Someone’s got to stop the supernatural bloodlust—even if it means getting up close and personal with vamps.

Everything’s going to plan until she meets Caine, a powerful dark mage. He’s scary as hell and just as sexy. Worse, he’s brought her a warning: rumors are spreading that Rosalind is a mage, too.

Now, the Hunters have chosen their next target—and it’s her.

To save her own life, Rosalind must form an uneasy alliance with Caine, traveling with him to the vampire world.

But what if the rumors about her are true? If she can’t figure out who to trust, and fast, she’ll be exiled to the realm of the very monsters she once hunted.

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With 1968, Mark Kurlansky brings to life the cultural and political history of that world-changing year of social upheaval.

People think of it as the year of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Yet it was also the year of the Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy assassinations; the riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago; Prague Spring; the antiwar movement and the Tet Offensive; Black Power; the generation gap, avant-garde theater, the birth of the women’s movement, and the beginning of the end for the Soviet Union.

Everything was disrupted. In the Middle East, Yasir Arafat’s guerilla organization rose to prominence… the Kentucky Derby winner was stripped of the crown for drug use… the Olympics were a disaster, with the Mexican government having massacred hundreds of students protesting police brutality there… and the Miss America pageant was stormed by feminists carrying banners that introduced to the television-watching public the phrase “women’s liberation.”

Kurlansky shows how the coming of live television made 1968 the first global year. It was the year that an amazed world watched the first live telecast from outer space, and that TV news expanded to half an hour. For the first time, Americans watched that day’s battle–the Vietnam War’s Tet Offensive–on the evening news.

Mark Kurlansky shows how, in 1968, twelve volatile months transformed who we are as a people. But above all, he gives a new understanding to the underlying causes of the unique historical phenomenon that was the year 1968.

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Zombies: A Record of the Year of Infection

Taking the form of a biologist’s illustrated journal found in the aftermath of the attack, this pulse-pounding, suspenseful tale of zombie apocalypse follows the narrator as he flees from city to countryside and heads north to Canada, where he hopes the undead will be slowed by the colder climate.

Encountering scattered humans and scores of the infected along the way, he fills his notebook with graphic drawings of the zombies and careful observations of their behavior, along with terrifying tales of survival. This frightening new contribution to the massively popular zombie resurgence will keep fans on the edge of their seats right up to the very end.

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Over 800 5-Star Reviews!

Buddhism is all about training the mind, and boot camp is an ideal training method for this generation’s short attention span. The chapters in this small book can be read in any order, and are simple and easy to understand. Each story, inspirational quote, and teaching offers mindfulness-enhancing techniques that anyone can relate to. You don’t need to be a Buddhist to find the Buddha’s teachings motivational. As the Dalai Lama says, "Don’t try to use what you learn from Buddhism to be a Buddhist; use it to be a better whatever-you-already-are."

So whether it’s Mother Teresa’s acts of charity, Gandhi’s perseverance, or your aunt Betty’s calm demeanor, as long as you’re motivated to be better today than you were yesterday, it doesn’t matter who inspires you. Regardless of religion, geographical region, race, ethnicity, color, gender, sexual orientation, age, ability, flexibility, or vulnerability, if you do good you feel good, and if you do bad you feel bad.

Buddhism isn’t just about meditating. It’s about rolling up your sleeves to relieve some of the suffering in the world. If you are ready to be a soldier of peace in the army of love, welcome to Buddhist Boot Camp!

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Neanderthal Seeks Human (Knitting in the City Book 1)

There are three things you need to know about Janie Morris: 1) She is incapable of engaging in a conversation without volunteering TMTI (Too Much Trivial Information), especially when she is unnerved, 2) No one unnerves her more than Quinn Sullivan, and 3) She doesn’t know how to knit.

After losing her boyfriend, apartment, and job in the same day, Janie Morris can’t help wondering what new torment fate has in store. To her utter mortification, Quinn Sullivan- aka Sir McHotpants- witnesses it all then keeps turning up like a pair of shoes you lust after but can’t afford. The last thing she expects is for Quinn- the focus of her slightly, albeit harmless, stalkerish tendencies- to make her an offer she can’t refuse.

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Russian Hill: CC Trilogy Book 1 (Abby Kane FBI Thriller 3)

In the first book of the thrilling Chasing Chinatown trilogy, a killer is loose in San Francisco, and he’s collecting body parts.

SFPD has no witnesses and no suspects, but FBI Agent Abby Kane believes a dead hiker found ten miles north of the city is the key to solving those crimes.

The detective involved with the case thinks Abby might be chasing a ghost down a rabbit hole, but the more Abby digs, the more she begins to think the killer is playing an elaborate game and there’s an audience cheering him on.

In order to catch him, she must do the unthinkable: join the game…

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November 1, 2017

Book of the Day: Evidence of Love – A True Story

Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs by John Bloom, Jim Atkinson

Edgar Award Finalist: The “sensational” true story of two desperate housewives and the killing that shocked a Texas community (LA Times Book Review).

Candy Montgomery and Betty Gore had a lot in common: They sang together in the Methodist church choir, their daughters were best friends, and their husbands had good jobs working for technology companies in the north Dallas suburbs known as Silicon Prairie. But beneath the placid surface of their seemingly perfect lives, both women simmered with unspoken frustrations and unanswered desires.

On a hot summer day in 1980, the secret passions and jealousies that linked Candy and Betty exploded into murderous rage. What happened next is usually the stuff of fiction. But the bizarre and terrible act of violence that occurred in Betty’s utility room that morning was all too real.

Based on exclusive interviews with the Gore and Montgomery families, Evidence of Love is the “superbly written” account of a gruesome tragedy and the trial that made national headlines when the defendant entered the most unexpected of pleas: not guilty by reason of self-defense…

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September 9, 2017
AUDIBLE Deal of the Day 🎧 Why They Do It: Inside the Mind of the White-Collar Criminal

A new deal every day from Audible. Today’s deal ends 08/20/2017 @ 11:59PM PT.

Why They Do It: Inside the Mind of the White-Collar Criminal by Eugene Soltes

Rarely does a week go by without a well-known executive being indicted for engaging in a white-collar crime. Perplexed as to what drives successful, wealthy people to risk it all, Harvard Business School professor Eugene Soltes spent seven years in the company of the men behind the largest corporate crimes in history – from the financial fraudsters of Enron, to the embezzlers at Tyco, to the Ponzi schemers Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford.

Soltes refutes popular explanations of why seemingly successful executives engage in crime. White-collar criminals, he shows, are not merely driven by excessive greed or hubris, nor do they usually carefully calculate the costs and benefits before breaking the law. Instead, he shows that most of these executives make decisions the way we all do – on the basis of their intuitions and gut feelings.

Based on extensive interaction with nearly 50 former executives, Soltes provides insights into why some saw the immediate effects of misconduct as positive, why executives often don’t feel the emotions most people would expect, and how acceptable norms in the business community can differ from those of the broader society.

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August 20, 2017
AUDIBLE Deal of the Day 🎧 Scores

A new deal every day from Audible. Today’s deal ends 07/30/2017 @ 11:59PM PT.

Scores: How I Opened the Hottest Strip Club in New York City, Was Extorted out of Millions by the Gambino Family, and Became One of the Most Successful Mafia Informants in FBI History by Michael D. Blutrich

Meet Michael Blutrich, mild-mannered New York lawyer and founder of Scores, the hottest strip club in New York City history, funded by the proceeds of an insurance embezzlement scheme…

All Blutrich wanted was to lay low, make the club a success, and put his criminal acts behind him. But the Mafia got involved, and soon the FBI came knocking.

Scores became wildly popular, in part thanks to Blutrich’s ability to successfully bend the rules of adult entertainment. It was the first club in Manhattan to feature lap dancing by ignoring existing requirements. He also sidestepped statutes requiring topless dancers to wear pasties. His formula worked, and Scores grew into the hottest club in Manhattan, frequented by sports superstars, Oscar-winning actors, television icons, Grammy-winning singers, and political notables alike.

Unfortunately for Blutrich, it would all soon implode.

Scores was located in a neighborhood controlled by the Gambino crime family, and it became a hotbed for illicit mob activity, culminating in a double murder of two of his employees. When federal prosecutors started sniffing around for potential crimes, he went from carefree club owner to undercover spy in a heartbeat.

To obtain maximum leniency for his insurance fraud, Blutrich became an unlikely but highly successful undercover FBI informant. He wore body wires and placed ceiling cameras in his offices, and he was eventually credited with more than 30 Mafia convictions, including a crime-family head and associates from multiple international families.

For his cooperation, the Department of Justice and the FBI assured him he would avoid any significant jail time – or so they said.

Here, Blutrich tells it all: recording armed gangsters in the act of committing felonies, stealthily evading discovery, living with death threats, revealing long-covered-up celebrity doings, enduring a psychotic break from the pressures, and losing everything in his life in the name of earning redemption.

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July 30, 2017
AUDIBLE Deal of the Day 🎧 Dead Run

A new deal every day from Audible. Today’s deal ends 06/27/2017 @ 11:59PM PT.

Dead Run: The Murder of a Lawman and the Greatest Manhunt of the Modern American West by Dan Schultz

Over 100 5-Star Reviews!

On a sunny May morning in 1998 in Cortez, Colorado, three desperados in a stolen truck opened fire on the town cop, shooting him 20 times; then they blasted their way past dozens of police cars and disappeared into 10,000 square miles of the harshest wilderness terrain on the North American continent.

Self-trained survivalists, the outlaws eluded the most sophisticated law enforcement technology on the planet and a pursuit force that represented more than 75 local, state, and federal police agencies with dozens of SWAT teams, U.S. Army Special Forces, and more than 500 officers from across the country.

This is the first in-depth account of this sensational case, replete with overbearing local sheriffs, Native American trackers, posses on horseback, suspicion of vigilante justice and police cover-ups, and the blunders of the nation’s most exalted crime fighters pursuing outlaws into territory in which only they could survive.

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June 27, 2017
AUDIBLE Deal of the Day 🎧 Go Down Together

A new deal every day from Audible. Today’s deal ends 06/11/2017 @ 11:59PM PT.

Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde by Jeff Guinn

⭐ Over 200 5-Star Reviews ⭐

Forget everything you think you know about Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. Previous books and films, including the brilliant 1967 movie starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, have emphasized the supposed glamour of America’s most notorious criminal couple, thus contributing to ongoing mythology. The real story is completely different — and far more fascinating.

In Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde, bestselling author Jeff Guinn combines exhaustive research with surprising, newly discovered material to tell the real tale of two kids from a filthy Dallas slum who fell in love and then willingly traded their lives for a brief interlude of excitement and, more important, fame…

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June 11, 2017