Little William "Billy" Ranieri was abducted one day in September 1928, while he was on his way from school to his Northwest Chicago home. The youth was later able to provide eyewitness testimony against his kidnappers. The Sicilian boy was held by several men who worked in association with a former employee of Billy's father. Alex Frank Ranieri was a wealthy sewer contractor. Soon after learning about his son's abduction he began working on his own...

Jimmy Hoffa, formerly Teamsters Union President, disappeared suddenly without a trace in the summer of 1975. My e-book looks at the circumstances of this event and points an accusing finger at two men, one of them a mobster who was based in Detroit, Michigan. The Federal Bureau of Investigation believes that Hoffa was killed by men who were flown in from outside Michigan to eliminate Hoffa. One of the men who was instrumental in Hoffa's disappearance/demise...

I believe that the successful plot to murder President John F. Kennedy took shape in New Orleans during the summer of 1963. It was then that W. Guy Banister ran a detective office where malcontents, right wingers and perhaps left wing radicals also frequented. Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged Presidential assassin, was certainly one of the individuals who worked out of Banister's Camp Street address. Oswald was either a confirmed left winger or was...

Started by Italian brothers from North Denver, the high-profile Smaldone crime syndicate began in the bootlegging days of the 1920s and flourished into the 1980s. Connected to notorious crime figures, politicians, and presidents, Clyde Smaldone was the crime family's leader. Through candid interviews and firsthand accounts, Dick Kreck reveals the true sense of what it meant to be a Smaldone, not only the corrupt but also the virtuous.Dick Kreck retired...

"Chris Thrall left the Royal Marines to find his fortune in Hong Kong, but instead found himself homeless and addicted to crystal meth. Soon he began working for the 14K, Hong Kong's largest crime family, in the Wanchai red-light district. Dealing with the 'foreign triad' - a secretive expat clique connected to the Chinese mafia - he had to survive in the world's most unforgiving city, addicted to the world's most dangerous drug."--

"Get a taste of New York's underworld by seeing where mobsters lived, worked, ate, played, and died. From the Bowery Boys and the Five Points Gang through the rise of the Jewish "Kosher Nostra" and the ascendance of the Italian Mafia, mobsters have played a major role in the city's history, lurking just around the corner or inside that nondescript building. Bill "the Butcher" Poole, Paul Kelly, Monk Eastman, "Lucky" Luciano, Carlo Gambino, Meyer Lansky,...

The Almanac of World Crime chronicles the exploits of the underworld-murder, robbery, arson, torture, rape, kidnapping, extortion, and blackmail, to name only a few-and takes the reader on an iniquitous tour of the world's gambling halls, dope parlors, cathouses, and clip joints. Everything from the devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius and Mount Pelée to the looting during the Black Plague is featured in these pages. Here are the stories of some...

"One of our most engaging crime journalists. --Katherine Ramsland True Love Kills In the midst of Pennsylvania's Amish country, on a peaceful summer night in 2008, the body of 45-year-old Jan Roseboro was found at the bottom of her backyard pool. Her husband Michael, a successful businessman and member of a prominent family, showed no emotion as he learned of her death. But the next day an autopsy revealed Jan had been savagely beaten and strangled...

In September 1970, two boys met in the playground on their first day at secondary school in North London. They formed what would be described at the Old Bailey thirty years later as 'a unique and wicked bond'. Between 1982 and 1986, striking near lonely railway stations in London and the Home Counties, their partnership took them from rape to murder. Three police forces pooled their resources to catch them. It was the biggest criminal manhunt since...

"A Two Time Widow Leading A Double Life Miriam Giles ran away to Colorado to bury her violent pastbut this seductive, charismatic widow had a dark side that could never stay buried. After finding the "sugar daddy" she was looking for in Alan Helmick, her new marriage seemed happy. Then, two years later, Alan met a gruesome fate. Returning home from errands, Miriam found him lying in a pool of blood. Miriam showed police a cryptic note warning her...