True Story Books

Discover the fullest possible account of the crimes of the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, including those he was not charged with and has never previously been connected to… The police believed Sutcliffe was operating only in the Greater Manchester Police, South Yorkshire Police and West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police force areas, using his car. In fact, Sutcliffe was operating nationally and internationally, using his employer’s lorry to commit attacks. Authors Chris Clark and Tim Hicks have meticulously researched Sutcliffe’s crimes and reveal many of his previously unknown victims for the first time.  The police failed to deliver justice for the victims’ families, and the media has failed to hold the police to account for this failure – both in the original investigation and in subsequent cold-case investigations.    By bringing more of the facts of the case into the public domain and by telling the victims’ stories, this book helps to bring closure for friends and relatives of victims of the Yorkshire Ripper. Product Information:  • ISBN: 9781802472042 • Author: Chris Clark & Tim Hicks • Publisher: Ad Lib Publishers Ltd • Format: Paperback • Pages: 240 • Dimensions: 19.8 x 12.1 x 1.5 cm

US President John F. Kennedy's killing in Dallas, Texas, in November 1963, sent a shockwave around the world. The charismatic young Democrat was seen as a beacon of hope in the West, but his liberal reforming policies had made him many powerful enemies at home. For sixty years, numerous theories have swirled around this key event in American - and world - history. Yet whatever the conclusions of the official Warren Report - that the President had been assassinated by a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald - many people doubt that to be true. Indeed, President Nixon later admitted on tape that the report was 'a hoax committed on the American people.' John Hughes-Wilson, a former colonel in British Intelligence, has sifted through the millions of words and thousands of pieces of evidence, to put together an intelligence assessment of what really happened that dreadful high noon in Dallas in 1963. Reading this astounding book, no one can be in any doubt that JFK's death was not at the hands of a lone deranged gunman, but a deadly plot to remove a President who threatened vested interests at home and abroad.  Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781789467376 • Author:  John Hughes-Wilson • Publisher:  John Blake • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  368 • Dimensions: 12.9 x 2.1 x 19.8 cm   

How does it feel to be betrayed by your closest friend? A close friend who turns out to be the most prolific grifter in New York City... This is the true story of Anna Delvey (real name Anna Sorokin), the fake heiress whose dizzying deceit and elaborate con-artistry deceived the Soho hipster scene before her ruse was finally and dramatically exposed. After meeting through mutual friends, the 'Russian heiress' Anna Delvey and Rachel DeLoache Williams soon became inseparable. Theirs was an intoxicating world of endless excess: high dining, personal trainer sessions, a luxury holiday... and Anna footed almost every bill. But after Anna's debit card was declined in a Moroccan medina whilst on holiday in a five-star luxury resort, Rachel began to suspect that her increasingly mysterious friend was not all she seemed. This is the incredible story of how Anna Sorokin conned the high-rollers of the NYC social scene and convinced her close friend of an entirely concocted fantasy, the product of falsified bank documents, bad cheques and carefully edited online photos. Written by Rachel DeLoache Williams, the Vanity Fair photography editor who believed Anna's lies before helping the police to track her down (fittingly, deciphering Anna's location using Instagram), this is Catch Me If You Can with Instagram filters. Between Anna, Fyre Festival's Billy McFarland (Anna even tried to scam Billy) and Elizabeth Holmes, whose start-up app duped the high and mighty of Silicon Valley, this is the year of the scammer.  Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781787478305 • Author:  Rachel DeLoache Williams  • Publisher:  Quercus • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  304 • Dimensions: 19.2 x 2 x 12.8 cm

The Boy Who Drew Auschwitz presents a rare living testimony through the eyes of a child who had the unique ability to observe and remember every detail around him and chose to document it all. Thomas Geve was just 15 years old when he was liberated from Buchenwald concentration camp on 11 April 1945. It was the third concentration camp he had survived. Upon arrival at Auschwitz- Birkenau, Thomas was separated from his mother and left to fend for himself in the men’s camp of Auschwitz I, at the age of 13. During the 22 months he was imprisoned, he was subjected to, and forced to observe first-hand, the inhumane world of Nazi concentration camps. On his eventual release Thomas felt compelled to capture daily life in the death camps in more than eighty profoundly moving drawings. Infamous scenarios synonymous with this dark period of history were portrayed in poignant but simplistic detail with extraordinary accuracy. Despite the unspeakable events he experienced, Thomas decided to become an active witness and tell the truth about life in the camps. He has spoken to audiences from around the world and continues to raise awareness about the Holocaust.  Product Information:  • ISBN:  9780008406394 • Author:  Thomas Geve • Publisher:  HarperCollins • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  352 • Dimensions: 12.9 x 2.7 x 19.8 cm

Louise gets a frantic call to take in a damaged and destructive young girl. Separated from her siblings, Sparkle is hostile and angry. A short while after settling in, Sparkle begins to identify as pansexual. A revolution is underway in the Allen household, with Sparkle’s transition motivating all of the young people to explore what becoming an adult means for them. But it’s Sparkle’s escalating behaviour that causes concern. Discovering a dark fact about Sparkle’s birth and the shocking events that the children in her house were part of, Louise is desperate for more help – and not just for the child in her care. As Sparkle’s erratic and violent behaviour increases, Louise finds herself and her homelife under serious threat. Product Information:  • ISBN: 9781915306555 • Author: Louise Allen • Publisher: Mirror Books • Format: Paperback • Pages: 288 • Dimensions: 19.9 x 2.4 x 12.9 cm

From the detective who helped catch the Golden State Killer, a memoir about investigating America's toughest cold cases, and the rewards - and toll - of a life spent solving crime. For a decade, from 1973, The Golden State Killer stalked and murdered Californians in the dead of night, leaving entire communities afraid to turn off the lights. Then he vanished, and the case remained unsolved. In 1994, when cold-case investigator Paul Holes came across the old file, he swore he would unmask GSK and finally give these families closure. Twenty-four years later, Holes fulfilled that promise, identifying 73-year-old Joseph J. DeAngelo. Headlines blasted around the world: one of America's most prolific serial killers had been caught. That case launched Paul's career into the stratosphere, turning him into an icon in the true-crime world. But while many know the story of the capture of GSK, until now, no one has truly known the man behind it all.  Product Information: • ISBN:  9781472270399 • Author:  Paul Holes • Publisher:  Wildfire • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  288 • Dimensions:  12.9 x 2.4 x 19.8 cm

SAS Great Escapes Two recounts the hitherto untold stories of six of the most dramatic and daring escapes executed by the world's most famous fighting force during WWII. From the very earliest SAS missions to the push into Nazi-occupied Europe, they cover some of the key figures in the Regiment, including its founder, David Stirling, plus other lesser-known heroes. With each story comes an edge-of-the-seat, rollercoaster ride in classic Damien Lewis fashion, as readers are plunged into the escapees' experiences - sharing their most terrifying yet inspiring moments. These stunning accounts of survival beggar belief, revealing nerve-racking bluff and deception, knife-edge encounters with enemy hunter forces hellbent on wreaking vengeance and murder, but also incredible acts of mercy and kindness from those who risk all to help the escapees on their way. Each tale of breath-taking derring-do reveals how necessity really is the mother of all invention, as with every step and at every juncture these fugitives defied fate, snatching survival and freedom from the jaws of the enemy, and all the horrors that would have followed capture. Damien Lewis has worked closely with the families of those portrayed, accessing wartime diaries, letters, mission reports, interrogation transcripts and more, to relate how the men of the SAS crossed blazing deserts, evaded enemy hunter forces and escaped through hostile lands, battling against seemingly insurmountable odds. But most of all, these uplifting tales of endurance beyond measure showcase the triumph of the human spirit and the will to survive. Product Information:  • ISBN: 9781529429428 • Author: Damien Lewis • Publisher: Quercus Publishing • Format:  Paperback • Pages: 352 • Dimensions: 19.8 x 12.8 x 3.6 cm

At the age of sixty, and having lived with Parkinson’s disease for over ten years, Guy Deacon CBE set out on one last adventure: to drive solo from his home in the UK 18,000 miles and through twenty-five countries to Cape Town on the southern tip of Africa. This incredible journey, across Europe and down the full length of Africa, took the former British Army officer over twelve months. Along the way, he broke down five times, underwent one emergency evacuation, and took 3,650 prescription pills. There are only a handful of vehicles each year which attempt this difficult journey; many never complete it. Ongoing conflicts in Libya, South Sudan, Mozambique and many other countries make any journey exceptionally dangerous. In central Africa, road conditions, particularly in the rainy season, often make the going treacherous. Further hazards include illegal checkpoints, extortion, contaminated fuel and a lack of services. Guy drove, lived and slept in his VW Transporter, often in remote spots, hundreds of miles from the nearest village or town. Reliant on patchy GPS, he often got lost. His journey was, quite simply, an incredible feat by a man travelling alone with Stage 3 Parkinson’s disease, when simply putting on a pair of shoes can take half an hour. But not only did Guy’s journey fulfil a childhood dream to drive the length of Africa, his mission was also to raise global awareness of Parkinson’s disease, for which there is currently still no cure. Product Information:  • ISBN: 9781802471885 • Author: Guy Deacon • Publisher: Ad Lib Publishers Ltd • Format:  Paperback • Pages: 240 • Dimensions: 20 x 13 x 2cm

Global superstar, songwriter, singer and Princess of Pop Britney Spears tells all in her heartfelt and honest memoir that portrays her rise to fame, tumultuous relationship with her father, controversial conservatorship, widely documented mental health struggles and so much more. Battling with a parent to take control of your own life at the age of 39 seems impossible. But this is where superstar Britney Spears found herself, 13 years into a conservatorship constructed by her father. In June 2021, the whole world was listening as she spoke in open court for the first time, delivering a bombshell statement in which she described the complex legal arrangement as abusive and condemned the actions of her own father, Jamie. The impact of voicing her truth was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history. Written with remarkable candour and humour, Spears's ground-breaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last. Product Information:  • ISBN: 9781398522541  • Author: Britney Spears • Publisher: Gallery UK • Format:  Paperback • Pages: 288 • Dimensions:  13 x 1.7 x 19.8cm

Check out this terrifying True Crime Stories book by Al Cimino! Learn more about the world's most monstrous murderers...  Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781398827769 • Author:  Al Cimino • Publisher:  Arcturus Publishing Ltd • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  96 • Dimensions:  23.4  x 1.6 x 15.3 cm

What does it take to survive in the unknown? Explorer and survival expert, Ed Stafford captures the spirit of adventure in 25 of the greatest expeditions of all time. From 1864-2018, intrepid explorers blazed a trail with round-the-world records, the ascent of Everest, crossing the Australian desert by camel and kayaking the North Atlantic Ocean. They conquered mountains, deserts, jungles and seas venturing into the most remote and inhospitable climes on the planet. Peeking inside each kit bag (including his own), Ed Stafford reveals how the great explorers achieved their awe-inspiring missions to find out more about our world, and how the equipment they carried with them determined the success or failure of their expedition. Ed Stafford is a British explorer and the face of survival on the Discovery Channel. He holds the Guinness World Record for being the first person ever to walk the length of the Amazon River.  Product Information:  • ISBN:  9780711259645 • Author: Ed Stafford • Publisher:  Aurum • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  262 • Dimensions:  12.8 x 0.3 x 19.8 cm

My mother once said to me, ‘I wish you could feel the way I do for eighteen seconds. Just eighteen seconds, so you’d know how awful it is.’ I thought about it. Realised we could all learn from being in another person’s head for eighteen seconds. Eighteen seconds inside Grandma Roberts’ head as she sat alone with her evening cup of tea, us girls upstairs in bed. Eighteen seconds inside one-year-old Colin’s head when he woke up in a foster home without his family. Eighteen seconds inside the head of a girl waiting for her bedroom door to open. Writer, Louise Beech, looks back on the events that led to the day her mother wrote down her last words, then jumped off the Humber Bridge. She missed witnessing the horror herself by minutes. Louise recounts the pain and trauma of her childhood alongside her love for her siblings with a delicious dark humour and a profound voice of hope for the future. Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781837700202 • Author:  Louise Beech  • Publisher:  Mardle Book • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  240 • Dimensions: 12.7 x 2.03 x 19.69 cm

Fred and Rose West are virtually unique in British criminal history: a husband and wife who loved and killed together. During their long relationship, the Wests murdered a series of young women, burying the remains of nine victims under their home at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, including those of their daughter. What was left of Fred West's eight-year-old stepdaughter was dug up from under the Wests' previous Gloucester home; his first wife and nanny were buried in open country. Most victims had been decapitated and dismembered, their remains showing signs of sexual torture. These twelve are just the ones police found when the Wests were arrested in 1994. There may be more whose bones have not been located... Howard Sounes broke the first major story about the Wests as a journalist, and covered the murder trial of Rosemary West, before writing Fred & Rose, the definitive account of this infamous case. Beginning with Fred's and Rose's bizarre childhoods, Sounes charts their lives and crimes in forensic detail, creating a fascinating and truly frightening account of a marriage soaked in blood. Product Information:  • ISBN:  9780751577501 • Author: Howard Sounes • Publisher:  Little, Brown • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  392 • Dimensions: 12.8 x 19.8 x 2.7 cm

From the crime scene to the courtroom, When the Dogs Don't Bark is the remarkable story of a life spent searching for the truth... Never before has criminal justice rested so heavily on scientific evidence. With ever-more sophisticated and powerful techniques at their disposal, forensic scientists have an unprecedented ability to help solve even the most complex cases. Angela Gallop has been a forensic scientist for over 40 years. After joining the Forensic Science Service, the first crime scene she attended was for a case involving the Yorkshire Ripper. As well as working on a wide range of cases in many countries around the world, she is now the most sought-after forensic scientist in the UK, where she has helped solve numerous high-profile cases, including the investigation that finally absolved the Cardiff Three the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path murders, and the killings of Stephen Lawrence, Damilola Taylor, Rachel Nickell and Roberto Calvi. Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781473678859 • Author:  Angela Gallop • Publisher:  Hodder Paperbacks • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  368 • Dimensions: 12.8 x 2.6 x 19.6 cm

In 1930, at the age of twenty-seven, Liesl Herbst was the Austrian National Tennis Champion, a celebrity in Vienna. Liesl, her husband David and their daughter Dorli came to Britain after escaping the Nazis. In London, though initially stripped of their Austrian passports and rendered stateless aliens, both Liesl and her daughter Dorli competed at Wimbledon. They remain the only mother and daughter ever to have played doubles together at Wimbledon. This moving story of escape and survival is told by Liesl’s grand-daughter, Dorli’s daughter. Some of the story, the author heard first-hand from her grandmother; the rest, she has meticulously researched over many years in four countries.  It is as much a search for the author’s own identity as for her own children and grandchildren to ensure that their remarkable family history is never lost again.  Illustrated throughout with family photographs and original documents, this is a story of survival against terrible odds, an inspiring tale of resilience and hope.     Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781802471199 • Author:  Felice Hardy • Publisher:  Ad Lib Publishers • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  286 • Dimensions: 12.7 x 2.03 x 19.69 cm

Patrick Bishop looks at the lives and the extraordinary risks that the painfully young pilots of Bomber Command took during the air-offensive against Germany from 1940-1945. As featured on the BBC 1 documentary BOMBER BOYS, presented by Ewan McGregor. They came from every corner of Britain and its Empire. They were the best of their generation…heading for one of the worst tasks of World War 2. Like RAF pilots, the thousands of brave young men who joined Bomber Command took to the air to help Britain triumph in World War Two. But in the glow of victory, the fighter pilots were lauded for their efforts while the Bomber Boys faded in national memory. Crucial in the heat of combat, they were politically awkward afterwards. Yet with an average life expectancy shorter than that of soldiers on the Western front in WWI, these men faced death, injury and capture time and again to send bombs through the shrieking flak onto enemy territory. ‘Bomber Boys’ is a tribute to their strength, courage and heroism – filling in the historical blanks and immortalising their memory. Product Information:  • ISBN:  9780007192151 • Author:  Patrick Bishop • Publisher:  Harper Perennial • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  400 • Dimensions: 12.9 x 3.2 x 19.8 cm

On 28 November 2004, banker and father-of-two Alistair Wilson was shot three times on his doorstep in a killing more commonly associated with inner city gang wars than a sleepy seaside town in the Scottish Highlands. All these years later, the question remains: why? Who would wish to kill this respectable husband and family man in such a brutal fashion? Was it simply a tragic case of mistaken identity, or did someone have reason to end Alistair's life? And what was the significance of the envelope handed to him before he was fatally wounded? Over the years, lines of enquiry have been investigated and dismissed, gossip has spread, theories offered and rumours debated at length. And yet, so long after Alistair's death, no arrest has ever been made and precious few motives have been made public. In this gripping true crime investigation, Peter Bleksley, top ex-undercover cop and The Chief on Channel 4's Hunted, strives to uncover the truth and hunt down Alistair's killer. He travels to Scotland, speaks to experts, and draws on his decades of investigative experience in order to provide new insight into Scotland's most mysterious murder case. Product Information:  • ISBN: 9781786069832 • Author:  Peter Bleksley • Publisher: John Blake • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  304 • Dimensions: 12.8 x 1.8 x 19.6 cm

Throughout the occupied territories, Catholic Sisters were active in the resistance to the Nazis. Based on letters and documents written by Catholic Sisters during the Second World War, this book tells the remarkable story of these brave and faithful women. From running contraband to hiding Jews, from spying for the Allies to small acts of sabotage, these courageous women risked their lives to help defeat the Reich. This is a story that needs to be told.  Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781913543112 • Author: Dennis J. Turner  • Publisher:  Ad Lib Publishers Ltd • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  288 • Dimensions:  19.7 x 2.4 x 12.9 cm

Assaults. Riots. Cell fires. Medical emergencies. Understaffed wings. Suicides. Hooch. Weapons. It's all in a week's work at HMP Parkhurst. After 28 years working as a prison officer, with 22 years at HMP Parkhurst, once one of Britain's most high security prisons, David Berridge has had to deal with it all: serial killers and gangsters, terrorists and sex offenders, psychopaths and addicts. Inside Parkhurst is his raw, uncompromising look at what really goes on behind the massive walls and menacing gates. Thrown in at the deep end, David quickly had to work out how to deal with the most cunning and volatile of prisoners, and learn how to avoid their many scams. He has been assaulted and abused; he has tackled cell fires and attempted suicides, riots and dirty protests; he has helped to foil escaped plans, talked inmates down from rooftop protests, witnessed prisoners setting fire to themselves, and prevented prisoners from attempting to murder other prisoners. And now he takes us inside this secret world for the first time. With this searingly honest account he guides us around the wings, the segregation unit, the hospital and the exercise yard, and gives vivid portraits of the drug taking, the hooch making, the constant and irrepressible violence, and the extraordinary lengths our prison officers go to everyday. Divided into three parts - the first from David's early years on the wings, the second the middle of his career, and the third his disillusioned later years - David will take readers into the heart of life inside and shine a light on the escalating violence and the impact the government cuts are having on the wings. Both horrifying and hilarious, David's diaries are guaranteed to shock and entertain in equal measure. Product Information: • ISBN: 9781841884226 • Author: David Berridge • Publisher: Seven Dials • Format: Paperback • Pages: 304 • Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.8 x 2.4 cm

How did the most ordinary of couples pull off one of the most outrageous frauds of modern times? And why did they carry on with the lie for so long? Drowning in debt and facing almost certain bankruptcy, John Darwin did the unthinkable - he paddled out to sea in his red canoe and disappeared. After a massive search and rescue operation failed to find his body, he was assumed dead, lost in the bleak North Sea. But everything was far from what it seemed. Nearly six years later, after John miraculously returned from the dead with a strange tale of 'amnesia' and sporting a suspicious golden tan, the police and the Press were desperate to discover the truth behind his remarkable resurrection. Journalist David Leigh was despatched to Panama, where he tracked down John's wife, Anne Darwin, who had started a secretive new life with the insurance money claimed from her husband's 'death'. But what lay behind her decision to move to Central America, thousands of miles away from her family and friends? The truth would gradually unravel during an astonishing week of jaw-dropping revelations. The Thief, His Wife and The Canoe is the definitive behind-the-scenes account of this true story of audacious deception and coercion, offering an unprecedented insight into a mind-boggling story that gripped the nation - and into the inscrutable minds of 'Canoe Man' John and Anne Darwin, his long-suffering partner in crime.  Product Information:  • ISBN:  9781529395167 • Author:  David Leigh & Tony Hutchinson • Publisher:  Hodder & Stoughton • Format:  Paperback • Pages:  228 • Dimensions: 12.8 x 2.6 x 19.6 cm