True Crime Women

Having worked for 16 years in a high security women’s prison dealing with the likes of Rosemary West and Myra Hindley, Vanessa Frake thought she’d seen just about everything. That was until she was transferred to the notorious Wormwood Scrubs as head of security and operations. Thrust into a ‘man’s world’, her no nonsense approach and fearless attitude saw her rise through the ranks, as she engaged in daily battles of the wits with both inmates and staff.

Best-selling author Jennet Conant brings us a stunning account of Julia and Paul Child's experiences as members of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in the Far East during World War II. She also details the tumultuous years when they were caught up in the McCarthy Red spy hunt in the 1950s and behaved with bravery and honor. It is a fascinating portrait of a group of idealistic men and women who were recruited by the citizen spy service, slapped into uniform, and dispatched to wage political warfare.

Step into the chilling world of Britain’s most dangerous women. In Notorious: Volume 6 – The UK’s Most Infamous Women, Stu Armstrong exposes the shocking true stories of female killers, gangsters, and masterminds whose crimes stunned the nation and shattered lives. For centuries, crime has been seen as a man’s domain, but history tells a darker, more complex tale. From sadistic child killers to ruthless crime bosses and manipulative fraudsters, these women defied societal expectations of femininity, wielding power and destruction in equal measure.

In April 2014, the world awoke to the shocking news that the terrorist group Boko Haram had kidnapped nearly 300 school-aged girls and taken them deep into the forests of Nigeria. When veteran journalist Mellissa Fung travelled to Nigeria, she discovered that the scope of the kidnappings had been vastly under-reported. Hundreds—possibly thousands—more girls had been taken against their will and forced to become child brides to soldiers and leaders of Boko Haram. Some of the captives escaped and returned to their villages, many with children in tow.

From the drug addicts who call Amanda ‘the mother I never had’ to the women who’ve pushed back at domestic abuse, to women close to release in their 70s, who just want to stay in the place that they’ve always known, these are stories that are heartbreaking, harrowing and heart-warming. Amanda listens, prescribes and does what she can. After all, she’s their doctor.

The Rose Among Thorns is based on the life experiences of Valerie Faulkner-Beal. She was 12 years old when her dad murdered a man in her family's home. That man was the biological father of Guns n Roses front man, Axl Rose.

We live in their buildings, work in their companies, shop in their stores, eat in their restaurants and elect politicians they fund. Founded more than 150 years ago by shepherding families in the toe of Italy, the 'Ndrangheta is today the world's most powerful mafia, with a crushing presence in Southern Italy, a market-moving size in global finance and a reach that extends to 50 countries around the world. And yet, remarkably, few of us have ever heard of it.

Number 4 Euston Square was a respectable boardinghouse, like many others in Victorian London. But beneath this ordinary veneer lurked a murderous darkness. On 8th May 1879, the corpse of former resident Matilda Hacker was uncovered in the coal cellar. The investigation that followed stripped bare the shadow-side of Victorian domesticity, throwing the lives of everyone within into an extraordinary maelstrom.

Canadian Female Killers is a chilling, unforgettable journey through the shadows of Canadian history, one woman at a time. From whispered legends of 18th-century poisoners to modern medical murderers hiding in plain sight, this book uncovers thirty-eight haunting cases of Canadian women who took lives. Some were abused. Some were mentally ill. Some were cold, calculating, and cruel. But all of them force us to confront what happens when society refuses to see suffering or fears what it cannot explain.

Jim McCloskey was at a midlife crossroads when he met the man who would change his life. A former management consultant, McCloskey had grown disenchanted with the business world; he enrolled at Princeton Theological Seminary at the age of 37. His first assignment, in 1980, was as a chaplain at Trenton State Prison. Among the inmates was Jorge de los Santos, a heroin addict who'd been convicted of murder years earlier. He swore to McCloskey that he was innocent - and, over time, McCloskey came to believe him.

Crime Buster Turned Evangelist is a true-life story and a riveting book about a courageous woman whose relentless pursuit of truth exposed corruption in her city. As a dedicated crime reporter, she navigated dangerous terrain, confronting human malfeasance and unsettling spiritual forces. Despite the cost of risking her life, she found inner strength and faith, transforming from a fierce investigator into a symbol of grace and hope as an Evangelist.

Twenty-one-year-old Vancouver student Elisa Lam was last heard from on January 31, 2013, after she checked into downtown LA's Cecil Hotel - a 600-room building with a nine-decade history of scandal and tragedy. The next day, Elisa vanished. A search of the hotel yielded nothing. More than a week later, complaints by guests of foul-smelling tap water led to a grim discovery: Elisa's nude body floating in a rooftop water tank, in an area extremely difficult to access without setting off alarms.

When you think of serial killers throughout history, the names that come to mind are ones like Jack the Ripper, John Wayne Gacy, and Ted Bundy. But what about Tillie Klimek, Moulay Hassan, Kate Bender? The narrative we’re comfortable with is the one where women are the victims of violent crime, not the perpetrators. In fact, serial killers are thought to be so universally, overwhelmingly male that in 1998, FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood infamously declared in a homicide conference, “There are no female serial killers.”

Olivia and Mia Flores are married to the highest level drug traffickers ever to become US informants. Their husbands worked with - and then brought down - El Chapo as well as dozens of high-level members of the Mexican cartels. They had everything money could buy - luxury cars, huge houses, and expensive jewelry - but they chose to give it all up when they cooperated with the US government. They knew that life was about more than wealth; it was about love, family, and doing what's right.

Betty Pack was charming, beautiful, and intelligent - and she knew it. As an agent for Britain's MI6 and then America's OSS during World War II, these qualities proved crucial to her success. This is the remarkable story of this "Mata Hari from Minnesota" ( Time) and the passions that ruled her tempestuous life - a life filled with dangerous liaisons and death-defying missions vital to the Allied victory.

In The Furies, Elizabeth Flock examines how three real-life women have used violence to fight back, and how views of women who defend their lives are often distorted by their depictions in media and pop culture. These three immersive narratives follow Brittany Smith, a young woman from Stevenson, Alabama, who killed a man she said raped her but was denied the protection of the Stand-Your-Ground law; Angoori Dahariya, leader of a gang in Uttar Pradesh, India, dedicated to avenging victims of domestic abuse; and Cicek Mustafa Zibo, a fighter in a thousands-strong all-female militia...

Joanne’s husband Zack is the leading progressive candidate in a neck-and-neck race, with the existing mayor, for Regina’s top job. The tough campaigning is well underway when a disturbing threat disrupts the celebration for the opening of the Racette-Hunter Centre — a project Zack has been spearheading, intended to benefit the impoverished community of North Central Regina. Joanne soon realizes that sinister interests are working behind the scenes of the election, and another savage act makes clear that someone will stop at nothing to maintain the status quo.

In the summer of 1969, Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel carried out horrific acts of butchery on the orders of the charismatic cult leader Charles Manson. At their murder trial the following year, lead prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi described the two so-called Manson Women as "human monsters". But to anyone who knew them growing up, they were bright, promising girls, seemingly incapable of such an unfathomable crime. Award-winning journalist Nikki Meredith began visiting Van Houten and Krenwinkel in prison to discover how they had changed during their incarceration.

In April 1999, reporter Tamara Leitner woke to an active crime scene outside her Arizona apartment. Her neighbor had been sexually assaulted by a man who would later be identified as Claude Dean Hull II, a serial rapist who escaped justice for decades. New identities. New states. New victims—more than one hundred suspected across the country and thousands more victimized in myriad ways. Tamara’s twenty-year compulsion to follow the investigation began.

Chicago, 1924. There was nothing surprising about men turning up dead in the Second City. Life was cheaper than a quart of illicit gin in the gangland capital of the world. But two murders that spring were special - worthy of celebration. So believed Maurine Watkins, a wanna-be playwright and a "girl reporter" for the Chicago Tribune, the city's "hanging paper".