On Halloween night we had the pleasure of speaking with Mike Brown of the Pleasing Terrors podcast and the Pleasing Terrors Ghost Tour in Charleston, South Carolina! We discuss spooky tales from Charleston and other places that Mike has had a chance to visit. We also discuss some of our own experiences!

What if the people running online scams weren't criminals by choice—but victims themselves?

In this episode, we talk with Ivan Franceschini and Ling Li, authors of Scam: Inside Southeast Asia's Cybercrime Compounds, about the hidden world of online fraud across Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, and the Philippines. Based on years of fieldwork, their book reveals how thousands of people are trafficked or coerced into "pig-butchering" romance scams and investment cons inside prison-like compounds.

Franceschini and Li explain how organized crime, corruption, and technology have turned Southeast Asia into a global hub for cybercrime—and how many of the perpetrators are actually victims of modern slavery.

Ivan Franceschini is a lecturer at the Asia Institute at the University of Melbourne, where he studies transnational crime and labor issues in China and Southeast Asia. Ling Li is a PhD researcher at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, focusing on technology's role in modern slavery and human trafficking. She also works directly with survivors of scam compounds across the region.

On the morning of August 28, 1993, the quiet shores of Nags Head, North Carolina, were shattered when 35-year-old visitor Janet Siclari was found raped and fatally stabbed behind the Carolinian hotel. What followed was a decades-long pursuit of justice marked by false leads, courtroom drama, and groundbreaking DNA technology.

In this episode, we talk with investigative author John Railey, whose new bookThe Carolinian Murder at Nags Head: The Janet Siclari Story tells the full story of this brutal crime for the first time. Drawing on exclusive interviews with insiders, John unravels the twists and turns that led to a conviction—and the lingering questions about who else might have been involved.

We also explore John's deep ties to the Outer Banks, his career as a journalist, and how his body of work has consistently sought truth and justice in some of North Carolina's darkest stories.

You may have heard of "The Pinkertons," the infamous detective and spy agency that dealt with matters of national intelligence and security, labor union disputes and much more. But what do you know about Allan Pinkerton, the founder of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency?

Author Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones explores the life and adventures of Pinkerton in his latest book, "Allan Pinkerton: America's Legendary Detective and the Birth of Private Security." With Rhodri, we trace Pinkerton's unlikely rise from a Scottish immigrant to America's first "detective," his role in protecting Abraham Lincoln, his battles with outlaws and activists, and the controversial methods that made his agency both feared and admired. Rhodri also helps us separate fact from legend, while reflecting on how Pinkerton's legacy continues to influence modern security and surveillance.

We'll also learn more about Rhodri himself: born in Wales in 1942, descended from poets, miners, and industrialists, educated at Cambridge, Michigan, and Harvard, and a longtime professor at the University of Edinburgh who has written more than twenty books on American history.

In the early 1990s, East New York was known as one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in America, a place dubbed "The Killing Fields" after a wave of murders shook Brooklyn. What if the real crime story started decades earlier, in boardrooms and banks?

Author Stacy Horn takes us inside her new book, The Killing Fields of East New York, to uncover how a well-intentioned housing policy in the late 1960s spiraled into America's first subprime mortgage scandal. When most people think of a subprime crisis, they think of 2008. But long before that, East New York became ground zero for greed, fraud, and systemic neglect, devastating an entire community.

Stacy traces the domino effect: fraudulent FHA-backed loans, families trapped in crumbling homes, abandoned blocks, and a surge in violence that left East New York with one of the highest murder rates in the country. Along the way, she shares the human stories behind the statistics, the investigators who tried to stop the collapse, and why these failures still matter today.

This is a look at how white-collar crime can destroy neighborhoods as completely as street violence—and why history keeps repeating itself.

What does it mean to live in a country built on freedom but shaped by secrecy? Intelligence work is often hidden in the shadows—but its impact shapes every facet of our public and private lives. We chat with Dr. Jeffrey Rogg, a historian who offers a rare, behind-the-scenes look at how American intelligence has evolved—and why it matters more than ever today.

Jeff is Senior Research Fellow at the University of South Florida's Global and National Security Institute. Previously, he served as an assistant professor at the Joint Special Operations University (U.S. Special Operations Command) and The Citadel, and was a postdoctoral fellow in the National Security Affairs Department at the U.S. Naval War College. He is vice president of the Society for Intelligence History and sits on the editorial board of the International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence.

His new book, The Spy and the State: The History of American Intelligence, is out now. He holds a BA in Latin and ancient history from Swarthmore College, a JD from Villanova University School of Law, an MA in security studies from Georgetown University, and a PhD in history from The Ohio State University. He also served six years in the Massachusetts Army National Guard as an infantryman.

What does it feel like to live without empathy—or guilt? Sociopathy is one of the most misunderstood diagnoses in psychology. We chat with Jamie who offers a rare, first-person glimpse into life with antisocial personality disorder.

We discuss stigma, resilience, and the complexity of being "different" in a world built for emotional connection.

Jamie, also known by the pen name M.E. Thomas, is the author of Confessions of a Sociopath, A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight. She is a former law professor who has written extensively on music copyright issues, a current California attorney, and the founder of a non-profit. She is also a professional musician.

Is race written in our DNA—or is that one of the most dangerous myths of modern science?

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Rina Bliss, sociologist and author of What's Real About Race: The New Genetics and the Future of Racism. With Rina, we challenge long-held assumptions about biology and race, revealing how cutting-edge genetic research is being misinterpreted in ways that reinforce inequality.

We discuss why race is not a biological truth but a social construct—and why that distinction matters more than ever in the age of consumer DNA tests, precision medicine, and tech-driven bias.

Bio:

Rina's work explores the personal and societal significance of emerging genetic sciences. She is Associate Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University and the author of Rethinking Intelligence: A Radical New Understanding of Our Human Potential, Race Decoded: The Genomic Fight for Social Justice and Social by Nature: The Promise and Peril of Sociogenomics. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey, with her family.