Download New Full Audiobooks in Mystery, Thriller & Horror, True Crime

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/697396 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: From the Moment They Met It Was Murder: Double Indemnity and the Rise of Film Noir

Author: James Ursini, Alain Silver

Narrator: Richard Poe

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 8 hours 45 minutes

Release date: April 2, 2024

Genres: True Crime

Publisher's Summary:

The behind-the-scenes story of the quintessential film noir and cult classic, Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity—its true crime origins and crucial impact on film history—is told for the first time in this riveting narrative published for the film's 80th anniversary.   From real crime to serial to novel to movie, the history of Double Indemnity is as complex and exciting as the plot of any to hit the screen during film noir’s classic period. Born of a true crime that inspired reporter and would-be crime writer James M. Cain’s novella, Hollywood quickly bid on the rights but throughout the 1930s a strict code of censorship made certain that no studio could green-light a murder melodrama based on real events. Then World War II loosened some strictures, and director-writer Billy Wilder—before his prime as director of sparkling comedies—could hire hardboiled novelist Raymond Chandler and revamp the story enough to pass the censors. Overcoming strong resistance, Wilder then lined up a star cast led by the incomparable Barbara Stanwyck in her unforgettable turn as the ultimate femme fetale, alongside Fred MacMurray, cast against type as her partner in crime, and Edward G. Robinson as a bloodhound claims adjuster. With these skilled actors set against a low-key look, Wilder’s final film became one of the earliest studio noirs to gain critical and commercial success (nominated for 7 Oscars!), to influence the entire noir movement, and to impact filmmakers and audiences to this day. Authors Alain Silver and James Ursini tell the complete history of Double Indemnity in their latest and most provocative work on film noir: From the Moment They Met It Was Murder.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/697328 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Hell Put to Shame: The 1921 Murder Farm Massacre and the Horror of America's Second Slavery

Author: Earl Swift

Narrator: Mark Deakins

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 12 hours 22 minutes

Release date: April 2, 2024

Genres: True Crime

Publisher's Summary:

''Hell Put to Shame is a powerfully unsettling portrait of both the single most savage episode in the long decades of savagery inflicted by white southerners on their Black neighbors in the 20th century—and the methodical process that followed to erase those crimes from America’s collective memory.'' —Douglas A. Blackmon, author of Slavery by Another Name, winner of the Pulitzer Prize From the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Chesapeake Requiem comes a gripping new work of narrative nonfiction telling the forgotten story of the mass killing of eleven Black farmhands on a Georgia plantation in the spring of 1921—a crime which exposed for the nation the existence of the “peonage system,” a form of legal enslavement established after the Civil War across the American South.  On a Sunday morning in the spring of 1921, a small boy made a grim discovery as he played on a riverbank in the cotton country of rural Georgia: the bodies of two drowned men, bound together with wire and chain and weighted with a hundred-pound sack of rocks. Within days a third body turned up in another, nearby river, and in the weeks that followed, eight others. And with them, a deeper horror: all eleven had been kept in virtual slavery before their deaths. In fact, as America was shocked to learn, the dead were among thousands of Black men enslaved throughout the South, in conditions nearly as dire as those before the Civil War. Hell Put to Shame tells the forgotten story of that mass killing, and of the revelations about peonage, or debt slavery, that it placed before a public self-satisfied that involuntary servitude had ended at Appomattox more than fifty years before. By turns police procedural, courtroom drama, and political expose, Hell Put to Shame also reintroduces readers to three Americans who spearheaded the prosecution of John S. Williams, the wealthy plantation owner behind the murders, at a time when White people rarely faced punishment for violence against their Black neighbors. Georgia Governor Hugh M. Dorsey had earned international infamy while prosecuting the 1913 Leo Frank murder case in Atlanta and consequently won the statehouse as a hero of white supremacists—then redeemed himself in spectacular fashion with the “Murder Farm” affair. The remarkable polymath James Weldon Johnson, newly appointed the first Black leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, marshaled the organization into a full-on war against peonage. And Johnson’s lieutenant, Walter F. White, a light-skinned, fair-haired, blue-eyed Black man, conducted undercover work at the scene of lynchings and other Jim Crow atrocities, helping to throw a light on such violence and to hasten its end. The result is a story that remains fresh and relevant a century later, as the nation continues to wrestle with seemingly intractable challenges in matters of race and justice. And the 1921 case at its heart argues that the forces that so roil society today have been with us for generations.  Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/719860 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Murder in Manchuria: The True Story of a Jewish Virtuoso, Russian Fascists, a French Diplomat, and a Japanese Spy in Occupied China

Author: Scott D. Seligman

Narrator: Eric Jason Martin

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 6 hours 4 minutes

Release date: March 19, 2024

Genres: True Crime

Publisher's Summary:

In Murder in Manchuria, Scott D. Seligman explores an unsolved murder set amid the chaos that reigned in China in the run-up to World War II. The story unfolds against the backdrop of a three-country struggle for control of Manchuria—an area some called China's 'Wild East'—and an explosive mixture of nationalities, religions, and ideologies. Semyon Kaspé, a young Jewish musician, is kidnapped, tortured, and ultimately murdered by disaffected, antisemitic White Russians, secretly acting on the orders of Japanese military overlords who covet his father's wealth. When local authorities deliberately slow-walk the search for the kidnappers, a young French diplomat takes over and launches his own investigation. Part cold-case thriller and part social history, the true, tragic saga of Kaspé is told in the context of the larger, improbable story of the lives of the twenty thousand Jews who called Harbin home at the beginning of the twentieth century. Scott D. Seligman recounts the events that led to their arrival and their hasty exodus—and solves a crime that has puzzled historians for decades.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/674901 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Natural History of Crime: Case studies in death and the clues nature leaves behind

Author: Patricia Wiltshire

Narrator: Charlotte Strevens

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 11 hours 42 minutes

Release date: March 14, 2024

Genres: True Crime

Publisher's Summary:

AS SEEN IN THE SUNDAY TIMES, THE UK'S NO.1 FORENSIC ECOLOGIST LOOKS AT HER MOST HIGH-PROFILE AND INTERESTING CASES... 'I love puzzles, and finding answers is the only truly enjoyable part of what I do.' Professor Patricia Wiltshire is a forensic ecologist, her days spent at crime scenes collecting samples, standing over dead bodies in a mortuary, or looking down her microscope for evidence. Working at the interface of where the criminal and natural world interact, Patricia has been involved in some of the most high-profile murder cases. Now, through a study of her most infamous, and fascinating cases - including the murder of Sarah Payne, and the Soham murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman - Patricia will show us how she finds the answers to some of the worst crimes imaginable. Not only does she help the police solve crimes and give answers to the most bemusing circumstances, she can help to exonerate the innocent and enable confessions from the guilty. In The Natural History of Crime we join Patricia in putting the puzzle together, teasing the evidence out of her cases and showing us all how life and death have always been, and always will be, intertwined. Nature has given us a messy, imperfect world, but her job is to help make sense of it when we need it to most.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/702410 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Selling the Dream: The Billion-Dollar Industry Bankrupting Americans

Author: Jane Marie

Narrator: Jane Marie

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 6 hours 14 minutes

Release date: March 12, 2024

Genres: True Crime

Publisher's Summary:

Peabody and Emmy Award–winning journalist Jane Marie expands on her popular podcast The Dream to expose the scourge of multilevel marketing schemes and how they have profited off the evisceration of the American working class. We’ve all heard of Amway, Mary Kay, Tupperware, and LuLaRoe, but few know the nefarious way they, and countless other multilevel marketing (MLM) companies, prey on desperate Americans struggling to make ends meet. When factories close, stalwart industries shutter, and blue-collar opportunities evaporate, MLMs are there, ready to pounce on the crumbling American Dream. MLMs thrive in rural areas and on military bases, targeting women with promises of being their own boss and millions of dollars in easy income—even at the risk of their entire life savings. But the vast majority—99.7%—of those who join an MLM make no money or lose money, and wind up stuck with inventory they can’t sell to recoup their losses. Selling the Dream “is an urgent and riveting exposé” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) that reveals how these companies—often owned by political and corporate elites, such as the DeVos and the Van Andel families—have made a windfall in profit off of the desperation of the American working class.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/697412 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: In True Face: A Woman's Life in the CIA, Unmasked

Author: Jonna Mendez

Narrator: Barbara Benjamin-Creel

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 8 hours 41 minutes

Release date: March 5, 2024

Genres: True Crime

Publisher's Summary:

The bestselling coauthor of The Moscow Rules and Argo tells her riveting, courageous story of being a female spy at the height of the Cold War Jonna Hiestand Mendez began her CIA career as a “contract wife” performing secretarial duties for the CIA as a convenience to her husband, a young officer stationed in Europe. She needed his permission to open a bank account or shut off the gas to their apartment. Yet Mendez had a talent for espionage, too, and she soon took on bigger and more significant roles at the Agency. She parlayed her interest in photography into an operational role overseas, an unlikely area for a woman in the CIA. Often underestimated, occasionally undermined, she lived under cover and served tours of duty all over the globe, rising first to become an international spy and ultimately to Chief of Disguise at CIA’s Office of Technical Service. In True Face recounts not only the drama of Mendez’s high-stakes work—how this savvy operator parlayed her “everywoman” appeal into incredible subterfuge—but also the grit and good fortune it took for her to navigate a misogynistic world. This is the story of an incredible spy career and what it took to achieve it.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/703576 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: A Murder in Hollywood: The Untold Story of Tinseltown's Most Shocking Crime

Author: Casey Sherman

Narrator: Casey Sherman

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 9 hours 5 minutes

Release date: February 13, 2024

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 2

Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 1

Genres: True Crime

Publisher's Summary:

The dark story behind the bright lights of TinseltownFrom the outside, Hollywood starlet Lana Turner seemed to have it all—a thriving film career, a beautiful daughter, and the kind of fame and fortune that most people could only dream of. But when the famous femme fatale began dating mobster Johnny Stompanato, thug for the infamous West Coast mob boss Mickey Cohen, her personal life became violent and unpredictable. Lana’s teenage daughter, Cheryl, watched her beloved mother’s life deteriorate as Stompanato’s intense jealousy took over. Eventually, the physical and emotional abuse became too much to bear, and Lana attempted to break it off with Johnny—with disastrous consequences. The details of what happened that fateful night remain foggy, but it ended in a series of frantic phone calls and Stompanato dead on Lana’s bedroom floor, with Cheryl claiming to have plunged a knife into his abdomen in an attempt to protect her mother. The subsequent investigation made for the biggest headlines of the year, its drama eclipsing every Hollywood movie.New York Times bestselling author Casey Sherman pulls back Tinseltown’s velvet curtain to reveal the dark underbelly of celebrity, rife with toxic masculinity and casual violence against women, and tells the story of Lana Turner and her daughter, who finally stood up to the abuse that plagued their family for years. A Murder in Hollywood transports us back to the golden age of film and illuminates one of the twentieth century’s most notorious true crime tales.“A must-read for fans of true crime and Hollywood history, A Murder in Hollywood never disappoints! Casey Sherman deftly serves just the right mix of glamour, glitz, and grit to keep the reader turning pages. It’s a stunner from start to finish.”—Kristin Dilley, cohost of the Mind over Murder podcast

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/689513 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Beverly Hills Spy: The Double-Agent War Hero Who Helped Japan Attack Pearl Harbor

Author: Ronald Drabkin

Narrator: Sam Dewhurst-Phillips

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 10 hours 12 minutes

Release date: February 13, 2024

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 1 of Total 1

Genres: True Crime

Publisher's Summary:

In the spirit of Ben Macintyre’s greatest spy nonfiction, the truly unbelievable and untold story of Frederick Rutland—a debonair British WWI hero, flying ace, fixture of Los Angeles society, and friend of Golden Age Hollywood stars—who flipped to become a spy for Japan in the lead-up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Frederick Rutland was an accomplished aviator, British WWI war hero, and real-life James Bond. He was the first pilot to take off and land a plane on a ship, a decorated warrior for his feats of bravery and rescue, was trusted by the admirals of the Royal Navy, had a succession of aeronautical inventions, and designed the first modern aircraft carrier. He was perhaps the most famous early twentieth-century naval aviator. Despite all of this, and due mostly to class politics, Rutland was not promoted in the new Royal Air Force in the wake of WWI. This ignominy led the disgruntled Rutland to become a spy for the Japanese navy. Plied with riches and given a salary ten times the highest-paid admiral, shuttled between Los Angeles and Tokyo where he lived in large mansions in both Beverly Hills and Yokohama, and insinuating himself into both LA high society and Japan’s high command, Rutland would go on to contribute to the Japanese navy with both strategic and technical intelligence. This included scouting trips to Pearl Harbor, investigations of military preparedness, and aircraft technology. All this while living a double life, frequenting private California clubs and hosting lavish affairs for Hollywood stars and military dignitaries in his mansion on the Los Angeles Bird Streets. Supported by recently declassified FBI files and by incorporating unique and rare research through MI5 and Japanese Naval archives that few English speakers have access to, author Ronald Drabkin pieces together to completion, for the first time, this stranger-than-fiction story of one of the most fascinating and enigmatic characters of espionage history. Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/717125 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Fritzie: The Invented Life and Violent Murder of a Flapper

Author: Amy Absher

Narrator: Christina Delaine

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 8 hours 31 minutes

Release date: January 23, 2024

Genres: True Crime

Publisher's Summary:

Frieda 'Fritizie' Mann had several identities during her brief life, and the mysterious circumstances of her death raise as many questions as they do answers. She was born in 1903 near the present border between Poland and Ukraine. She and her family were Jewish immigrants who traveled to San Diego to find security and prosperity. In the last year of her life, Mann became locally famous. She had reinvented herself as a flapper and 'Oriental' dancer. She claimed to have friends in Hollywood and a movie contract. On the night of her murder, she said she was going to a party to meet her Hollywood friends; instead she traveled to an isolated roadside hotel where she met her death. An autopsy revealed that she was four and a half months pregnant. Historian Amy Absher guides the listener through the intricacies of this true crime story as it unfolded, from the initial flawed investigation to the sensationalized press coverage and the ultimate failure of the legal system to ensure justice on Mann's behalf. Like other 'new women' of her era, Fritzie Mann adopted roles that promised liberation from the control of men. In the end, her life and early death suggest the opposite: she became the victim of a culture that consumed women even as it purported to celebrate them. Contains mature themes.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/679294 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Disquieting Death of Emma Gill: Abortion, Death, and Concealment in Victorian New England

Author: Marcia Biederman

Narrator: Elisabeth Rodgers

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 9 hours 26 minutes

Release date: January 23, 2024

Genres: True Crime

Publisher's Summary:

In 1898, a group of schoolboys in Bridgeport, Connecticut, discovered gruesome packages under a bridge holding the dismembered remains of a young woman.Finding that the dead woman had just undergone an abortion, prosecutors raced to establish her identity and assign blame for her death. Suspicion fell on Nancy Guilford, half of a married pair of “doctors” well known to police throughout New England.A fascinated public followed the suspect’s intercontinental flight from justice, with many rooting for the fugitive. The Disquieting Death of Emma Gill takes a close look not only at the Guilfords but also at the cultural shifts and social compacts that allowed their practice to flourish while abortion was both illegal and unregulated.Focusing on the women at the heart of the story—both victim and perpetrator—Marcia Biederman reexamines this slice of history through a feminist lens and reminds us of the very real lives at stake when a woman’s body and choices are controlled by others.