Listen to New Releases Audiobooks in Bios & Memoirs, Criminals

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Title: Sharks

Subtitle: Investigating the Criminal Heart of the Global City

Author: Conor Woodman

Narrator: Conor Woodman

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-14-17

Publisher: Whole Story Audiobooks

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Criminals

Publisher's Summary:

Curious about the modern love affair with criminal personalities, investigative reporter Conor Woodman spent four years exploring the hidden depths of dynamic cities across the globe.

Sharks takes us on a journey through the lawless backstreets of cities as diverse as Mumbai, Bogotá, New Orleans, Barcelona and London. In each he uncovers the people and the scams that keep the global black economy moving.

Critic Reviews:

"While this book is at turns astonishing and frightening, it is peppered with great wit and the reader will occasionally find it hard to stop themselves from laughing out loud." (Misha Glenny)

Members Reviews:

and the content is pretty much identical

In essence - a book version of the docuseries 'Scam City' on Netflix. Each chapter narrates an episode, and the content is pretty much identical.

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Title: The Ballad of Jacob Peck

Author: Debra Komar

Narrator: Matthew Josdal

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-12-17

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Criminals

Publisher's Summary:

On a frigid February evening in 1805, Amos Babcock brutally murdered Mercy Hall. Believing that he was being instructed by God, Babcock stabbed and disemboweled his own sister before dumping her lifeless body in a rural New Brunswick snowbank. The Ballad of Jacob Peck is the tragic and fascinating story of how isolation, duplicity, and religious mania turned impoverished, hardworking people violent, leading to a murder and an execution. Babcock was hanged for the murder of his sister, but in her meticulously researched book, Debra Komar shows that itinerant preacher Jacob Peck should have swung right beside him.

The mystery lies not in the whodunit but rather in a lingering question: Should Jacob Peck, whose incendiary sermons directly contributed to the killing, have been charged with the murder of Mercy Hall? In this epic saga, media accounts of what happened in the aftermath of the murder have taken on a life all their own, one built of half truths, conjecture, and narrative devices designed to titillate, if not inform. A forensic investigation of a crime from the Canadian frontier, the tale of Jacob Peck, Amos Babcock, and Mercy Hall remains as controversial and riveting today as it was more than 200 years ago.

Cover design by Chris Tompkins and Julie Scriver. Cover image by Thomas Tolkien (thomastolkien.wordpress.com). Reproduced by permission of Goose Lane Editions.

Members Reviews:

Justice and History revealed

Great example of how we seek justice and how we can get things muddled up! Debra Komar provides us with a compelling story that leaves us pondering the issue of who is really responsible for a criminal act, in this case murder...... Do we need to seek others who are equally guilty? Love this non-fiction account of Jacob Peck. It can't be just left as an interesting historical event because today we face the challenge of media coverage ......are we really so much more sophisticated today that we will not fall into the error of omission or the error of bias in reporting or indeed the error in using secondary sources for our news stories.

Food for thought!

Cheers Halifax Mary

Outstanding

Carefully crafted and researched, the Ballad of Jacob Peck is an absorbing look into a horrific crime and its ramificaitons, as well as the spiritual and philosophical questions of culpability. The author recreates the time and place of Mercy Peck's murder with stunning detail, and keeps the pages turning to learn of why a brother would murder his own sister. This book is a stellar example of historical non-fiction that reads like a novel, pulling the reader into a long-gone time and place that come alive through the author's thought-provoking and masterful prose.

super

Well researched, and written quite easy to read and reread. I would recommend this to any one that has even the slightest interest

Fundamental PTSS

First of all this book is a remarkable reconstruction of an old historical and judicial event whose archival resources are particularly deprived. The author collects all she can and hen crosses the resources and leaving the interpretation open when necessary, though she wants to prove a point: the real person responsible for the crime was not prosecuted.

Along with the story the author manages to give us some at tomes frightening elements concerning justice in these newly opened provinces in Canada. For example she clearly states Justice is for the rich. The poor are at a disadvantage.

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Title: Serial Killer Peter Sutcliffe

Author: Bruce Candelo

Narrator: Violet Ward

Format: Unabridged

Length: 29 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-11-17

Publisher: Bruce Candelo

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Criminals

Publisher's Summary:

The Yorkshire Ripper was - is - perhaps the most famous British serial killer, aside from his Victorian namesake. His crimes gripped the nation over a five year period, starting in 1975. But behind the media image created for him was a man called Peter Sutcliffe, a normal man from the accounts of all who knew him. He first worked as a gravedigger, before moving on to regular jobs as a salesman, a factory worker, and finally an HGV driver. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Sutcliffe's story is one of inept policing, media frenzy, and unrelenting brutality - and insanity. When initially apprehended, Sutcliffe claimed that he had been ordered to murder prostitutes by no less an authority than God himself. Because of his string of crimes, Sutcliffe has been imprisoned for almost the entirety of his adult life. He has no chance of ever being released.

Members Reviews:

Brutality Exposed

This book exposed the crimes, prosecuted and nonprosecuted, by this heinous man. What took me for a loop - was that his ex-wife still lives in the same house where he kept his "tools of the trade". She also sued the UK and won. And the kicker is, she has remarried and still visits Peter in jail! Truth is stranger than fiction!

Great mini book about the Sutcliffe case

Great mini book about Peter Sutcliffe aka The Yorkshire Ripper

What a disappointment.

This pamphlet doesn't make sense. The pages aren't numbered and it is impossible to follow. It was frustrating trying to read it. What a disappointment.

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Title: Serial Killer Joshua Wade

Author: Crystal Downs

Narrator: Richard L Palmer

Format: Unabridged

Length: 40 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-11-17

Publisher: Crystal Downs

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Criminals

Publisher's Summary:

Joshua Alan Wade is known for being a serial killer, hailing from the state of Alaska. At least five deaths are attributed to him, though it is widely speculated that there may be more victims. The following is a roughly chronological account of his life, with special emphasis on what is known about his upbringing, as well as his two most documented murders and their subsequent murder trials.

Members Reviews:

Quick read

This book, raises the question, are serial killers made, not born. Kid from broken home, raped at a young age. Mom did the best she could.

Great mini book about the Wade case

Great mini book about Alaska Serial Killer Joshua Wade who murdered at least three but possibly many more women

Speculation!

As his father I'd like to know what the hell she knows about his upbringing at all! Other than hearsay... Like to delve into your history to find out what skeletons are in your closet

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Title: American Outlaws: The Life and Legacy of Baby Face Nelson

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: Scott Clem

Format: Unabridged

Length: 45 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-10-17

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Criminals

Publisher's Summary:

America has always preferred heroes who weren't clean cut, an informal ode to the rugged individualism and pioneering spirit that defined the nation in previous centuries. The early 19th century saw the glorification of frontier folk heroes like Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone. After the Civil War, the outlaws of the West were more popular than the marshals, with Jesse James and Billy the Kid finding their way into dime novels. And at the height of the Great Depression in the 1930s, there were the "public enemies", common criminals and cold blooded murderers elevated to the level of folk heroes by a public frustrated with their own inability to make a living honestly.

The man who became Public Enemy Number One after the deaths of John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd was Lester Joseph Gillis, whose alias "George Nelson" eventually gave way to the nickname "Baby Face Nelson". Despite the almost playfully innocent nickname, and the fact that he was not as notorious as two of his partners in crime, Dillinger and Floyd, Baby Face Nelson was the worst of them all.

In an era where the outlaws were glorified as Robin Hood types, Baby Face was a merciless outlier who pulled triggers almost as fast as he lost his temper.

Members Reviews:

Audio performance sounds like a speeded up robot

What disappointed you about American Outlaws: The Life and Legacy of Baby Face Nelson?

Sounds as if the audio is a robot. What is the point of recording something with rubbish narration.

Would you recommend American Outlaws: The Life and Legacy of Baby Face Nelson to your friends? Why or why not?

No. Performance of Scott Clem is rubbish.

Would you be willing to try another one of Scott Clems performances?

No.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from American Outlaws: The Life and Legacy of Baby Face Nelson?

The narration.

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Title: Legends of the West: The Life and Legacy of Butch Cassidy

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: Scott Clem

Format: Unabridged

Length: 49 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-03-17

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Criminals

Publisher's Summary:

Space may be the final frontier, but no frontier has ever captured the American imagination like the Wild West, which still evokes images of dusty cowboys, outlaws, gunfights, gamblers, and barroom brawls over 100 years after the West was settled. A constant fixture in American pop culture, the 19th century American West continues to be vividly and colorfully portrayed not just as a place but as a state of mind. In Charles River Editors' Legends of the West series, listeners can get caught up to speed on the lives of America's most famous frontier figures in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known.

The Wild West has made legends out of many men through the embellishment of their stories, such as crediting Billy the Kid and Wild Bill Hickok for killing far more people than they actually did. But it has also made icons out of outlaws like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid based on the mystery and uncertainty surrounding their crimes and deaths, allowing speculation and legend to fill in the gaps.

Alongside Jesse James, Robert LeRoy Parker has become remembered as Butch Cassidy, one of the most notorious outlaws of the west. Though he is commonly associated with the Sundance Kid, the duo had a full-fledged gang known as the Wild Bunch conducting robberies in the Southwest, and they became legendary for their shootouts and their escapes from the law. Eventually, Butch Cassidy and his most famous acquaintance fled as far east as New York City and as far south as Argentina.

In fact, it was in South America that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are believed to have met their ultimate fate, in yet another shootout with Bolivian soldiers. The mystery and controversy surrounding that shootout (and whether the two bandits were actually them) have helped ensure their place in Western lore, and as with so many other legends of the West, people continue to speculate that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid survived and lived out the rest of their lives.

Legends of the West: The Life and Legacy of Butch Cassidy chronicles the outlaw's life, while also analyzing his legacy and the mythology that has enveloped his story, attempting to separate fact from fiction to determine what the notorious robber was really like.

Members Reviews:

Perfect read for a long commute

Interesting book for the history buff (especially fans of the Old West). A quick read that teaches as well as entertains. If you have a commute of 45 minutes or so, this book will keep you occupied at least on your way to work (depending on how quickly you read).

I'm not the fastest reader in the world, so I got one and a half 45 minute commutes out of this book. I'm also not a huge non-fiction plan, but because the book is so short, I was able to keep attention and actually finish the book :-)

One of the best on Butch!

I've had a life long interest in Butch Cassidy and have read everything I can get my hands on. This book holds an open mind, yet covers the basics accurately according to everything I have read before.

Charles Rivers are always worth a read

All Charles River books are worth reading for a short down to earth synopsis of any subject they write about.

Not as accurate as others

Was a short summary of Butch and compared to other books i have read, not the same. The Bassets did not live in Dubois.

A murderer is a murderer

He's being glorified.

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Title: The Kray Tapes

Subtitle: The Voices of Ronnie, Reggie & Charlie

Author: Robin McGibbon

Narrator: Robin McGibbon

Format: Original Recording

Length: 3 hrs and 37 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-27-17

Publisher: Right Recordings

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Criminals

Publisher's Summary:

Few people in Britain have not heard of the Kray twins, the infamous East End gangsters who murdered in cold blood with barely a backward glance. And more than 30 books, hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles, a blockbuster movie, and the spectacular funerals that brought the East End to a standstill have ensured that the twins' fearsome reputation lives on. But what did Ronnie and Reggie sound like? Did their voices match the terrifying violence that made them part of criminal folklore?

One man who knows is writer Robin McGibbon. He collaborated with the twins' elder brother, Charlie, on his autobiography, Me and My Brothers, and was a trusted friend and confidant of Ronnie and Reggie for more than 10 years. McGibbon is the only journalist with all the Krays on tape - Reggie on the phone from prison, Ronnie in Broadmoor, and Charlie living his life for his book. Now you can hear all three brothers talking openly as the public have never heard them talk before.

Members Reviews:

Very surprising

It was very shocking book didn't expect it to be as good as it was

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Title: The Fix-it-Shop

Author: Friedrich Wilhelm

Narrator: Chris Abernathy

Format: Unabridged

Length: 3 hrs and 56 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-25-17

Publisher: Friedrich Wilhelm

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 5 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Criminals

Publisher's Summary:

When three teenage boy's take a part-time job after school, they find themselves caught in the center of a police sting-operation, then quickly discover the law isn't on their side. The city's corrupt officials will stop at nothing to set them up for the fall.

Members Reviews:

Fact is stranger than fiction

What did you like best about this story?

I was hired by the author to create the audiobook version of his story and I'll have to admit that I was skeptical at first. I was subconsciously looking for ways to judge instead of understand. After reading the book and communicating with the author I have a new sense of appreciation for the many ways in which my own life has been blessed. So many of my mistakes never caught up with me while friends have seen small lapses in judgement turn into life changing events that spiral down in unimagined ways. If you listen with an open mind and heart this story will give you a fresh perspective on the lives of people around you who have more in common with you than you may realize. Depending on where you are in life it may offer you hope for yourself or a greater appreciation for what you have. Hopefully it also helps us all to remember how our actions affect others so that we can make choices that build lives instead of destroy them.

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Title: Undying Love

Subtitle: The True Story of a Passion That Defied Death

Author: Ben Harrison

Narrator: Ben Harrison

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-24-17

Publisher: Ben Harrison

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Criminals

Publisher's Summary:

Karl Tanzler, also known as Count Carl von Cosel, was a radiologist in Key West, Florida, who developed an obsession for one of his patients, Elena Milagro Hoyos. The beautiful young woman died from tuberculosis in 1931. With her parents' permission von Cosel had an above-ground mausoleum built for her. He visited the tomb every night and by 1933 he had taken the body home.

In writing this definitive and mesmerizing tale of the most obsessive love imaginable, Ben Harrison did his homework thoroughly, studying numerous press accounts from the 1930s as well as the von Cosel memoir. What makes Undying Love so special are the interviews Ben conducted with those old enough to have known the story participants and the way things were in Key West during the 1930s.

One of his better discoveries was a song, "La Boda Negra (The Black Wedding)", which Count von Cosel claimed Elena sang to him from the elaborate crypt he had built for her in the Catholic section of the Key West cemetery. The lyric made it unmistakably clear. She wanted to come home with him. Above the coffin of Elena Hoyos, a black crucifix inexplicably glowed with a soft light as Count Carl von Cosel extracted the inner casket from the outer one. With difficulty because the caskets were heavy, he pushed, shoved, pulled, and maneuvered the inner one onto the grass outside the tomb, closed and locked the tomb door. Their remarkable journey was about to begin.

Members Reviews:

Truthis stranger than fiction

What a fascinating story, that fact that it is non-fiction just makes it more incredible. I enjoyed the details about Key West history at that time, as well as Key West history. I wish there had been more pictures of all the players in the story. I would recommend this book as a quick and interesting read. You can't invent a story this amazing.

I have to admit I am glad I read it but I might not admit to ...

Creepy story. Unique. I kept wanting NOT to read it but then I had to anyway. Sometimes a little drawn out with too much detail but over all a fascinating account of this man and his unusual obsession. I have to admit I am glad I read it but I might not admit to my friends that I was interested in a book like this. If you like creepy and unusual reality give this book a go.

Strange Read, but good

Great book

Very Creepy

Weird

"Undying Love" is correct

Also eww?

I couldn't put it down

And apparently neither could he...

Lovely Bizarre Story

An odd, surreal tale, nicely told by Mr. Harrison. He is able to flesh out the characters and give us a good idea how Key West was in the Thirties. I really liked the story and even though the "ick" factor might stop you from reading the book, it's quite good. Even sweet!

Very interesting , hard to believe!!! Heard about the book when visiting in Key West!

Hard to pick a group to recommend this book to! Not for everyone but definitely interesting! His wife must have been a remarkable lady!

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Title: Handsome Devil

Author: Jeff Maysh

Narrator: Graham Vick

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2 hrs and 19 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-12-17

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Criminals

Publisher's Summary:

For fans of Catch Me if You Can and The Sting, Handsome Devil is the dazzling true story of Count Victor Lustig, history's most daring - and flamboyant - con man.

In Paris he sold the Eiffel Tower to scrap metal dealers, not once - but twice. His confidence games and sleight-of-hand scams relieved the filthy rich of their cash during America's depraved Jazz era. He evaded the law like a figure from fiction, slipping into disguise, leaping from jail cell windows, and leaving sneering letters for his enemies at the Secret Service. In Handsome Devil, acclaimed journalist Jeff Maysh brings to life one of the 20th century's most unforgettable public enemies, "Count" Victor Lustig, a dashing criminal mastermind and counterfeiter whose fake banknotes threatened to topple America's economy. Written in staggering detail and culminating in a desperate manhunt led by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, Handsome Devil reveals the real man behind the myth: a genius who applied his talents to crime, and who kept a loving wife and daughter in the dark for most of his storied career. Set during America's original financial "bubble", Lustig's tale, from petty thief on the streets of Europe, to the most wanted man in the world, is the ultimate parable of American greed.

Jeff Maysh investigates outrageous criminal plots and urban legends. His deeply immersive stories have appeared in publications including the Atlantic, Playboy, and Cosmopolitan. His story about the rise and fall of the "Bombshell Bandit" for the BBC was named the best crime story of 2015 by Longform.org. He is British, and lives in Los Angeles.

Members Reviews:

Interesting

Interesting story of a conman that gave Europe and the USA the runaround for years! His scams and cons were brilliant! I feel sorry for the marks ! But buying the Eiffel Tower for scrap! They must have felt really stupid! His love for his family is wonderful and typical of the time it's a lovable rogue story, sad ending really to an interesting life.