The Incident At Alpha Tau Omega, Why Don't U Tell Me Wht You're Into?, The Case of the Vanishing Blonde, ...A Million Years Ago, The Body In Room 348 and Who Killed Euhommie Bond? were first published in the 1980s, the first story involving the rape versus non-rape and more difficult moral terrain of a young woman attending a college frat party drunk and tripping on acid: "At the time who could more or less expect to be sexually assaulted." This campus rape at the University of Pennsylvania unleashed a debate over the nature of consent. There are three cold cases featuring the inimitable Long Island private detective Ken Brennan and a startling investigation into a murderer deep within the LAPD's ranks, shielded for 26 years by officers keen to protect one of their own. Six riveting stories spanning four decades of searing characters and unsettling tales. 232pp.

Sub-titled 'The Beer Hall Putsch and the Rise of Nazi Germany', this has been described as 'The definitive book on the Hitler trial in English, German or any language.' The book tells the true story of the monumental criminal proceedings that thrust Hitler into the limelight after the failed Beer Hall Putsch and which provided him with an unprecedented stage for his demagoguery, and set him on his improbable path to power. Reporters from as far away as Argentina and Australia flocked to Munich for the sensational, four-week spectacle. It was 26th February 1924, the first day of the anticipated high treason trial that would mesmerise the country. The defendant, Adolf Hitler, wore a black suit with an Iron Cross First Class and an Iron Cross Second Class pinned to his jacket, his hair slicked to the left and his moustache clipped short and square, standing five foot nine and tipping the scales at 170lbs looking small and insignificant. On the way to his seat in the front, he stopped to kiss the hands of a few women in the audience. On the eve of the trial Hitler was a minor, if ambitious, local party leader idolised by a relatively small number of supporters. His name was still sometimes misspelt in the international press, but all that was to change. Since he was Austrian born, Hitler could now be convicted, imprisoned, deported and then forgotten. This was the fate he feared most. By the end, Hitler would transform a fiasco into a stunning victory for the fledgeling Nazi party. This is the first book on the subject which recreates in riveting detail a haunting failure of justice with catastrophic consequences. A superb contribution to the understanding of modern totalitarianism. 455pp, paperback with cast of characters.

We know our Bibliophile readers very well and this gruesome history of Britain's most brutal punishment will sell out fast. The history of gibbeting is the story of hanging of criminals in a body shaped metal cage as a warning and as a form of justice. From the folklore of live gibbettings to the eerie historical documenting of this weird post-execution tradition, the book looks at how and why society has dealt with murderers and other serious criminals in this way using case studies. It looks at how the introduction of the Murder Act in 1752 shaped our relationship with gibbeting for years to come. Chapters include Infamy, Thieves and Pirates, That's Entertainment, The Gibbet as A Landmark, No Deterrent, The Decline of the Gibbet and A Modern Fascination where gibbet cages remain on display in museums all over the country. Sometimes it was not the whole body but body parts as a form of this horrific torture, a gruesome spectacle where the body was placed in a tight cage of chains or irons that fitted the body perfectly and then was hung from a height of 20-30 feet on a wooden post. Gibbet cages were made individually and no two were the same and none was removed before the body had decayed and all that was left was bones and dust. One example is of Edward Hewison who in 1379 was a private in the Earl of Northumberland's Light Horse, tried and convicted of raping Louisa Bently in a field on the way to York as Louisa was walking to work. Hewison was executed at York Castle and afterwards his body was hung upon a gibbet in the field where the offence had taken place. There is no mention of Louisa's murder in any reports, only the rape, which makes it a highly unusual case of gibbeting. An uncomfortable sidelong glance at our ancestors and what they did. 150pp, illus.
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Colonel Blood was the spy who stole the crown jewels and became the king's secret agent. One morning in May 1671, this man daringly attempted to seize the crown jewels from the Tower of London. Astonishingly he managed to escape with his haul before being apprehended. Yet he was not executed for treason. Instead, King Charles II decided that the audacious thief was more useful to him alive, and appointed him his personal spy. The notorious turncoat Colonel Thomas Blood had been previously involved in countless plots to assassinate the restored Stuart king. Bestselling historian Robert Hutchinson paints a vivid story of a double agent bent on political ambition and personal gain, including his involvement in an attempted coup d'état in Ireland and to overthrow the lawful governments of Ireland and Scotland and England in the late 17th century which won him widespread notoriety in the three kingdoms. Charles II's ministers publicly branded him the 'Father of all Treasons' and Blood became a hunted man throughout the length and breadth of the British Isle. Blood was an arrogant, eccentric fantasist with a very persuasive manner, reinforced by buckets of Irish charm, and armed with a neat turn of phrase that proved useful in a tight spot. He conducted his escapades under a multitude of aliases and assisted by a wardrobe packed full of disguises. We are drawn back to the death of Oliver Cromwell in 1653 and the momentous events and conspiracies that abounded in Restoration England. 341pp, paperback, 13 photos including colour plates.

From the New York Times, 4th July 1857: 'Brick-bats, stones and clubs were flying thickly round, and from the windows in all directions, and the men ran wildly about brandishing firearms. Wounded men lay on the sidewalks and were trampled upon. Now the rabbits would make a concerted rush and force their antagonists up Baynard Street to the Bowery. Then the fugitives, being reinforced, would turn on their pursuers...' The scene was set for a classic Western showdown on a dusty main street, a sheriff backed by townspeople facing down a gang of heavily armed hired gunslingers. Someone drew first and a few minutes later ten men were dead or dying and several more suffered gunshot wounds. The hired guns fled. This was in the West Virginia mining town of Matewan in 1920. By contrast, the more celebrated gunfight at the OK Corrall in Tombstone lasted 60 seconds and left three men dead. Matewan was not an aberration. It was the era of the post-Civil War Wild West and it can be argued that it was the most dangerous place to be in the East. Race wars with lynchings and massacres, heavily armed confrontation between infant trade unionism and the forces of capitalism, murderous feuds between corrupt lawmen and the early Mafia were the confrontations in which the US Government bombed and marginalised their own citizens. The law was twisted for private ends, and 'fake news' became the norm. Popular historian Ian Hernon turns his practiced reporter's eye to a forgotten chapter in America's history of the crowded industrial cities of the Eastern United States with their poverty and exploitation. Some surprising facts emerge such as the main centre for horse rustling was not Wyoming but New York at the beginning of the last century, and black townships were bombed from the air before the Civil Rights Movement took hold. Jam packed full of great stories, educational and entertaining. 320pp, 16 pages of illustrations.

Libby Purves in the TLS said, 'God, I love these women! Their breeziness, compassion, humour and resilience are a tonic.' In February 1919, London's first women police officers took to the streets of the city. They battled entrenched gender stereotypes, institutional inequality, sexual harassment and assaults disturbingly familiar to today's generation of modern women. Female officers facing resentment from male colleagues and were expected to do little more than 'make the tea, luv' and were charged with the sole task of looking after women and children who fell into police hands. Yet in the course of a century police women have won the equality they demanded, overcome sexism and prejudice, rejected harassment and smashed through the glass ceiling to lead rather than follow their male colleagues. A woman, Cressida Dick, until recently held the most powerful position in British policing, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. The book tells the story of a hundred years of service of female police officers within the Met as a consequence of interviews with hundreds of former and serving police women and the files and stories of thousands more held by the National Archives and private libraries to provide a detailed and fascinating oral history of the challenges they have faced. There are tales of heroism, humour, crime-busting and tragedy, their first-hand experiences in chapters including 'Are You A Bike... or a Dyke?'. 310pp, paperback.

'No one knew more about the mob, Hollywood, and Las Vegas than Johnny Rosselli.' Gentleman gangster, Hollywood producer, CIA assassin, Johnny Rosselli was at the centre of the 20th century's darkest secrets, straddling the underworld and the day's most compelling headlines. Al Capone's last protégé, Handsome Johnny flourished for an extraordinary half century, beginning in the bloody bootlegging of the Roaring Twenties until he was tapped to be the Mob's 'Man in Hollywood', seducing seductresses such as Jean Harlow and Marilyn Monroe, and becoming indispensable to Columbia Pictures boss Harry Cohen. Later Rosselli himself would even make movies, producing to the best film noirs of the 1940s. After a stint in federal prison, he was deployed by new Chicago boss Sam Giancana to oversee the creation of Las Vegas. He was the gambling mecca's behind-the-scenes power, running the town from his suites at The Tropicana and the Desert Inn, and enjoying Rat Pack nights with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. In his most unexpected and combustible role, Rosselli became a central figure in the Kennedy-era CIA's attempt to assassinate Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. And even that patriotic job as an assassin was not his final chapter... The biography is full of glitter, grit, guns and gams, a true rags-to-riches life. 532pp, paperback with 16 pages of photos.

Sub-titled 'The True Tale of Boris Morros, Film Producer Turned Cold War Spy', here the Golden Age of Hollywood is the background to this story of a remarkable career. Boris Morros was a major figure in 1930s and 1940s Hollywood. A refugee from the Russian Civil War who had organised music for the last Tsar at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Boris rose through the ranks to become the Head of Music at Paramount Pictures. He was nominated for Academy Awards, then went on to produce his own films with Laurel and Hardy, Fred Astaire, Henry Fonda and others, but as J. Edgar Hoover would discover, these successes provided a cover for one of the most incredible espionage tales in the history of the Cold War - Boris Morros was Stalin's man in Hollywood. Boris's assignments took him to the White House, the Vatican, and deep behind the Iron Curtain. The high-level intel he provided the KGB included military secrets and compromising information on prominent Americans. His Russian handlers even pushed Boris to interfere in American politics, attempting to swing a presidential election to their preferred candidate, but in 1947 Boris flipped, and the height of the McCarthy era, he played a leading role in a deadly serious tale. Jonathan Gill's book is an extraordinary story about Russian spies at the heart of American culture and politics who seamlessly wove together public and personal lives, making sure classical music luminaries like Gregor Piatigorsky and Jan Peerce were photographed at the 1947 wedding of Boris?s son, Dick. After going public and denouncing some of his oldest friends and colleagues as Soviet spies, Boris lived life to the fullest with his second wife Marion and they partied hard. Pink Millionaire Alfred Stern and his wife, the daughter of the US Ambassador to Nazi Germany from 1933-1937, provided the funds, and the fun, that supported Boris's career as a Soviet spy. Life is stranger than fiction. 323pp, well illustrated.

A mixture of detailed research coupled with the insider revelations of "Mr X", these gripping mini-biographies of 23 agents of various nationalities includes members of the DGSE, KGB, CIA and MI6. Starting with Sir Anthony Blunt, the "gentleman spy" who for many years was Master of the Queen's Paintings, the author exposes the divided loyalties, complicated trade-offs, vanities and sheer ruthless appetite for betrayal that drove these complex personalities. Blunt was sincere in his loyalty to Communism, an ideology he absorbed at Cambridge in the exclusive circle of the "Apostles", and when he was approached by Arnold Deutsch on behalf of the NKVD, spying was presented as a fight for peace against fascism. Deutsch saw Blunt not so much as an information gatherer as a head-hunter, but after being recruited by MI5 in the War, Blunt passed on huge amounts of information, no doubt reassuring himself that Russia was of course an ally. Meanwhile John Cairncross, another of the Cambridge Five, had passed on the information that the Allies were developing the atomic bomb. Moving into the Cold War, an estimated two thirds of Soviet diplomats were in fact agents, operating under diplomatic protection, while there was also a large cast of "illegals", freelancers who were given a "legend" and whose task it was to infiltrate. Markus Wolf, head of east German intelligence, may have been the inspiration for Le Carre's character Karla, though unlike Karla he was good-looking and charismatic. Wolf ran an operation named "Romeo and Juliet" where spooks such as double agent Gabriele Gast were tasked with seducing key targets to gain information, or to set up a honeytrap which would enable blackmail to take place. The reader will find Aldrich Ames, an American accused of spying for the KGB; Eli Cohen, the Israeli spy best known for his espionage work in Syria and Klaus Fuchs, the German-born British agent who helped the USSR to manufacture its atomic bomb in 1949. Other stories here include the defection of Lieutenant Werner Stiller and the classic case of Oleg Gordievsky and his escape to the west under the floorboards of a van. 201pp, notes.

By the middle of the 18th century there were 160 capital crimes, many of them reflecting the period's obsession with protecting property. You could be hanged for stealing goods worth five shillings, or, famously, for impersonating a Chelsea Pensioner. The author lists all the female victims of hanging in this period with a brief account of the charges against them, and she describes in detail the lives, alleged crimes and deaths of 20 of them. Of the 131 women hanged in the 40 years covered by this book, 91 were charged with murder or attempted murder, 23 for deceptions such as forgery or passing off forged documents, others for stealing and arson. The records make it clear that sometimes these women were acting under severe mental pressure, and some were almost certainly innocent. Insanity was a valid defence, in which case the woman would be consigned to an asylum, but evidence of previous erratic behaviour was required. Eliza Fenning was hanged for attempted murder by arsenic, and while it seems certain that arsenic poisoning took place in the family where she was in service, Eliza was hanged on the strength of her being able to read the label on the arsenic container. Mary Bateman, on the other hand, was undoubtedly guilty of running a quack medicine racket, extorting money for the exorcisms performed by "Miss Blythe", an imaginary and expensive medium from Scarborough, and adapting and improving a variety of scams as she became more proficient, one of which led to the death of Rebecca Perigo. Esther Hibner was effectively a slave-owner, two of whose apprentices died of neglect, while Sarah Price was the last woman to be hanged on forgery charges, in her case for passing a forged one-pound note. Includes chapters on baby murder among domestic servants, and husband poisoning. 236pp, chronology, photos.