Archives de catégorie : True Crime

DEATH ROW AT TRURO de Geoff Plunkett

Seven women murdered … two depraved men … seven short weeks. The shocking and tragic story of Australia’s 1976-77 Truro murders, the worst serial sexual homicide crime in the country, told for the first time with the full cooperation of the relentless lead detective.

DEATH ROW AT TRURO:
The Shocking True Story of Australia’s Deadliest Sex Killers
by Geoff Plunkett
Big Sky (Australia), August 2022
(via Emily Randle Literary)

Australia’s most prolific serial sexual killers met in prison. They were a complete contrast: Christopher Worrell, the charismatic youngster; and James Miller, the older and socially awkward loner. For Miller, it was love at first sight. They developed an ominous bond – proving that opposites can attract – and then kill. The tag team were inseparable, working, socialising and killing together – slaying as many people as the notorious serial killer Ivan Milat. James Miller said it was all his mate’s doing. He and Worrell often picked up girls off the street. Miller drove them to a discreet location, where Worrell and the women had consensual sex. Miller pleased his lover and the women had sex with an attractive and charismatic man. It was fun all round. But then it all went wrong. On 23 December 1976, they picked up Veronica Knight. Worrell went satanic, killing her without warning. And then it happened again and again, six more times. There was nothing Miller could do. He claimed he was victim number eight. Miller lied. Using the latest research into serial sexual homicide, the truth of the murder spree and the offenders’ motives are finally revealed.

Geoff Plunkett is a researcher and historian at the Department of Defence, Australia. He has been researching Australia’s chemical-warfare history for over twenty years and is the author of Chemical Warfare in Australia and Chemical Warfare Agent Sea Dumping off Australia, both published by the Department of Defence. His research has led to the unearthing of hundreds of lethal phosgene bombs at the old chemical-warfare headquarters at Marrangaroo. Other books include Death by Mustard Gas and Let the Bums Burn.

THE WANTED de John Tayman

On any given day two million fugitives roam the United States. Among them lurk the FBI’s deadliest targets: the Ten Most Wanted. And any of us can join the manhunt. The ultimate true crime story, a journey into the fascinating world of the FBI, its manhunters, and America’s most wanted criminals on the run.

THE WANTED
by John Tayman
Crown, March 2024

The world’s most notorious top 10 list was first unveiled in 1950. As soon as he saw the photos, a Mississippi boy realised that the vagrant he’d seen holed up in a cave was in fact William Nesbit, the ‘Dynamite Killer’. He smoked him out. The list quickly became the FBI’s leading crime-fighting tool, leading to the capture of mobsters, serial killers and now terrorists. THE WANTED traces the history of the Most Wanted through seven thrilling manhunts – full of close detective work, psychological profiles and chases – and the fugitives, agents and innocents drawn into its web. With rare access to FBI records and agents, this is both an epic true crime saga, and the story that shaped modern America. The book will include approximately twenty to twenty-five images.

John Tayman is editor at large of Men’s Health. The former deputy editor of Outside magazine, he is an award-winning editor and writer, and has served as executive editor of New England Monthly, editor at large of Men’s Journal, and contributing editor to Life, GQ, People, Business 2.0, and other publications. He lives in Northern California.

Netflix diffusera bientôt un documentaire adapté de l’autobiographie de Jens Söring

Soering, une série documentaire de True Crime en cinq parties sur l’affaire Jens Söring et le meurtre des Haysom, sera diffusée courant 2022 sur Netflix. Elle est tirée du livre RÜCKKEHR INS LEBEN paru en septembre 2021 chez C. Bertelsmann/PRH Verlagsgruppe, dans lequel Jens Söring parle de sa lutte pour retrouver une vie normale après avoir passé plus de trois décennies en prison aux États-Unis dans les conditions les plus sévères.

Condamné à perpétuité pour le meurtre particulièrement brutal des parents de sa petite amie de l’époque, Elizabeth Haysom, ce fils de diplomate a été incarcéré dès 1986. À ce jour, les doutes concernant sa culpabilité persistent : d’après lui, croyant bénéficier de l’immunité diplomatique, il est passé aux aveux uniquement pour éviter à sa petite amie la peine de mort. Il avait 19 ans lorsqu’il est entré en prison, et a vécu derrière les barreaux pendant presque toute sa vie d’adulte. Après avoir été libéré sur parole en décembre 2019, il est retourné en Allemagne à l’âge de 53 ans.

D’après Netflix, la série s’intéresse à « l’un des drames judiciaires les plus passionnants de notre époque. Le producteur de documentaires Arne Birkenstock, plusieurs fois récompensé, a eu accès à Jens Söring en exclusivité et, avec les réalisateurs Lena Leonhardt et Andre Hörmann, ouvre de nouvelles perspectives sur cette affaire criminelle spectaculaire qui continue de captiver les gens dans le monde entier. »

Les droits de langue française sont toujours disponibles.

CODE NAME BLUE WREN de Jim Popkin

A fantastic spy story with all the intrigue of a Le Carre novel, about Ana Montes, a Cuban spy within the US intelligence community who was trying to stay one step ahead of her sister, also a government official. One of the greatest spy stories you’ve never heard.

CODE NAME BLUE WREN:
The True Story of the Hunt for America’s Most Dangerous Female Spy
by Jim Popkin
Hanover Square Press, early 2023
(via Javelin)

In the aftermath of 9/11, Ana Montes was arrested by federal authorities after 17 years of feeding American secrets to the Cuban government.
The Cubans made a habit out of selling US intel to the highest bidders – Russia, Venezuela, Iran – and Ana Montes was a generous supplier of some of our nation’s biggest secrets. Her offenses were so grave she is called the most dangerous female spy in American history, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wanted her executed. The hunt for this dangerous spy – an operation codenamed BLUE WREN – has been an obsession for journalist Jim Popkin, who has written about this case in publications such as the Washington Post. He has unprecedented access to key characters in this story, including Ana’s sister, Lucy, who worked for the FBI. Lucy’s job: identifying Cuban spies.
This is a story about ideology, about betrayal, about the supersecret world of espionage (which the Cubans have mastered), and about two sisters who chose two very different paths.

Popkin’s cover story for the Washington Post Magazine, “The Queen of Cuba,” was selected as a “Page-Turner” by the New Yorker and named one of the “Great Post Reads” by the Washington Post.
A dramatic adaptation is already in the works.

Jim Popkin is a writer whose investigative articles and reports have appeared in the Washington Post Magazine, Newsweek, WIRED, Slate, The Guardian, Washingtonian and on National Public Radio.

IN LIGHT OF ALL THE DARKNESS de Kim Cross

The shocking abduction of Polly Klaas from her own home almost 30 years ago struck fear in the heart of every family in America – and millions who followed the story around the world. A pivotal case, as significant to the FBI as the Unabomber, Oklahoma City Bombing, and attack on the World Trade Center, the investigation changed the Bureau – and the nation – forever.

IN LIGHT OF ALL THE DARKNESS:
Inside the FBI Polly Klaas Investigation
by Kim Cross
Grand Central, October 2023
(via Dystel, Goderich & Bourret)

New York Times bestselling author Kim Cross immerses readers in a gripping, behind-the-scenes narrative. With abundant new information, and a new cast of characters that will enthrall true crime, forensic science, and CSI fans, Cross has exclusive access to the compelling stories of principal agents making forensic history who have declined all other requests to contribute to a book. Here are details known only to deep insiders: the color of the new powder that picked up the abductor’s palm print… the way the kidnapper wiped his mouth every time he lied. Cross herself has unique access to the murderer’s confession tape, never publicly released, revealed here for the first time. Cross recreates the kidnapping, investigation, and consequences as no other account, TV show, or popular podcast could do.
Polly Klaas’s case “changed the course of history,” said Greg Jacobs, the district attorney who prosecuted her kidnapper and murderer, Richard Allen Davis. It was the training ground for the people, methods, and procedures used to solve crimes today – not only kidnapping cases, but also sex trafficking, serial murders, and terrorist bombings. Speaking only to Cross, insiders discuss what they did right, and what went wrong, and how tragically close they came to rescuing Polly.
Polly’s legacy includes The Polly Klaas Foundation, a nonprofit founded by search volunteers, which supports the book and continues to work an average of 300 missing-child cases each year, helping families and law enforcement teams act quickly to respond to kidnappings. It has searched for nearly 10,000 missing kids with a 97 percent recovery rate. Polly’s abduction led to the Three-Strikes law and informed the Amber Alert system now used in forty-eight states, responsible for saving 800 abducted children.

Kim Cross is a New York Times best-selling author and journalist known for meticulously reported narrative nonfiction. A full-time freelance writer, she has bylines in Nieman Storyboard, Outside, Bicycling, Garden & Gun, CNN.com, ESPN.com, and USA Today. Her work has been recognized in “Best of” lists by the New York Times, the Columbia Journalism Review, Best American Sports Writing, and others. What Stands in a Storm won the Fitzgerald Museum Literary Prize for Excellence in Writing and the American Society of Journalists and Authors nonfiction book award. She teaches Feature Writing for Harvard Extension School.