Black Hands by Martin van Beynen

$38.00 NZD

Category: True Crime

This is the story of a mass-murder that divided a nation. It's a story that began in a rickety old home on a cold June morning in 1994, where five members of a seemingly ordinary New Zealand family were gunned down. There were two suspects. One lay dead from a single bullet to the head. The other was th e only survivor- David Bain. Since then the country has asked- Who killed the Bain family? David, or his father Robin? And why? Award-winning journalist Martin van Beynen has covered the Bain story closely for decades. His 2017 Stuff podcast, Black Hands - based on the manuscript for this book - was a runaway success in New Zealand and overseas, downloaded more than 4 million times and topping the charts in New Zealand and around the world. Now, van Beynen brings the story up to date for 2020, exploring the case from start to finish, picking through evidence old and new, plumbing the mysteries and motives, interviewing never-before-spoken-to witnesses and laying out the complex police investigation and judicial processes, seeking to finally answer the question- Who was the killer? Black Hands is a riveting read from the first word to the last, by a skilled writer who knows his subject inside out. "If anyone can pass judgement it can only be those who sat through the whole trial." - David Bain in New Idea ...Show more

Veritas - A Harvard Professor, a Con Man, and the Gospel of Jesus' Wife by Ariel Sabar

$48.00 NZD

Category: True Crime

From National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author Ariel Sabar, the gripping true story of a sensational religious forgery and the scandal that engulfed Harvard. In 2012, Dr Karen King, a star professor at Harvard Divinity School, announced a blockbuster discovery at a scholarly conference just ste ps from the Vatican: she had found an ancient fragment of papyrus in which Jesus calls Mary Magdalene 'my wife'. The tattered manuscript made international headlines. If early Christians believed Jesus was married, it would upend the 2,000-year history of the world's predominant faith, threatening not just the celibate, all-male priesthood but sacred teachings on marriage, sex, and women's leadership. Biblical scholars were in an uproar, but King had impeccable credentials as a world-renowned authority on female figures in the lost Christian texts from Egypt known as the Gnostic gospels. 'The Gospel of Jesus's Wife' -- as she provocatively titled her discovery -- was both a crowning career achievement and powerful proof for her arguments that Christianity from its start embraced alternative, and far more inclusive, voices. As debates over the manuscript's authenticity raged, award-winning journalist Ariel Sabar set out to investigate a baffling mystery: where did this tiny scrap of papyrus come from? His search for answers is an international detective story -- leading from the factory districts of Berlin to the former headquarters of the East German Stasi, before winding up in rural Florida, where he discovered an internet pornographer with a prophetess wife, a fascination with the Pharaohs, and a tortured relationship with the Catholic Church. Veritasis a tale of fierce intellectual rivalries at the highest levels of academia, a piercing psychological portrait of a disillusioned college dropout whose life had reached a breaking point, and a tragedy about a brilliant scholar handed an ancient papyrus that appealed to her greatest hopes for Christianity -- but forced a reckoning with fundamental questions about the nature of truth and the line between faith and reason. ...Show more

Blue Moon (#24 Jack Reacher) PB by Lee Child

$24.00 NZD

Category: True Crime | Series: Jack Reacher Ser.

'This is one of his best' - The Times Jack Reacher is back in a brand new white-knuckle read from Lee Child. It's a random universe, but once in a blue moon things turn out just right. In a nameless city, two rival criminal gangs are competing for control. But they hadn't counted on Jack Reacher arrivi ng on their patch. Reacher is trained to notice things. He's on a Greyhound bus, watching an elderly man sleeping in his seat, with a fat envelope of cash hanging out of his pocket. Another passenger is watching too ... hoping to get rich quick. As the mugger makes his move, Reacher steps in. The old man is grateful, yet he turns down Reacher's offer to help him home. He's vulnerable, scared, and clearly in big, big trouble. What hold could the gangs have on the old guy? Will Reacher be in time to stop bad things happening? The odds are better with Reacher involved. That's for damn sure. ...Show more

Unbelievable (aka A False Report) by T. Christian Miller; Ken Armstrong

$28.00 NZD

Category: True Crime

Previously published as 'A False Report' The real-life investigation behind the forthcoming NETFLIX series: two Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists uncover the story of Marie, an eighteen-year-old girl who was branded a liar after reporting her brutal rape, and the detectives who followed a twisting pat h to arrive at the truth. One of Stylist Magazine's 20 Must-Read Books of 2018 ***SHORTLISTED FOR THE GOLD DAGGER AWARD*** She said she was raped. Police said she lied. On 11 August 2008, eighteen-year-old Marie reported that a masked man had broken into her home and raped her. Within days, police - and even those closest to Marie - became suspicious of her story. Confronted by inconsistencies and doubt, Marie broke down and said her story was a lie. The police convicted her of making a false report. More than two years later, Colorado detective Stacy Galbraith was assigned to a case of sexual assault. It bore an eerie resemblance to a rape that had taken place months earlier in a nearby town. Joining forces with the detective on that case, Edna Hendershot, the two soon discovered they were dealing with a serial rapist, and yet another victim. Unbelievable is a chilling tale of doubt, lies, and the hunt for justice, unveiling the disturbing reality of how sexual assault is investigated and the long history of scepticism toward its victims. ...Show more

The Night Dragon by Matthew Condon

$38.00 NZD

Category: True Crime

. . . he is hard to frighten . . . he is very methodical . . . he does not like sunlight because he is very fair-skinned . . . he has the tattoo of St George and the Dragon . . .  - Witness statement given to the Crime Intelligence Unit, Brisbane, 1974. In 2017, Vincent O'Dempsey, along with his accomp lice Garry Dubois, were sentenced to life in prison for the brutal murders of Barbara McCulkin and her two young daughters. It took over 40 years to bring them to justice. Feared for decades by criminals and police alike, Vincent O'Dempsey associated with convicted underworld figures behind major crimes such as the deadly Whiskey au Go Go nightclub firebombing and was also linked to a string of haunting cold cases. Award-winning investigative journalist Matthew Condon has interviewed dozens of ex-cons, police and witnesses to put together a compelling picture of the calculating killer who spent his life evading the law before he was finally brought to justice. The Night Dragon shines a light on a chilling chapter of Australia's criminal past and the devastating legacy left in its wake. ...Show more

Kingdom of Lies - Adventures in Cybercrime by Kate Fazzini

$24.99 NZD

Category: True Crime

Would you say your phone is safe, or your computer? What about your car? Or your bank? There is a global war going on and the next target could be anyone - an international corporation or a randomly selected individual. From cybercrime villages in Romania to intellectual property theft campaigns in Chin a, these are the true stories of the hackers behind some of the largest cyberattacks in history and those committed to stopping them. You've never heard of them and you're not getting their real names. Kate Fazzini has met the hackers who create new cyberweapons, hack sports cars and develop ransomware capable of stopping international banks in their tracks. Kingdom of Lies is a fast-paced look at technological innovations that were mere fantasy only a few years ago, but now make up an integral part of all our lives. ...Show more

Pure Narco by Jesse Fink; Luis Navia

$40.00 NZD

Category: True Crime

It's a life story that reads like something out of a John Grisham or Elmore Leonard novel that it's remarkable it has remained untold for so long. Careers in the cocaine-trafficking business are usually short. It's not only a dangerous profession, fraught with the possibility of capture and long jail se ntences, but it can be deadly if the cartels get to you first. Not for Luis Antonio Navia. For 25 years the Cuban-American smuggled hundreds of tons of white powder for the biggest cartels in Colombia and Mexico, including Pablo Escobar's Medellin Cartel. In a profession populated by thugs, Navia's dress sense and good manners earned him the nickname 'El Senador' (The Senator). He refused to carry a weapon. What made him good at his job was amassing trusted contacts, losing very few shipments of coke, and keeping a low profile. He also maintained a normal family life with a Colombian wife and two young children. But he was never far removed from the most brutal violence imaginable. One friend got his head cut off. Another was hit over the head, put in a 55-gallon drum full of cement and dumped in a canal. Navia himself was kidnapped three times and went close to being fed alive to crocodiles. Somehow through it all he managed to survive and spent two decades fooling the DEA and other law-enforcement agencies. That was until he came under the radar of Robert Harley, a tenacious US Customs special agent in Key West, Florida, who was determined to bring him to justice. What followed was an international game of cat-and-mouse that culminated in Navia's 2000 arrest in Venezuela in one of the biggest antinarcotics takedowns of all time, the 12-nation Operation Journey. Spanning decades, continents and featuring a who's who of the drug trade, Pure Narco is a fast-paced adventure ride into the dark underworld of cocaine trafficking, written with the cooperation of a dozen law-enforcement agents from the world's top antinarcotics forces in the United States and Great Britain. It also contains insider insights into how the global drug business operates and offers some cogent solutions to the never-ending 'war on drugs'. Navia served his time in jail and is now free to tell his tale. His is the rare perspective of someone who has worked on both sides of that war- as a cocaine trafficker and US Government consultant. This book is a redemption story. Luis Navia, the pure narco, has gone full circle. ...Show more

Blacklight Blue: An Enzo Macleod Investigation by Peter May

$9.99 NZD

$19.99 (50% off)

Category: True Crime

France.A death sentence.Diagnosed with a terminal illness, Enzo Macleod is running out of time to crack the most confounding of unsolved French murders.A death threat.His daughter is nearly killed, Enzo is mugged - and then he is arrested. Someone is trying to destroy his character. Someone is framing h im for murder.A deathly enemy.Killers from the past will stop at nothing to halt Enzo, who must use all his forensic skills to solve the case - before they succeed.  ...Show more

Life Undercover: the Explosive First-Hand Account of a CIA Agent Hunting the World's Most Dangerous Terrorists by Amaryllis Fox

$35.00 NZD

Category: True Crime | Reading Level: very good

Do you have what it takes to stand between us and the enemy? "I'm here to prevent a major and imminent attack. One that will kill children. I'm alone and operational in the country where my colleague was taken and beheaded, and every hour I'm delayed is another hour for something to go wrong - for an in formant to disclose my location, for the source I'm meeting to cancel, for the attack to go boom. The fear injects my thoughts with venom." Amaryllis Fox was recruited by the CIA at the age of 21 in the aftermath of 9/11. After an intense training period - where she learns how to master a Glock, get out of flexicuffs while in the trunk of a car, withstand torture, and commit suicide in case of captivity - she is sent undercover to keep nuclear, biological and chemical weapons out of the hands of terror groups. Posing as an art dealer, she is sent on countless dangerous missions around the globe, Each time, the stakes become even higher and the risks more terrifying. Determined to stop the masterminds, Amaryllis's quest will almost destroy her, until she realises that the only way to actually defeat the enemy is to have the courage to sit across from them... and listen. In this explosive first-hand account - filled with suspense and plot twists to rival Carrie Mathison in Homeland - Life Undercover is an edgy story of an undercover CIA operative, hunting the world's most dangerous terrorists, using deception and disguises and dead drops in the night in order to protect our streets. Revealed in never-before-seen detail, Amaryllis offers compelling insight that can only come from having fought on the front lines. ...Show more

The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century (PB) by Kirk Wallace Johnson

$28.00 NZD

Category: True Crime

As heard on NPR's This American Life "Absorbing . . . Though it's non-fiction, The Feather Thief contains many of the elements of a classic thriller." --Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air "One of the most peculiar and memorable true-crime books ever." --Christian Science Monitor A rollicking true-crime a dventure and a captivating journey into an underground world of fanatical fly-tiers and plume peddlers, for readers of The Stranger in the Woods, The Lost City of Z, and The Orchid Thief. On a cool June evening in 2009, after performing a concert at London's Royal Academy of Music, twenty-year-old American flautist Edwin Rist boarded a train for a suburban outpost of the British Museum of Natural History. Home to one of the largest ornithological collections in the world, the Tring museum was full of rare bird specimens whose gorgeous feathers were worth staggering amounts of money to the men who shared Edwin's obsession: the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying. Once inside the museum, the champion fly-tier grabbed hundreds of bird skins--some collected 150 years earlier by a contemporary of Darwin's, Alfred Russel Wallace, who'd risked everything to gather them--and escaped into the darkness. Two years later, Kirk Wallace Johnson was waist high in a river in northern New Mexico when his fly-fishing guide told him about the heist. He was soon consumed by the strange case of the feather thief. What would possess a person to steal dead birds? Had Edwin paid the price for his crime? What became of the missing skins? In his search for answers, Johnson was catapulted into a years-long, worldwide investigation. The gripping story of a bizarre and shocking crime, and one man's relentless pursuit of justice, The Feather Thief is also a fascinating exploration of obsession, and man's destructive instinct to harvest the beauty of nature. ...Show more

Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs by Johann Hari

$24.99 NZD

Category: True Crime

NOW WITH A NEW AFTERWORD, THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND THE SOURCE OF THE VIRAL TED TALK What if everything we've been told about addiction is wrong? One of Johann Hari's earliest memories is of trying to wake up one of his relatives and not being able to. As he grew older, he realised there was ad diction in his family. Confused, he set out on a three-year, thirty-thousand mile journey to discover what really causes addiction - and how to solve it. Told through a series of gripping human stories, this book was the basis of a TED talk and animation that have been viewed more than twenty million times. It has transformed the global debate about addiction. ...Show more

Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar by Virginia Vallejo

$32.99 NZD

Category: True Crime

Now a major motion picture   Pablo Escobar was one of the most terrifying criminal minds of the last century. In the decade before his death in 1993, he reigned as the head of a multinational cocaine industry and brought the Colombian state to its knees, killing thousands of politicians, media person alities, police, and unarmed citizens.   In the 1980s, Virginia Vallejo was Colombia's most famous television celebrity: a top-rated anchorwoman and a twice-divorced socialite who had been courted by the country's four wealthiest men. In 1982, she interviewed Pablo Escobar on her news program, and soon after, they began a discreet--albeit stormy--romantic relationship. During their five-year affair, Escobar would show Vallejo the vulnerability of presidents, senators, and military leaders seeking to profit from the drug trade. From Vallejo's privileged perspective and her ability to navigate the global corridors of wealth and high society, Escobar gained the insight to master his manipulation ofColombia's powerful elite and media.   Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar chronicles the birth of Colombia's drug cartels: the kidnappers, the guerilla groups, and the paramilitary organizations. It is, above everything, a great love story--a deep and painful journeythrough a forbidden relationship--that gives us an intimate vision of thelegendary drug baron who left his mark on Colombia, Latin America, the United States, and the world forever. ...Show more