A vain man of good looks but no family ties to the Mob, Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano worked his way up to acting boss of the Bonanno crime family, becoming its leader when official boss Joseph Massino went to prison in 2003. When the Mafia was crawling with secret operatives and informants caving to government pressure to flip, Basciano steadfastly obeyed the code of La Cosa Nostra. "I got faith in one guy," he said during a secretly taped meeting....

Before the Five Families who so notoriously dominated U.S. organized crime for a bloody half-century, there was the one-fingered, surpassingly cunning Giuseppe Morello and his murderous coterie of brothers. Born into a life of poverty in rural Sicily, Morello became an American nightmare, pioneering the bizarre initiation rituals, imaginative protection rackets, influential underworld reigns, and Mafia wars later popularized by countless books, television...

A former ATF agent describes his 1985 mission to apprehend Mark Stephens, a deranged, violent drug trafficker who had been terrorizing communities around Los Angeles with his rampages.

Examines the life and the legend of the infamous outlaw Jesse James. Looks at his formative years in a Southern household dependent on slave labor and as a member of a vicious band of Missouri guerrillas during the Civil War. Describes his life as a violent criminal, as he and his gang moved on to robbing banks, stagecoaches, and railroads in the post-war era. Relates how James was eventually killed when one of his own gang members shot him in the...

Murder, Interrupted--Cheating financier Frank Howard wants his wife dead, and he's willing to pay Billie Earl Johnson whatever it takes. But Billie's bullet misses the mark... Mother of All Murders--Media reports praise single mother Dee Dee Blancharde, who tirelessly cares for her wheelchair-bound, chronically ill daughter. Until Gypsy Rose realizes she isn't actually sick, and Dee Dee has lied all these years--From the publisher's web site.

Get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what it takes to be considered two of the worst figures in history, with the third book in this nonfiction series that focuses on the most despicable historical figures. Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are possibly the most famous and most romanticized criminals in American history. When the police found photos of them posing with guns and goofing around, they became media darlings. However, their fame was short-lived,...

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were the most famous criminal couple in U.S. history. Newsreels in movie theaters across the country flashed images of a pixyish Bonnie and handsome Clyde, turning them into the underworld's dark prince and princess of crime. In reality, as this film reveals, Bonnie and Clyde grew up in the slums of West Dallas and had little in common with their glamorous media images.

"Special agent James Cronley Jr. finds that fighting both ex-Nazis and the Soviet NKGB can lead to strange bedfellows, in the dramatic new Clandestine Operations novel about the birth of the CIA and the Cold War. A month ago, Cronley managed to capture two notorious Nazi war criminals, but not without leaving some dead bodies and outraged Austrian police in his wake. He's been lying low ever since, but that little vacation is about to end. Somebody--Odessa,...