Joseph Delaney used to be an English teacher, before becoming the best-selling author of the Spook's series, which has been published in 30 countries and sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide. The first book, The Spook's Apprentice, was adapted into a major motion picture starring Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore.

Joseph Delaney

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Colin Fry

When Ron and Reg Kray were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1968, most people thought that was the last they'd hear of two of the most notorious and vicious criminals Britain has ever produced. Instead, the twins and their evil doings have since achieved almost iconic status. Simultaneously, they have become 'Ronnie and Reggie', cuddly Robin Hood characters, little more than a couple of bad lads who loved their mum. 
 
 The Kray Files is an explosive investigative work which strips away the myths that have grown up around the brothers. It examines why the twins were put away, the true extent of their crimes and the truth about the last 30 years, which Ron and Reg spent at the expense of the country while making a quiet fortune through duplicitous dealings from behind bars. It looks at why their brother Charlie turned to drugs as his only way out of a life of deprivation and misery, and tries to discover the reason why some women have found the Krays fatally attractive. 
 
 For the first time ever, The Kray Files goes behind the scenes, painting a vivid picture of the brothers' world through psychological profiling, studying the sociology of the East End of London with the help of academics, and investigating the violent legacy the brothers have left behind.

The Kray Files

The True Story of Britain's Most Notorious Murderers

Trevor Royle

The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders is one of the best-known regiments in the British Army. In a previous incarnation as the 93rd Highlanders, its soldiers were famed for being the 'thin red line' that repulsed the Russian heavy cavalry at the Battle of Balaklava during the Crimean War. When the regiment was ordered to disband in 1968 as part of wide-ranging defence cuts, a popular 'Save the Argylls' campaign was successful in keeping the regiment in being. In 2006, it became the 5th battalion of the new Royal Regiment of Scotland. 
 
Formed by two earlier regiments, The Argylls have a stirring history of service to the British Crown. They served all over the empire, taking part in the Indian Mutiny and the Boer War, and fought in both World Wars. In the post-war period the Argylls captured the public imagination in 1967 when they reoccupied the Crater district of Aden following a period of riots. 
 
Recruiting mainly from the west of Scotland, the regiment has a unique character and throughout its history has retained a fierce regimental pride which is summed up by its motto: 'sans peur', meaning 'without fear'. 
 
 The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders puts its story into the context of British military history and makes use of personal testimony to reveal the life of the regiment.

The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders

A Concise History

Eileen Munro

Carol McKay

When Eileen Munro's mother became pregnant at 16, she was told to give her baby away to a 'good family', but the couple who paid the fee at the Salvation Army mother-and-baby home in Glasgow in 1963 turned out to be alcoholics who neglected and physically abused Eileen. Then, when their marriage broke down, they failed to protect her from sexual abuse at the hands of a family friend. 
 
After watching her adoptive mother drown on inhaled vomit, Eileen and her younger sister were taken into care, but her nightmare was to continue as she was subjected to further physical, sexual and emotional abuse. 
 
At the age of only seventeen, seven months into a secret pregnancy, she decided that the only way out was through a bottle of painkillers; when she survived and gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, he became her lifeline.

As I Lay Me Down to Sleep

Bernard O'Mahoney

For more than fifty years, two ruthless gangs have dominated the Tyneside underworld. Initially, the Conroy and the Sayers families lived side by side in relative harmony in the West End of Newcastle, but the birth of the drug-fuelled rave culture in the late 1980s changed everything. Drunk on power and with an intense desire to take complete control of the north-east, the families went to war with one another and with anyone else who stood in their way. What followed was an orgy of mindless violence. 
 
In Fog on the Tyne, bestselling true-crime author Bernard O'Mahoney explores the origins of this gangland war and reveals for the first time how and why it spiralled out of control, leaving many injured and others dead.

Fog on the Tyne

The Story of Britain's Bloodiest Gang War

Andy Coogan

Andy Coogan was born in Glasgow in 1917, the oldest child of poor Irish immigrants. He was tipped for Olympic glory, but a promising running career was interrupted by war service. His capture during the fall of Singapore marked the beginning of a three-and-a-half-year nightmare of starvation, torture and disease. 
 
Andy was imprisoned in the notorious Changi camp before being transported to Taiwan, where he worked as a slave in a copper mine and was twice ordered to dig his own grave. He was later taken to Japan on a hellship voyage that nearly killed him, but Andy’s athleticism and spirit enable him to survive an ordeal in which many died. 
 
From his poverty-stricken boyhood in the slums of the Gorbals to the atomic wasteland of Nagasaki, Andy’s life story is vividly recounted in Tomorrow You Die, an epic, compassionate tale that will shock, enthral and inspire.

Tomorrow You Die

The Astonishing Survival Story of a Second World War Prisoner of the Japanese

Jack Alexander

McCrae's Own was the 'Heart of Midlothian Battalion' mentioned all too briefly in Martin Middlebrook's classic book The First Day on the Somme. Raised in Edinburgh shortly after the start of the Great War, it was perhaps the finest unit in Lord Kitchener's volunteer army - a brotherhood of sportsmen, bound together by their extraordinary colonel and their loyalty to a quaintly named Association Football club, the famous Gorgie 'Hearts'. McCrae's were blooded in the Battle of the Somme, losing three-quarters of their strength on the first day alone. The Colonel himself was invalided home. In time the battalion recovered. It came of age at Arras, endured the muddy horror of Passchendaele, and held the line unbroken in the face of furious German attacks on the Lys in 1918. For almost a century their story remained untold. It was all but lost forever. Now, after 12 years of exacting historical detective work, Jack Alexander has reclaimed the 16th Royal Scots for posterity. In this stirring book he draws upon interviews with veterans and a unique archive of letters, diaries and photographs, assembled from the families of more than 1,000 of Sir George McCrae's men.

McCrae's Battalion

The Story of the 16th Royal Scots

The Gordons recruited from the north-east of Scotland and the regiment's character was moulded by men from the farming counties of Aberdeenshire, Moray and Nairn. It was raised in 1794 by an aristocratic landowner, the Duke of Gordon, whose wife played a major role in attracting recruits by riding through her husband's estates and offering a guinea and a kiss to each man who enlisted. Originally raised as the 100th Highlanders, it was later renumbered the 92nd Highlanders and in 1881 was amalgamated with the 75th (Stirlingshire) Regiment to form The Gordon Highlanders. 
 
In the nineteenth century the two regiments were in constant service throughout the empire and in 1879 the 92nd Highlanders were involved in Lord Roberts' historic march from Kabul to Kandahar during the fighting in Afghanistan. One of the first Victoria Crosses was awarded to a Gordon Highlander, Private Beach, who was decorated for his supreme gallantry while serving in the Crimea in 1854. Another Victoria Cross winner was Major George White (Afghanistan, 1879), who went on to become a field marshal. During the fighting on the north-west frontier of India in 1897, Piper George Findlater was awarded the Victoria Cross for continuing to play his pipes despite being wounded and under heavy enemy fire. 
 
In 1994, The Gordon Highlanders amalgamated with Queen's Own Highlanders to form The Highlanders and in 2006 became the 4th Battalion of The Royal Regiment of Scotland. This is a celebratory account of the regiment's long and distinguished history.

The Gordon Highlanders

David Leslie

Charlie, snow, toot, white: cocaine goes by many different names. But in Glasgow in the early 1980s, they called it Happy Dust. 
 
At no-holds-barred parties of the glamorous and wealthy, cocaine was the new aphrodisiac. A few lines of Charlie and a humdrum party could become an orgy. 
 
Hot from the forests of Colombia, Charlie flooded onto the streets of Glasgow and was passed along the line to the cocktail set, highly paid sports stars and yuppies desperate for kicks and thrills. Behind it all was a man they called the Parachutist. 
 
But all too soon, the party was over. People became too greedy and the Parachutist was double-crossed. Some of the gang did shady deals with detectives in hotel rooms; others flew to seek shelter in the sun, their reputations destroyed but not their fortunes. 
 
The good times might have been over for the Happy Dust Gang, but their legacy lives on to this day.

The Happy Dust Gang

How Sex, Scandal and Deceit Founded a Drugs Empire

Derek Flory

Blanche Le Fleur

Sybil Le Fleur

When Sybil and Blanche Le Fleur were growing up in idyllic Burma in the 1920s and '30s, little did they realise the changes and challenges that they would face during their lives. With the death of first their mother and then their father, they had to cope with enormous personal tragedy, including the loss of all their family wealth. Then the Japanese bombed Rangoon on 23 December 1941. Sybil managed to get out of the city, but there was no way for her to return to her sister, or even to know if Blanche was still alive, as the death toll was so high. 
 
While Sybil escaped from Burma and settled in Scotland after marrying a Scottish soldier, Blanche lived for over three years under Japanese occupation. After leaving for India in 1958, Blanche made a new life while still thinking of and praying for her sister. Decades later, a chance set of circumstances led to the discovery by Sybil's son that Blanche was alive and living in India. 
 
Torn Apart is the heart-rending, inspirational account of how the Le Fleur sisters lived separate lives for more than 65 years before an emotional reunion brought them together again in 2007.

Torn Apart

How Two Sisters Found Each Other After Sixty-Five Years

David Lister

Hugh Jordan

A mindless sectarian psychopath or a loyalist folk hero who took the war to the IRA's front door? The name Johnny 'Mad Dog' Adair is synonymous with a killing spree by loyalist terrorists that took Northern Ireland to the brink of civil war. 
 
From humble beginnings as a rioter and glue-sniffer on Belfast's Shankill Road, Adair rose through the ranks of the outlawed Ulster Freedom Fighters to head its merciless killing machine, 'C Company'. Surrounded by a group of trusted friends, his reign of terror in the early 1990s claimed the lives of up to 40 Catholics, picked out at random as Adair's hitmen roamed Belfast. Determined to lead from the front, his men even fired a rocket at Sinn Fein's headquarters, writing themselves into loyalist mythology and embarrassing the IRA in its republican heartland. Its desperate attempts to kill Adair culminated in October 1993, when a bomb on the Shankill Road, intended for the loyalist godfather, claimed the lives of nine Protestant civilians. 
 
Mad Dog: The Rise and Fall of Johnny Adair and 'C Company' describes in graphic detail Adair's criminal empire and an egomaniac's bloody war against Catholics and anybody else who got in his way. Adair's friends and enemies talk for the first time about the murders he ordered, his sordid personal life, and his attempts - ultimately disastrous - to become Northern Ireland's supreme loyalist figurehead.

Mad Dog

The Rise and Fall of Johnny Adair and 'C Company'

Sal Polisi

Steve Dougherty

The Mob was the biggest, richest business in America – until it was destroyed from within by drugs, greed and the decline of traditional crime-family values. And by guys like Sal Polisi. 
 
Born into one of the New York Mob’s feared Five Families, Polisi ran an illegal after-hours gambling den, The Sinatra Club, that was a hangout for up-and-coming mobsters like John Gotti and the three wiseguys immortalised in Goodfellas: Henry Hill, Jimmy Burke and Tommy DeSimone. Yet for Polisi, the glory days spent robbing banks and pulling heists were fleeting. When he was busted, and already sickened by the bloodbath that had engulfed the Mob as it teetered towards extinction, he flipped and became one of a breed he had loathed all his life: a rat. 
 
In this riveting first-person chronicle of his brazen crimes, wild sexual escapades and personal tragedies, Polisi tells his story of life inside the New York Mob. With shocking candour, he draws on a hard-won knowledge of Mob history to paint a revelatory picture of the inner workings of the Mafia and its larger-than-life characters.

The Sinatra Club

My Life Inside the New York Mafia

Tommy Cairns Livingstone

Thomas Cairns Livingstone began to note his day-to-day experiences in 1913 and continued faithfully for the next 20 years. With each witty and well-observed entry, he recorded events at home and abroad through times of war and peace, joy and sadness. 
 
In this follow-up to the acclaimed Tommy's War, the focus is on the post-war years. Alongside engaging, warm-hearted recollections of everyday life with his wide circle of family, neighbours and friends, Thomas documents everything from the lingering effects of the war and post-war politics to cultural and social aspects of the era, including the rise of cinema and radio, the standard of dentists and opticians before the NHS, the partition of Ireland, the General Strike, the division of domestic labour, Clyde coastal holidays and the expansion of Glasgow. Yet, above all, Thomas affectionately chronicles family life with his hard-working wife, Agnes, and writes with pride of his clever young son, Tommy. 
 
Illustrated throughout with black-and-white sketches from Thomas' original diaries and various other artefacts from the period, Tommy's Peace is a tremendous document of a bygone era that vividly evokes family life in Glasgow between the wars.

Tommy's Peace

A Family Diary 1919-33

Alan Barker

In the early hours of 30 April 2003, twelve armed and uniformed officers accompanied by four plain-clothes detectives burst into Alan Barker's house. They stayed for hours, turning over rooms, seizing documents, impounding computers, files and anything else that interested them. The family were treated as terrorist suspects, the operation resembling so many others in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. But Alan Barker was and is no terrorist. In fact, he has spent his adult life fighting terrorism on the streets of his native province. 
 
 Barker belonged to the Special Branch, the RUC's elite unit dedicated to fighting the IRA, the INLA and loyalist terrorists. He gives a gripping insider's account of life on the frontline and demonstrates how the RUC used sophisticated listening devices and informants, including the notorious supergrass Raymond Gilmour, in their fight to gain the upper hand. 
 
 After nearly 30 years of loyal service, Barker retired angry and disillusioned about what he views as the government's capitulation to the terrorists. This is the book that Downing Street and the Northern Ireland Office don't want you to read. It is a story of courage under fire, guile, Le Carré-esque plots and treachery.

Shadows

Inside Northern Ireland's Special Branch

Paul Ferris

Reg McKay

Glasgow, 1989. James Addison, aka Addie, has been a very busy man. Wanted for every type of crime for over a decade, there is only one hitch - he has never been seen, let alone caught. So, who or what is Addie? Does he even exist? 
 
When a small-time moneylender pimp is shot down on a Glasgow street, it seems to be just another gangland murder. But not for Andy Grimes, overseer of much of the city's prostitution, drug dealing and protection rackets - and the dead man's brother. When word leaks out that Addie is the killer, Grimes calls in his police allies and musters his troops. On the case is DCI Alex Birse, and old-time cop, as crooked as he is vicious. He has been after Addie for years and never got close. 
 
As the streets of Glasgow heave with police and gangsters, over in Berlin the Wall is coming down. At this time of great change, opportunity and uncertainty, the two cities are linked by loot – Bearer Bonds to be precise. Back in Glasgow, while pulling a scam on an old Jewish couple, one of Grimes' men, Angie the Gopher, finds a biscuit tin full of Bearer Bonds issued in Germany before the Second World War. Angie smells money – the bonds could be worth millions – and he scuttles back to tell his boss. Now the chase is on. 
 
Who gets the bonds? How much are they worth? Who perishes along the way? For the answers you'll have to rely on Addie. But can they catch him? The last line will reveal all . . . maybe.

Deadly Divisions

The Spectre Chronicles

In May 1968, as part of cutbacks to the British Army, The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) was disbanded at a moving ceremony held at the same spot in Douglas in Lanarkshire at which it had been raised in 1689. And yet, although the regiment is no more, its place in history is unassailable. The ceremony embraced the history of one regiment, The Cameronians, which had its origins in the turbulent period that accompanied the rise of the House of Orange at the end of the seventeenth century, while its other component part - the 90th (Perthshire Light Infantry) - was raised as a light infantry regiment during the war against Revolutionary France. 
 
Following amalgamation in 1881, The Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) quickly built up a solid reputation as a fighting regiment. During the First World War it raised 27 battalions and during the Second World War its battalions served in Europe and Burma. In the course of its long history, the regiment provided the British Army with many distinguished soldiers including three field marshals: Viscounts Hill and Wolseley and Sir Evelyn Wood. 
 
Always tough and enduring in battle, it reflected the character of its main recruitment area - Glasgow and Lanarkshire - and in later years it took self-conscious pride when the Germans nicknamed its soldiers Giftzwerge, or poison dwarfs. 
 
The Cameronians puts its story into the context of British military history and makes use of personal testimony to reveal the life of the regiment.

The Cameronians

Edmund Gregory

Not Waving But Drowning tells the harrowing true story of one man's childhood struggle against poverty and his subsequent drive to become a policeman in the Royal Ulster Constabulary. 
 
 From his earliest days, Edmund Gregory possessed an awareness beyond his years. During the course of his parents' turbulent and doomed marriage, he soaked up the horror of seeing his mother and father tearing each other apart. After they separated, he experienced a lonely boyhood, starved of affection, while living in welfare homes, dingy Belfast bedsits, and a sordid care home for young boys. However, Gregory later found solace in his marriage to Agnes, and in a concerted effort to drag himself and his new family out of poverty, he joined the Royal Ulster Constabulary. 
 
 After five trauma-filled years serving in Belfast's riot squads, Gregory transferred into the somewhat elitist VIP protection branch of the RUC, where he was involved in providing bodyguard protection to many high-threat members of Northern Ireland's establishment. While working within that unit, he was also involved in teams protecting several members of the Royal family and then US President Bill Clinton throughout the course of their visits to the Province. 
 
 During his last four years in the force, Gregory was charged with protecting the Reverend Ian Paisley's deputy, Peter Robinson MP, an outspoken personality who was under constant and serious threat of assassination. After 21 years of service, however, Gregory was diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, which resulted in his medical retirement. 
 
 Not Waving But Drowning is an emotionally charged journey through Gregory’s impoverished childhood and the dark underbelly of his later life as a policeman in Northern Ireland performing what was, according to Interpol, the most dangerous policing role in the world.

Not Waving But Drowning

The Troubled Life and Times of a Frontline RUC Officer

Alexander Shannon

Alexander Shannon escaped a shady past to enjoy a glittering career in the army, only to end up back in the thick of criminal activity. 
 
Shannon's time as a soldier saw him posted to the Falklands, Northern Ireland and war-torn Bosnia. The rigours of army life took their toll and he found himself drawn into a series of ruthless gang wars. He used the skills he'd learned in the forces to hide weapons, work for drugs racketeers and plot a massacre, and he was offered a fortune to work as a Mafia-style contract assassin. 
 
He was questioned over brutal killings and accused of a triple murder attempt, yet his dedication and determination to succeed in the army brought him accolades and a series of promotions. In The Underworld Captain, Shannon explains how he managed to combine a successful army career with dangerous gangland dealings for so long and how he finally broke free for good.

The Underworld Captain

From Gangland Goodfella To Army Officer

The King's Own Scottish Borderers is one of only two Scottish regiments never to have been amalgamated until it joined forces with The Royal Scots to form the 1st battalion of The Royal Regiment of Scotland in 2006. It is also unusual in that it lost its Scottish status between 1782 and 1887 when it served as the 25th (Sussex) Regiment of Foot. 
 
Formed in Edinburgh in 1689, its first operational role was to defend the city during the period of turmoil following the accession of William and Mary of Orange. That same year the regiment fought at the Battle of Killiecrankie, where they withstood a ferocious charge by the Highlanders supporting James II. Since then, the regiment has fought in most of the major campaigns fought by the British Army. 
 
In 1887, the regiment became The King's Own Scottish Borderers. It served with distinction during the two World Wars and achieved nationwide fame in 1915 when Sergeant Piper Daniel Laidlaw won the Victoria Cross during the Battle of Loos. Despite coming under heavy fire he played his pipes in full view of the enemy, encouraging the Borderers with the sound of 'Blue Bonnets o'er the Border' and 'The Standard on the Braes o' Mar'. 
 
This concise account of the King's Own Scottish Borderers puts its story into the context of British military history and makes use of personal testimony to reveal the life of the regiment.

The King's Own Scottish Borderers

Yvonne Collinson Heath

Yvonne Collinson Heath will never forget the telephone call that changed her life for ever. On 23 March 2002, her eldest son, James – a private with the Royal Logistic Corps – was found dead in mysterious circumstances at the notorious Deepcut barracks. He had a single gunshot wound to the head. It was a tragedy that to this day raises questions. 
 
A Mother’s War recounts Yvonne’s anguish at losing her son, a boy who dreamed of serving his country but died before he had even reached his 18th birthday. It is also the powerful story of an extraordinary woman who overcame adversity – including the hurt of being abandoned by her father, bullied as a child and abused by a trusted uncle – to find love and raise a son, only to see him cruelly taken from her within weeks of his joining the Army. It reveals how her decade-long quest for answers uncovered sinister secrets and a series of cover-ups that went right to the heart of Whitehall. 
 
Above all else, A Mother’s War is the story of how Yvonne’s grief triggered a search for the truth that took her to Downing Street and captured the hearts of the nation.

A Mother's War

One Woman's Fight for the Truth Behind Her Son's Death at Deepcut

Steven McLaughlin

From the harsh realities of basic training to post-war chaos in Iraq and knife-edge tension in Northern Ireland, Squaddie takes us to a place not advertised in army recruitment brochures. It exposes the grim reality of everyday soldiering for the 'grunts on the ground'. 
 
After the tragic death of his brother, and in the dark days following 9/11, McLaughlin felt compelled to fulfil his lifelong ambition to serve in the army. He followed his late brother into the elite Royal Green Jackets and passed the arduous Combat Infantryman's Course at the age of 31. Thereafter, McLaughlin found himself submerged in a world of casual violence. 
 
Squaddie is a snapshot of infantry soldiering in the twenty-first century. It takes us into the heart of an ancient institution that is struggling to retain its tough traditions in a rapidly changing world. All of the fears and anxieties that the modern soldier carries as his burden are laid bare, as well as the occasional joys and triumphs that can make him feel like he is doing the best job in the world. 
 
This is an account of army life by someone who has been there and done it.

Squaddie

A Soldier's Story

Roger Hutchinson

Thirty years ago, the Gaelic language and culture which had been eminent in Scotland for 1,300 years seemed to be in the final stages of a 200-year terminal decline. The number of Gaelic speakers in Scotland had fallen tenfold over the previous century. The language itself was commonplace only in the scattered communities of the north-west Highlands and Hebrides.By the early years of the 21st century, however, a sea-change had taken place. Gaelic - for so long a subject of mockery and hostility - had become what some termed 'fashionable'. Gaelic-speaking jobs were available; Gaelic-medium education was established in many areas; and politicians and business-people saw benefits in acting as friends of the culture. While the numbers of Gaelic-speakers continued to fall as older people passed away, the decline was slowed and for the first time in 100 years the percentage of young people using the language began to rise proportionately. What had happened was a kind of renaissance: a Gaelic revival that manifested itself in popular music, literature, art, poetry, publishing, drama, radio and television. It was a phenomenon as obvious as it was unexpected. And at the heart of that movement lay education. A Gaelic Modern History will tell the story of one institution, Sabhal Mor Ostaig, the Gaelic College in Skye that has stood at the centre of this revival. But, chiefly, the book will examine how a venerable culture was given hope for the future at the point when all seemed lost. It recounts the scores of personalities, from Sorley Maclean and Runrig to Michael Forsyth and Gordon Brown, who have become involved in that process.

A Waxing Moon

The Modern Gaelic Revival

Chris Anderson

A cult figure among loyalists, despised and feared by nationalists, Billy 'King Rat' Wright is reputed to have been involved in a number of sectarian murders before he himself was shot dead by republican gunmen inside the Maze 
Prison in 1997. 
 
Wright became involved with loyalist paramilitaries at the age of 16, and in the early 1990s he emerged as the UVF commander in the Mid-Ulster area. The Billy Boy documents Wright's role in the Drumcree dispute of 1995-96 and his split from the UVF, recounting how he ignored both a death threat and an order to leave Northern Ireland, only to remain in Portadown and form the Loyalist Volunteer Force. It covers Wright's trial and subsequent imprisonment for a crime it has been claimed was set up by the State; recounts the circumstances of his killing inside a top-security prison; and investigates the allegations of State collusion in Wright's death. 
 
Terrifically gripping and often disturbing, The Billy Boy is an exhaustive account of a notorious figure of the Troubles, whose life and death were surrounded by controversy and political debate.

The Billy Boy

The Life and Death of LVF Leader Billy Wright

Alex Caine

The Hells Angels. The Bandidos. Asian triads. Russian mobsters and corrupt cops. Even the KKK. Just part of a day's work for Alex Caine, an undercover agent who has seen it all. 
 
After a tour in Vietnam and a stretch in prison on marijuana-possession charges, Caine fell into the cloak-and-dagger world of a contracted agent. Thanks to his quick-wittedness and tough but unthreatening demeanour, Caine could fit into whatever unsavoury situation he found himself. Over 25 years, his assignments ran the gamut from mean bikers to triad toughs. When a job was over, he'd slip away to a new part of the continent or world, where he would assume a new identity and then go back to work on another group of bad guys. 
 
Befriend and Betray offers an unflinching look at some familiar police operations and blows the lid off others that law enforcement would much prefer to keep hidden. It provides an unvarnished account of the toll such a life takes, one that often left Caine to wonder who he really was behind the myriad identities he had assumed and whether justice was ever truly served.

Befriend and Betray

Infiltrating the Hells Angels, Bandidos and Other Criminal Brotherhoods

Kray gang boss Tony Lambrianou, who served a life sentence for the brutal murder of Jack 'the Hat' McVitie, has threatened to kill Bernard O'Mahoney 'by smashing a hammer through his head'. 'Dodgy' Dave Courtney, who claims to have murdered two gangland rivals, tried 'to put him out of his misery' and 'the most dangerous man in the country', John 'Gaffer' Rollinson, has vowed to kill him 'when he finds him'. 
 
But O'Mahoney, one-time friend of the notorious Kray Brothers and former key member of the Essex Boys gang, isn't concerned about any of these threats, because he knows the truth about the wannabe gangsters who have built their 'reputations' on fantasy gleaned from Hollywood movies and 'true' crime books written by their heroes. 
 
Wannabe in my Gang? is a story that spans two decades and involves some of the most infamous names and crimes in British history. It gives a unique insight into the Kray brothers' firm, revealing that its public image is far from the truth. Also uncovered is what happened to the remaining members of the Essex Boys firm following the death of Esctasy victim Leah Betts and the murder of three of its leaders, who were found dead in their blood-spattered Range Rover one winter's evening. 
 
For the first time ever, O'Mahoney will expose the gangland myths that have made legends of those who claim to be responsible for mayhem and murder. He reveals the sordid secret of one of Britain's most infamous gangsters and tells the truth about the imposters who make a living selling stories and writing books about events that have never even happened. 
 
Wannabe in my Gang? is the book that many in the underworld never wanted the public to read. A crime exposé of the highest order, it is shocking, revelatory and gripping from beginning to end.

Wannabe in my Gang?

From the Krays to the Essex Boys

The Black Watch was formed at Aberfeldy in Perthshire in the early eighteenth century as an independent security force, or 'watch', to guard the approaches to the lawless areas of the Scottish Highlands. 
 
Instantly recognisable due to the famous red hackle cap badge and the traditional dark blue and green government tartan kilt from which it got its name, The Black Watch was renowned as one of the great fighting regiments of the British Army and served with distinction in all major conflicts from the War of Austrian Succession onwards. In a highly controversial move, the regiment served under the operational control of the US Army during the counter-insurgency war in Iraq in December 2004. 
 
The Black Watch prided itself on being a 'family regiment', with sons following fathers into its ranks, and this new concise history reflects the strong sense of identity which was created over the centuries. In 2006, as part of a radical review of the country's defence policy, The Black Watch was amalgamated into the new Royal Regiment of Scotland. This new account of the famous regiment is therefore a timely memorial to its long and distinguished history.

The Black Watch

Andrew Lees

Scousers believe they live in a special place, one that has more in common with Salvador da Bahia, New Orleans or Gdansk than anywhere in England, and the city has always punched above its weight. In less than a hundred years, however, Liverpool's image has declined from a major mercantile player known as the Second City of the Empire to what some social commentators have described as a cultural backwater remembered largely as the place where the Beatles were born. 
 
In Liverpool: The Hurricane Port, Andrew Lees reveals how Liverpool's pre-eminence in the slave trade left an indelible scar on the psychogeography of the city. He also explores the roots of Liverpool's contrary nature, its rebelliousness and its hedonism, as well as some of the recent hurricanes that have battered the city, including the anger of Toxteth, the Hillsborough disaster and the murder of James Bulger. In this distinctly personal account, Lees defines the characteristics of this Celtic enclave, with her loudmouthed, big-hearted people who have created a city quite different from anywhere else in the world.

Liverpool: The Hurricane Port

The Royal Scots are Scotland's oldest infantry regiment, with a tradition that stretches back to 1633. This first concise history of the regiment is based largely on the recollections of several generations of Royal Scots - men like Private McBane, who carried his three-year-old son into battle at Malplaquet, and Private Begbie, the youngest soldier to serve in the First World War. These first-hand accounts take the reader through the great wars of the eighteenth century, when Britain was a rising global power, through the setbacks and the triumphs of the Napoleonic Wars and on to the glorious years of the nineteenth century. 
 
The two world wars of the twentieth century saw the Royals expand in size, and there are full accounts of its meritorious service on all the main battle fronts. More recently, the regiment has been involved in operations in the Balkans and Iraq. 
 
In 2006, in one of the most radical changes in the country's defence policy, the Royal Scots will be amalgamated into the new Royal Regiment of Scotland. Royal Scots is, therefore, a timely celebration of the British Army's most venerable regiment, right of the line and second to none.

The Royal Scots

Mick McGovern

Following Michelle and Lisa Taylor's conviction of the savage murder of Alison Shaugnessy, Bernard O'Mahoney embarked on a successful crusade to prove their innocence. Michelle - who had been having an affair with Alison's husband - had been found guilty of murdering Alison in a jealous rage, and her sister, Lisa, was convicted of aiding her in the brutal attack. During the appeal to clear their names, Bernard O'Mahoney and Michelle began a passionate affair. Then, his suspicions aroused by her obsessive behaviour, O'Mahoney stumbled across a letter which could only mean one thing - Michelle was guilty. Following a heated confrontation, she finally broke down and admitted her guilt. The Dream Solution tells of two dramatic legal battles - one to free the sisters, and the other to prove their guilt.

The Dream Solution

The Murder of Alison Shaughnessy - and the Fight to Name Her Killer

Created in 1961 as a result of the amalgamation of the Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders and the Seaforth Highlanders, the Queen's Own Highlanders embody the history and traditions of some of Scotland's oldest Highland regiments. Two great Highland families - Cameron of Lochdarroch and Mackenzie of Seaforth - were involved in the formation of the antecedent regiments and their tartans were incorporated in their successor's uniform. 
 
During its long history, the regiment has served in the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimea, the Indian Mutiny, the Boer War and the two World Wars of the twentieth century. After the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, the Duke of Wellington specifically mentioned the Cameron Highlanders in his dispatches as a result of the bravery shown by Piper Kenneth Mackay, who left the safety of the regiment's defensive square to encourage the men by playing the traditional rallying tune 'Cogadh no Sith' (War or Peace - the True Gathering of the Clans). 
 
In 1994, the Queen's Own Highlanders amalgamated with the Gordon Highlanders, and in 2006 they became the 4th Battalion of the new Royal Regiment of Scotland. This account of the regiment is therefore a timely memorial to its long and distinguished history.

Queen's Own Highlanders

James Bailey

James Bailey's form of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) was as bizarre as it was unbearable. He was obsessed by a fear of drugs and their effects, believing himself to be in constant danger of becoming insanely high through people spiking his food, or even by just touching a photograph of a marijuana leaf. 
 
The treatment programme he went through at a specialist American clinic was challenging, to say the least. He was asked to shake hands and mingle with the local junkies, fighting his anxieties and the urge to go and wash for as long as possible in order to 'expose' himself to his fears. 
 
Man, Interrupted gives us a glimpse into the tortured world of a man suffering from what is an increasingly common disorder. But far from being a doom-laden account of mental illness, the result is uniquely revealing, hilariously entertaining and wonderfully rewarding.

Man, Interrupted

Welcome to the Bizarre World of OCD, Where Once More is Never Enough

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