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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James Morton

While many lawyers are honest, for Gangland figures, the best lawyer is often corrupt – a ‘shyster’ – who will act as a go between with the police, provide false alibis, bribe and intimidate witnesses, jurors and judges and occasionally organise robberies and burglaries. Sometimes these lawyers even kill or may be killed themselves. 
 
Gangland: The Lawyers brings us such lawyers as Frank Ragan, who acted for three mob leaders, and James Sawyer, the barrister and forger involved in the first Great train Robbery. From the amazing story of Gambino crime boss John Gotti (the ‘Teflon Don’) and his attorney Bruce Cutler, to the American judge Joseph Peel, who had his co-judge killed, James Morton presents a worldwide history of these shady individuals and their seedy but compelling stories.

Gangland: The Lawyers

Laura D

Laura is a bright and ambitious language student at a top university in France. She is also broke. Surfing the internet one evening, she stumbles across an adult website that might just hold the answer to her financial problems - pages of personal ads offering money in exchange for 'female company'. On impulse she responds to one of them . . . and then another and another. When a man called Joe contacts her, prepared to pay €150 for an hour-long meeting, she nervously agrees to his request. 
 
Joe will be the first of many clients - men of all ages with urgent needs. And Laura will surprise even herself as she submits to their often bizarre demands in hotel rooms and apartments. But the pressures of leading a double life as student and call girl, and the increasing possessiveness of Joe soon begin to take their toll. 
 
In her first year at university, 19-year-old Laura is set to learn more about men, money, sex and herself than she could ever have imagined.

Scandalous

J Pyle

The Krays, the Richardsons and men like Buster Edwards or Freddie Foreman may be better known, but by the end of the sixties they were either in prison or living in enforced exile. Joey Pyle was every bit as notorious, feared and respected. 
 
His broad range of criminal contacts and associates ensured he was either involved in or very much aware of every major criminal escapade that took place. From the murder of Jack the hat by the Kray twins to the Great Train Robbery, from the fatal shooting at the Pen Club to the American Mafia's attempts to penetrate London's casino scene, Pyle has seen it all.

Joey Pyle: Notorious - The Changing Face of Organised Crime

Rosie Childs

Because she was black, Clare Malone was the talk of her Liverpool council estate. Her mother and her mother's husband were both white and from birth she was stigmatised for this proof of her mother's infidelity. Clare was left in a bare, filthy council house to fend for herself and her siblings until, aged nine, she was placed in the care of an order of strict and often cruel nuns. 
 
She finally embarked on a settled life as a nanny and pre-school teacher, but she couldn't escape from herself and the black cloud of her childhood. After suffering a breakdown, Clare was placed in a series of dehumanising psychiatric hospitals for many years until she was helped to remember the horrifying secret of the childhood she thought she had buried forever. Now, with support, she has rebuilt her life as Rosie Childs and has moved on. She is truly happy at last.

Catch Me Before I Fall

Ron Clem

Carren Clem

The Clems were a family living the American dream until their fifteen-year-old daughter Carren became addicted to Meth. Within two months of first taking the highly addictive drug, Carren had moved out of the family home, spent her entire savings on Meth and resorted to stealing, dealing and prostitution to pay for her habit. 
 
Told from both Carren's perspective and from the perspective of her father Ron, Loss of Innocence shares the shocking story of how a middle-class girl growing up in a stable home could get so lost. A former LA police officer, Ron describes how he went back to being a cop to try to rescue his daughter and how he suffered a heart attack in the street when he witnessed Carren selling herself to a drug dealer; Carren shares the events leading up to her first taste of drugs, and her descent into addiction with moving candour and dignity. 
 
Carren is now clean and sober, and in this frank, compelling book she and her family prove that there can be life after drug addiction.

Loss Of Innocence

A daughter's addiction. A father's fight to save her.

Frank Fraser

Mad Frankie Fraser has become a household name, known to millions as one of London's most notorious gangsters. In Mad Frank's London - his fourth book - Frank continues the shocking stories of his life of crime. 
Frankie Fraser recalls the good and the bad times, brings the criminals of his acquaintance to life, and guides us through the darker streets of London - as only a born Londoner, and true gangster could.

Mad Frank's Britain

James Reed

Write a killer CV and land your dream job. 
 
It takes an employer just seven seconds to save or reject a job applicant’s CV. In this book, James Reed – chairman of REED, Britain’s largest recruitment company – offers invaluable and specific advice on what employers want to see in the CVs they receive and how you can stand out from the crowd. 
 
Unlike other career development books, the honest advice presented here has been compiled from one-to-one interviews, surveys and countrywide workshops across REED’s network of recruitment consultants. This book is an accessible and enjoyable read, intensely practical and packed with pull-out quotes, layout examples and tips. 
 
Find out what future employers are looking for and take the first step to start loving Mondays again.

The 7 Second CV

How to Land the Interview

Charles Higham

Jennie Jerome was a controversial American society girl and mother of Britain's most revered statesman, Winston Churchill. A single-minded and dynamic woman she was an early feminist, advocate of Irish independence, and, above all, was notorious for her promiscuity. 
 
Charles Higham draws from previously overlooked sources to provide much that is startlingly new about the remarkable and tempestuous life of Jennie Jerome. The book charts her luxurious New York upbringing, her eyebrow-raising entry into the British aristocracy through marriage to Lord Randolph Churchill, son of the Duke of Marlborough, her endless line of liaisons with men of vastly inferior years, and a very different sort of affair in the highest of high places - with the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII (one of many kings and princes to win her affection). Passionately in love with life, expressive of her sexuality when women were supposed to hide it, beautiful and independent minded, Jennie Jerome was decades ahead of her time.

Dark Lady

Sarbjit Kaur Athwal

In 1998, Sarbjit Athwal was called by her husband to attend a family meeting. It looked like just another family gathering. An attractive house in west London, a large dining room, two brothers, their mother, one wife. But the subject they were discussing was anything but ordinary. At the head of the group sat the elderly mother. She stared proudly around, smiling at her children, then raised her hand for silence. ‘It’s decided then,’ the old lady announced. ‘We have to get rid of her.’ 
 
‘Her’ was Surjit Athwal, Sarbjit’s sister-in-law. Within three weeks of that meeting, Surjit was dead: lured from London to India, drugged, strangled, and her body dumped in the Ravi River, never to be seen again. 
 
After the killing, risking her own life, Sarbjit fought secretly for justice for nine long, scared years. Eventually, with immense bravery, she became the first person within a murderer’s family ever to go into open court in an honour killing trial as the Prosecution’s key witness, and the first to waive her anonymity in such a trial. As a result of her testimony, the trial led to the first successful prosecution of an honour killing without the body ever being found. 
 
But her story doesn’t end there. Since the trial, her life has been threatened; her own husband arrested after an allegation of intimidation. Shamed is a story of fear and of horror – but also of immense courage, and a woman who risked everything to see that justice was done.

Shamed

The Honour Killing That Shocked Britain – by the Sister Who Fought for Justice

The ultimate guide to finding the very best person for the job, from the world's best recruiter. 
 
A business is only as great as the people at its heart, making recruitment the most important key to success. In this book, James Reed – chairman of REED, Britain’s largest recruitment company – offers invaluable and specific advice on the secrets to excelling in recruitment. 
 
This book is a step-by-step guide to becoming the best recruitment consultant you can be, focusing on strategy and practical advice while revealing the seven key attributes of a great recruiter. This book is an accessible read for recruiters at any stage of their career, packed with tips and examples from REED's extensive network of recruitment professionals. 
 
This thorough and honest book is a must-have for any recruiter.

The Happy Recruiter

The 7 Ways to Succeed

Eddie Izzard

David Quantick

Eddie Izzard - action transvestite, boy racer and male tomboy - spent the 1990s conquering Britain. As the decade ended, he looked further afield. "Dressed To Kill", his stand-up tour, saw him transport his high heels and off-the-shoulder numbers to New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, taking a natural comedian's delight in the differences separating the two sides of the Pond. In this book, he reflects on his birth in Yemen and his childhood in Northern Ireland, Wales and London, and muses on animals, male tomboys, street theatre, sex, crime, God, "The Great Escape", Bible stories starring Sean Connery and James Mason, and cats who dig for oil. He also reflects on the trials and tribulations of being an cross-dressing, surrealist comedian intent on making it in America.

Dress To Kill

Dave Courtney

Dave Courtney - the original behind Vinnie Jones's character in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels - tells all in his no-holds-barred bestselling autobiography. 
 
From the streets of southeast London to bare-knuckle fights; from the funeral of Ronnie Kray to drug-deals turned sour in Holland - Dave Courtney's story is like no one else's.

Stop The Ride, I Want To Get Off

The Autobiography of Dave Courtney

Jane Plume

'I’m glad I could do her this one last favour. If it had been the other way round, I know Gina would have done the same for me.’ 
 
Jane and Gina were the best of friends. When Gina’s husband Shaun was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2009, Jane vowed to do everything she could to help her best mate and her two small sons through the awful time to come. 
 
But things were about to take a tragic turn for the worse. In 2010, Gina was killed in a shock car crash. Though devastated by her own grief, Jane knew that Gina needed her now more than ever – to help with the boys she had left behind. And after cancer claimed Shaun's life, Jane stepped in to care for the two orphans, becoming the mother her best friend could no longer be. 
 
This is the moving true story behind an incredible act of love.

Please Don't Cry

A family torn apart by grief. An incredible act of love.

James Ashcroft

In September 2003, James 'Ash' Ashcroft, a former British Infantry Captain, arrived in Iraq as a 'gun for hire'. It was the beginning of an 18-month journey into blood and chaos. 
 
In this action-packed page-turner, Ashcroft reveals the dangers of his adrenalin-fuelled life as a security contractor in Baghdad, where private soldiers outnumber non-US Coalition forces in a war that is slowly being privatised. From blow-by-blow accounts of days under mortar bombardment to revelations about life operating deep within the Iraqi community, Ashcroft shares the real, unsanitised story of the war in Iraq - and its aftermath - direct from the front line.

Making A Killing

The Explosive Story of a Hired Gun in Iraq

James Caan

After dropping out of school at just sixteen, James Caan started his business life in a broom cupboard with no qualifications and two pieces of fatherly wisdom: 'observe the masses and do the opposite' and 'always look for opportunities where both parties benefit'. Armed with this advice, natural charm and the Yellow Pages, he built a market-leading business with a turnover of £130 million and swiftly became one of Britain's most successful entrepreneurs. 
 
From Caan's childhood as a Pakistani immigrant to the phenomenal success of his first company and beyond, The Real Deal traces both his financial and personal achievements. It offers a frank account of what success at thirty really signifies and brings us right up to the present, including his impact on Dragons' Den and what his charity work, from saving a hospital in London to building a school in Lahore, means to him. Ultimately, it is a story of learning what money is really worth, told by one the country's most insightful businessmen.

The Real Deal

My Story from Brick Lane to Dragons' Den

Brian O'Dea

Abused as a child by his local priest, Brian O'Dea, a once ordinary young man, became a rebel, using and selling drugs for the escape and excitement they offered. Soon he was operating a $100 million a year, 120-man business, and had developed a terrifying cocaine addiction. 
 
Eventually he quit the trade - and the drugs - and was working with recovering addicts in Santa Barbara, when the authorities finally caught up with him. Extracts of Brian's prison diary - perceptive, funny and alarming - are interleaved with a vivid re-telling of his outlaw years and the ultimate recognition of the things in his life that were worth living for.

High

Confessions of an International Drug Smuggler

Augusten Burroughs

From the author: 
'My father doesn't feature much in Running with Scissors. And one of the reasons for this is because he didn't feature much in my life. But there's another reason, too: Our relationship was so complicated, so dark, so confusing and so big, that to tell the story would require a book. So finally, upon the death of my father in 2005, I decided to tell the story I have been most afraid yet most compelled to tell.' 
 
This prequel to international hit Running With Scissors tells the story of Augusten's relationship with his tormented father: a man who sent his wife mad and saw his other son run away from home, prior to Augusten going into foster care. Harrowing, insightful and amusing by turns.

A Wolf at the Table

William Balsamo

George Carpozi Jr.

How did the Mob evolve from a disorganised gang of uncouth killers into the deadly 'international corporation' it is today? 
 
Tracing its beginnings as an underground society which sprang up in Sicily, to the Mob which went on to run organised crime throughout Italy and America, William Balsamo – great-nephew of the original godfather – and George Carpozi Jr draw on two decades of research to tell the true story of the most mythical and misunderstood criminal organisation in history.

The Mafia

The Inside Story of Organised Crime

The First 100 Years

Piers Paul Read

On Thursday August 8, 1963, fifteen masked men stopped the night train from Glasgow to London and robbed it of £2,500,000 (the equivalent of £41 million today). It was called the crime of the century, and the thieves were relentlessly pursued by Scotland Yard until half the gang were behind bars serving huge prison terms. But the story did not end there. First one, then another escaped in thrilling style and fled abroad, catching the world's imagination and making the Train Robbers into folk heroes. 
 
Thirteen years later, the gang combined to tell their story, and Piers Paul Read, author of the bestselling Alive, agreed to write it. This is the classic, complete and exclusive story of the twentieth-century's most audacious crime and its even more sensational aftermath.

The Train Robbers

Their Story

Sarah Griffin

'I was fourteen when I found my Dad trying to commit suicide in the garage. Sounds shocking doesn't it? But that was part of me, part of living with my Dad' 
 
Sarah's Diary is the very personal diary of Sarah Griffin - an ordinary teenage girl learning to deal with the ups and downs of family life. On the outside hers was like any other family, but behind closed doors lay a sad and lonely secret. Sarah's Dad had depression -- a condition we've all heard of but seldom discuss. Beautifully written, brutally honest, Sarah's story is compelling reading.

Sarah's Diary

Don Camsell

Don Camsell joined the men in black of the SBS in 1974. From the deserts of Oman to the hills of Port Stanley, from the bottom of Gibraltar harbour to the deep, cold, black waters of Loch Long and from the QE2 to the back alleys of Belfast, his new role demanded that Don fought in just about every theatre of war - overt or covert.

Black Water: By Strength and By Guile

Ray Bishop

Follow Britain's most wanted man into London's underworld and back out again 
 
 Ray Bishop was on the run, skulking in a dealer's house in north London, when an image of his face flashed up on the TV, accompanied by a public warning. The assembled company were aghast, and Ray felt sick at what he saw. How had he become Britain's most wanted man? 
 
 Growing up in a council estate in South East London, where he and his friends were regularly brutalised by the police Ray tells all of his early days of petty crime. Being despatched to notoriously violent youth-detention centres where he was further criminalized he graduated with flying colours to a career in London's underworld as an armed robber, a drug smuggler and a people trafficker, developing a serious addiction to cocaine and heroin along the way. 
 
 But Ray's is also story of redemption, of coming back from rock bottom and learning lessons the hard back. Enrolling in a rigorous rehabilitation programme, Ray turned his life around. He went on to realise his childhood dream of becoming British Middleweight Boxing Champion, setting up his own business and advocating for others along the way. Here's how he did it.

Outlaw

Learning lessons the hard way as Britain’s most wanted man

Frankie Fraser

‘They say I’ve killed 40 people and who am I to disagree? I’ve always liked even numbers.’ 
 
Branded the dentist for using pliers to extract the teeth of those who owed money to his boss Charlie Richardson, Frankie Fraser was labelled the most dangerous man in Britain by two Home Secretaries. He is famous for his crimes, many of which have entered gangster folklore. In these diaries, however, originally published when he was 78, Mad Frank delved into areas he had never chosen, or dared, to talk about before. 
 
His day-by-day entries record unsolved murders, shoot-outs, crooked coppers, bribery, extortion, wrongful convictions, and even sex in prison. And by contrast, he also opens up with personal memories of growing up in poverty, in London's East End, and the reality of having to steal food to feed the family. 
 
Frankie Frasier died in 2014, and this rare True Crime classic is first-hand history at its most compelling.

Mad Frank's Diary

The Confessions of Britain’s Most Notorious Villain

Dave Courtney, 'one of the most feared men on the streets of London' reveals the characters, both fictional and all too real that have most influenced his colourful - and criminal - life. 
As you might expect, Dodgy Dave's ideas of what constitutes a hero and a villain is at times a little, well, dodgy. But Dave challenges our notions of what it is to be heroic in his usual candid and witty style.

Dave Courtneys Heroes and Villains

B Reynolds

Bruce Reynolds

8 August 1963; a railway track in Buckinghamshire. The moon shines clearly over Bruce Reynolds and sixteen other men robbing a train of its sacks of money. The Great Train Robbery has entered British folklore as one of the most audacious and extraordinary crimes of the twentieth century. The haul £2,631,684 - is, in todays money, a staggering £26 million. 
 
Bruce Reynolds, the leader of the gang, was sentenced to 25 years in prison; even the Commissioner of the Met, Sir Robert Mark, thought that excessive. On its first publication in 1995 Bruce Reynolds autobiography was widely acclaimed and it is now regarded as a classic in the true crime genre. Now reissued with a new introduction and final chapter, the story is brought up to date to include the return of Ronnis Biggs to the UK, the deaths of Buster Edwards, Roy James and Taters Chatham and the continuing story of Reynolds life since his release from jail, as well as dozens of previously unseen photographs.

The Autobiography of a Thief

The Man Behind The Great Train Robbery

Sites of gruesome murders, stories of killings, frauds, jewel thefts and treachery are all part of Mad Frankie Fraser's grand tour of Britain's criminal underworld. As one of the most notorious gangsters of the 20th Century, he is perfectly placed to give us the lowdown on crimes from up and down the country, plus his take on crimes he was personally involved in and cases as yet unsolved. Written with crime author James Morton, this is the definitive guide to Britain's many lives of crime.

Mad Frank's Underworld History of Britain

Mark Leigh

Herewith a handful of sample entries to tickle your funny bones… 
 
In the 1824 war between Britain and Ashanti (now part of Ghana), the British Redcoats found themselves surrounded by 10,000 fierce Ashanti warriors, and running very low on ammunition. Their commander ordered Charles Brandon, the army’s stores manager, to break open the reserve ammunition he’d ordered. As the Ashanti advanced Brandon began to open the ammunition boxes – only to find he had brought the wrong supplies. They were all full of biscuits. 
 
The grandfather of film star Lana Turner owned a half share in a brand new company that had started bottling a fizzy drink. He thought the drink’s name would affect its saleability and wanted to change it – without success. In frustration and as a protest he sold his 50%. It’s a pity really because Coca-Cola became quite popular… 
 
Italian Vittoria Luise was out driving during a fierce storm in Naples. A huge gust of wind blew his car into the River Sele. The car began to sink, but the calm motorist managed to break a window and swim to safety. He dragged himself onto the riverbank – and it was here that he was hit by a falling tree and killed. 
 
The Times of 19 October 1986 carried the story of Emilio Tarra, a crewmember of the 1986 America’s Cup race, who was driving from Perth towards Adelaide during the Australian leg of the race. En route, his car sideswiped a kangaroo, leaving it sprawled across the road. 
 Tarra got out of his car and, assuming the kangaroo was dead, decided to take a novelty photograph to show his colleagues. Dressing the kangaroo up in his smart team blazer, he propped it against his car to take its photograph. As he was focusing his camera, the kangaroo, which had only been stunned, woke up and bounded back off into the bush, taking with it the jacket, which contained Tarra’s passport, $2,000 worth of cash and his credit cards.

Epic Fail

The Ultimate Book of Blunders

Kitty Dimbleby

Ever wondered what it is like to support a loved one in the armed forces? Army wife and journalist Kitty Dimbleby reveals stories of life, love and loss from the women behind the front line. 
 
For every brave soldier putting their life on the line for Queen and country, there is a second, more subtle sort of heroism at work back at base in Britain. Daffodil Girls is the story of the women behind the soldiers of The 2nd Battalion The Royal Welsh. Granted unprecedented access into this most private of communities, writer Kitty Dimbleby brilliantly brings to life the lot of a military wife, as she follows these women through the cycle of a regiment's tour of duty: the preparation for departure, the six long months of action and the emotional reunion. 
 
Insightful, humorous and deeply moving in turn, Daffodil Girls captures the unique bond of friendship and indomitable spirit that is forged in such circumstances - the extraordinary world of the heroines behind our army heroes.

Daffodil Girls

Stories of Love, Loss and Friendship from the Women Behind Our Heroes

Rhea Coombs

This moving memoir tells the story of how a young woman descended into the world of prostitution and drug abuse, yet found the strength to rebuild her life. 
 
Rhea Coombs's father is a convicted murderer and she grew up with a hippy mother who constantly moved house and lived in a succession of squats and communes before settling in Bristol. It was in Bristol that Rhea had her first introduction to drugs, pimps and prostitution. Pregnant at sixteen, she escaped to London and mixed with gangsters in seedy Soho nightclubs, eventually becoming addicted to crack and heroin and running a crack house. Rhea was forced to give up her children, but she never stopped loving them and through her strength and courage was finally able to escape for the world of drugs and prostitution, and regain custody of her children. This is her remarkable story.

My Name Is Angel

Daniel Wolff

S.R Crain

Cliff White

G. David Tenenbaum

When Sam Cooke was shot dead in a cheap motel in Hollywood, he was one of America's most successful pop stars. He left a world in which he had been born poor and had become very rich from the success of such records as "You Send Me" and "A Wonderful World", yet his body lay unrecognised in a morgue for two days. This biography follows Cooke's life in a racist America where his voice was one of the first to reach beyond the segregated audiences and command a white following, Cooke himself becoming a player in the fledgling civil rights movement. This award-winning biography is a full and sometimes shocking story of a man whose songbook is revered by great performers such as Otis Redding, Rod Stewart and Aretha Franklin.

You Send Me

The Life and Times of Sam Cooke

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