A. Igoni Barrett was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in 1979 and lives in Lagos. He is a winner of the 2005 BBC World Service short story competition, the recipient of a Chinua Achebe Center Fellowship, a Norman Mailer Center Fellowship, and a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency. His short story collection, Love is Power, or Something Like That, was published in 2013. In 2014 he was named on the Africa39 list of sub-Saharan African writers under 40. Blackass is his first novel.

A. Igoni Barrett

The short life of A.J.A. Symons (1900-41) was described by his biographer as an intricate and largely harmless confidence trick. His many interests included the collection of musical boxes and rare books as well as the study and practice of forgery; they left him time to edit an anthology of Edwardian verse and compose studies of H.M. Stanley and other notable figures. He is remembered for The Quest for Corvo, one of the most remarkable biographies ever written, and for co-founding the Wine and Food Society.

A. J. A. Symons

A. J. Liebling, born in Manhattan in 1904, joined the staff of the New Yorker in 1935 and contributed innumerable articles to the magazine throughout his lifetime, on subjects ranging from food to boxing and France to horse racing. As a war correspondent during the Second World War, he reported from France, England and Algeria, and participated in the Normandy landings. In later life he married the writer Jean Stafford, his third wife. He died in 1963.

A. J. Liebling

A. J. Rosen is an author of YA fantasy novels and is an ambassador for Wattpad, known as @agatharoza. Entwined is her first novel.

A. J. Rosen

A. K. Davidson

A. O. Scott has been a film critic at the New York Times since 2000. His writing has appeared in many other publications, including the New York Review of Books, Slate, the New Yorker and the Nation. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism in 2010, Scott is currently Distinguished Professor of Film Criticism at Wesleyan University. He lives with his family in Brooklyn, New York. 
 
@aoscott

A. O. Scott

A.S. Byatt (1936-2023) was a novelist, short-story writer and critic of international renown. Her novels include Possession (winner of the Booker Prize 1990), the Frederica Quartet and The Children’s Book, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. She was appointed CBE in 1990 and DBE in 1999, and was awarded the Erasmus Prize 2016 for her ‘inspiring contribution to life writing’ and the Pak Kyongni Prize 2017. In 2018 she received the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award.

A. S. Byatt

A. T. Williams won the George Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2013 for his book A Very British Killing: The Death of Baha Mousa. He lives in Warwickshire.

A. T. Williams

A. W. Chase

Dubbed ‘The new queen of spy fiction’ by the Guardian newspaper, and ‘the real thing’ by the Washington Post, A.C. 'Ava' Glass is the CWA Dagger-shortlisted author of Alias Emma (The Chase), The Traitor and The Trap. The Traitor was a 2023 Richard and Judy Bookclub pick. Alias Emma was a Barnes and Noble book of the month. A former crime reporter and communications consultant, for five years Ava worked closely with spies. Her time in that world fascinated her, and the people she met back then inspire every book she writes.

A.C. Glass

A.E. Housman

Arthur Edward Waite was the designer and co-creator of the now famous Rider Waite Tarot deck. 
 
An American-born British poet and scholarly mystic, his strong interest in all esoteric matters - divination, magic, Kabbalism, alchemy and Freemasony - led to him penning a number of books. These include the Key to the Tarot, The Book of Ceremonial Magic and A New Encyclopedia of Freemasony.

A.E. Waite

A.E. Warren is the author of the Tomorrow's Ancestors series, which consists of Subject Twenty-One, The Hidden Base, The Fourth Species and The Final Rising. 
 
After spending eight years working as a lawyer, she began to write in the evenings and early mornings as a form of escapism from life in a very small cubicle with lots of files. She self-published her first novels in her spare time, which were picked up by Del Rey UK which is the science fiction/fantasy imprint of Penguin Random House. 
 
 She is an avid reader, occasional gamer and fair-weather runner. She lives in the UK with her husband, daughter and hopefully, one day, a wise border terrier named Austen.

A.E. Warren

A.G.D. Maran

A.J. Ayer

A.J. Cronin

A K Benedict writes crime and speculative fiction in a room filled with clowns, mannequins and Doctor Who figures. Her first novel, The Beauty of Murder, was nominated for an eDunnit award and is in development for a major 8-part TV series by Company Pictures. Her second, Jonathan Dark or The Evidence of Ghosts, came out in February 2016. She's written Torchwood audio dramas for Big Finish and her short stories have featured in anthologies including Great British Horror and Best British Short Stories. She lives in St Leonards-on-Sea with her dog, Dame Margaret Rutherford.

A.K.Benedict

A. L. Kennedy has twice been selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists and has won a host of other awards – including the Costa Book of the Year for her novel Day. She lives in Essex.

A.L. Kennedy

A.M. Ellis is a speculative fiction author and lover of everything steeped in myth and mystery. Her stories often lean into diverse voices, not only in her identity as a Black woman, but in exploring neurodivergence and mental health. A proud introvert and nostalgic gamer, she lives in Maryland, USA, with her husband and three children.

A.M. Ellis

A.N. Wilson was born in 1950 and educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he holds a prominent position in the world of literature and journalism. He is an award-winning biographer and a celebrated novelist, winning prizes for much of his work. He lives in North London.

A.N. Wilson

A. T. Emerald lives with her husband and baby daughter in Nottinghamshire. She discovered her love of writing in 2020 and has not shut up about enemies to lovers ever since. She loves iced matcha, torrid love confessions with knives pressed to throats (fictional, of course) and does not accept bills for any therapy her books might incur.

A.T. Emerald

A.W. Priest

A.B.C. Merriman-Labor was a barrister, writer and munitions worker born in Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1877. His published works include A Series of Lectures on the Negro Race and The Story of the African Slave in a Nutshell. He also edited two editions of the Handbook of Sierra Leone. He arrived in the UK in 1904 to study law. In 1907, he organised a centenary commemoration of the abolition of the slave trade in Westminster Abbey. He later embarked on an 'entertainment-lecture' tour called Life and Scenes in Britain, travelling across thousands of miles of West, South West and Central Africa, which he expanded on to create Britons Through Negro Spectacles.

ABC Merriman-Labor

AJ Cronin

AJ Molloy

Aabria Iyengar is an American actress and author.

Aabria Iyengar

Aaliya Jaleel is a freelance illustrator, designer, and visual development artist, currently majoring in Animation at the University of Texas at Dallas. She is also the illustrator of Under My Hijab and Muslim Girls Rise. You can visit her online at www.aaliyamj.com.

Aaliya Jaleel

Aaron Allston

After more than fifteen years of experience as a clinical psychotherapist, Dr Aaron Balick has taken the amazing insights from psychology and psychotherapy out of the consultation room and made them accessible to the wider world. 
 
He has been an ‘agony uncle’ for many years for both CBBC and BBC Radio 1, as well as on television, including BBC Worldwide, BBC 3 and BBC Learning.

Aaron Balick

Aaron Carroll

PublicationStatus

Brand

Format

AgeRange

Series

Imprint

CategoryLabel

Martin Knight

Martin King

Hoolifan is the story of one man, Martin King, and his experiences spanning three decades with the country's foremost soccer gang. Chelsea have always been at the cutting edge of football violence, and King himself was at the heart of the evolving Chelsea mob for some 30 years. From his first visit to a football ground in the early 1960s, he charts his development from a rattle-waving child through to a fully fledged member of the notorious Chelsea Shed in the 1970s and finally to his exploits as a key player in the most feared football gang of the 1980s and 1990s - the so-called Chelsea Headhunters. 
 
King describes the leading characters of the various eras, not just from Chelsea but from across the country. He also records every clash, ambush and act of revenge in vivid detail, as well as the camaraderie and style of this most infamous soccer gang. 
 
This is not just another book on the well-trodden subject of football hooliganism, as, unlike so many authors, Martin King makes no attempt to distance himself from the violence and leaves readers to draw their own conclusions. 
 
At times provocative, often humorous and always honest, Hoolifan places the phenomenon of football hooliganism in its true social context.

Hoolifan

30 Years of Hurt

David Frith

Cricket has an alarming suicide rate. 
 
Among international players for England and several other countries it is far above the national average for all sports: and there have been numerous instances at other levels of the game. 
 
For thirty years, celebrated cricket author David Frith has collected data on this sad subject. Silence of the Heart is his compelling account of over a hundred cricketers - involving top names from the past hundred years - who have taken their own lives, with an explanation of factors that led to their premature deaths. 
 
Can the shocking rate of self-destruction among cricketers be reduced? Can those who run the game do something to save its participants from this dreadful fate? These are among the questions addressed within this catalogue of biographies. But the key question is whether cricket itself is to blame for its losses - or is that this summer game attracts people of a melancholic and over-sensitive nature? 
 
Stoddart, Shrewsbury, Gimblett, Bairstow, Trott, Iverson, Robertson-Glasgow, Barnes . . . There remains a sense of disbelief that these high-profile cricketers killed themselves. And many more cases are examined in this extraordinary book, which comes crammed with detail, is not devoid of humour, and must rank among the most intricately researched volumes in cricket's extensive library. 
 
With a foreword by former England captain Mike Brearley, now a psychotherapist, Silence of the Heart is a startling investigative narrative covering the phenomenon of cricket's unduly high level of suicide.

Silence Of The Heart

Cricket Suicides

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

As the 1960's drew to a close, parents across Britain raised a curious eyebrow as their long-haired children suddenly returned home with shaven heads, sporting Levi's jeans and vicious looking army boots, pleading for three quid to buy a Harrington jacket from the market. The skinhead was born and a youth culture stronger and more widespread than any other, before or since, took Britain by storm. Marting King was one of them. Boys and girls alike embraced this new working-class fashion and music - the West Indian reggae sounds of Blue Beat and the strong sense of identity they fostered. For a couple of summers the media would have it that England was under seige, when the young skins paraded at seaside resorts on bank holidays and later on terraces at nearly every football ground acros the country. With his passion for Chelsea FC and their growing reputation as the skinhead club forming a backdrop, King artfully and humorously describes the heady mix of pleasures which were all part of life as a teenager growing up in working-class south London in the late 60's

A Boy's Story

The Revelations and Wild Times of a Young Skin

Mick North

Mick North's daughter Sophie was one of the children killed in the massacre at Dunblane Primary School. Dunblane: Never Forget is a personal account of Mick's life before and after the massacre and includes a critical assessement of the events that led to the tragedy and those that have followed. 
 
 He begins by recalling his arrival in Stirling and how he and Barbara moved to Dunblane while awaiting the birth of their only child. A few months later Barbara was diagnosed with cancer and the family had to deal with her terminal illness. After the death of Barbara, father and daughter became an inseparable team until that dreadful day in 1996. 
 
 North writes about how he and the other families dealt with public sympathy, the anti-handgun campaign, the memorial service, the television programmes, newspaper interviews and the creation of the Dunblane Memorial Garden. He describes how it felt to attend a public inquiry into the murder of his child, criticises the local police force and details the ambivalent attitude of the Dunblane community.

Dunblane

Never Forget

John Sugden

Football is big business and it doesn't come much bigger than Manchester United – commercial giants and the richest club in the world. But in the shadow of Old Trafford a black economy is growing to rival the commercial power of the official sales channels. Scum Airways is an inside investigation of the Manchester grafters – touts, black marketeers and shady dealers – who, led by characters like 'Big Tommy', have come up with a remarkably successful money-making venture: Scum Airways. 
 
 With the expansion of the Champions League came the opportunity for the grafters to move from ticket touting and producing 'unofficial' replica kits into the independent travel business. International Travel is the company for those who, through choice or because of their police records prohibit them, do not travel with the official clubs. Their customers include many 'straight' supporters of Leeds United, arch-rivals of Man U, but Tommy's core clients are the 'Lads' - die-hard 30-something football hooligans. 
 
 Scum Airways follows the exploits and adventures of Big Tommy and his team of grafters as they continue to build their empire. John Sugden went along for the ride and provides startling insights into professional football's burgeoning black economy. From Munich to Madrid, Amsterdam to Bangkok, through to the streets and bars of Toyko and Sapporo during the 2002 World Cup, and beyond, Scum Airways reveals the dark side of the football business.

Scum Airways

Inside Football's Underground Economy

Football has reinvented itself. As television money has poured into the game, the traditional working-class fans have poured out - not by choice, but by economic necessity. According to those in charge of the game the football hooligan has at last been eliminated from the landscape. But how true is this much-vaunted claim? Martin King, author of Hoolifan, brings his story up to date in The Naughty Nineties. Ironically, he finds that football hooligans now really are in the minority but they are far more dangerous and committed than ever before.

The Naughty Nineties

Football's Coming Home

E Macpherson

A shocking and brutal murder had taken place in the city in February that year, and the words 'Jack Ripper is at the back of this door' were found written in chalk on a door at the scene of the crime. When he was arrested, the accused, William Bury, admitted that he was 'afraid he would be arrested as Jack the Ripper'. 
 
The police investigation uncovered some disturbing details. William Bury was a small dark-haired man who was known to have been violent towards women. He had been born and brought up in the Midlands but had moved to the East End of London in the late autumn of 1887. On 20 January 1889, he and his wife travelled by boat to Dundee. This meant that he had arrived in London before the start of the Jack the Ripper murders and had left around the same time that they ceased. Could this be coincidence, people wondered. Could it also be a coincidence that the murder in Dundee carried all the hallmarks of a 'ripper' murder? 
 
In the month before the trial, the local newspapers in Dundee began to run sensational stories linking the accused with the notorious Whitechapel murders. When the trial opened to a packed courtroom, many in the public gallery were wondering if the man standing in the dock was none other than Jack the Ripper himself. 
 
In this sensational and ground-breaking book, Euan Macpherson presents the evidence that the long arm of the law really did catch up with Jack the Ripper ... in a dingy basement flat in Dundee in the cold winter months of early 1889.

The Trial of Jack the Ripper

The Case of William Bury (1859-89)

David Bryce

From running with the infamous Calton Tongs to running Calton Athletic, David Bryce's life story is a remarkable account of crime, violence, alcoholism and drug addiction in Glasgow's gangland. 
 
A respected 'hard man', Bryce worked his way through most of HM's prisons in Scotland before an epiphany in 1977 made him realise that he was a hopeless alcoholic who needed help. A five-year battle followed, during which he sank into the abyss of heroin addiction before finally getting clean. 
 
In 1985, in an effort to help others who were struggling against substance abuse, Bryce set up Calton Athletic, a football team and social group made up solely of recovering drug addicts. Reformed gangster Jimmy Boyle was one of the first to have faith in Bryce and Calton Athletic, but the club eventually won widespread respect. Gordon Brown, then a young MP, was so impressed that he wrote an article for The Observer which led to a TV film starring Lenny Henry and Robbie Coltrane. In the '90s, Ewan McGregor, Irvine Welsh and the Trainspotting crew sought Bryce's advice and friendship during the making of the internationally acclaimed cult film, while Robbie Williams begged to switch nationality and play for Calton Atheltic in an 'England v. Scotland' celebrity charity match. 
 
Bryce's uncompromising belief that the only way to come off drugs is to go cold turkey and stay completely clean saw him clash with government agencies over the 'harm-reduction' policy of recent years. The club's statutory funding was withdrawn in 1998, but today Calton Athletic are still providing an invaluable lifeline while the 'official' drugs policy has become increasingly discredited. 
 
Alive and Kicking is an inspirational tale of survival and success against the odds.

Alive and Kicking

A Story of Crime, Addiction and Redemption in Glasgow's Gangland

Cameron White

Mr Nasty charts the rise, fall and ultimate redemption of a wannabe player in the global narcotics business. From humble beginnings on the streets of London's East End, Cameron White rapidly ascended the drug ladder of London's club scene before notorious local criminals forced him to move to the US. There, he soon found himself aboard a cocaine-fuelled roller-coaster ride, transporting him from encounters with psychotic, crack-dealing Jamaicans in New York to luncheons with Hollywood's glitterati. The American adventure was to reach its inevitable conclusion in a drive-by shooting in the barrios of LA.Back in London, a dull nine-to-five existence did nothing to quell White's narco-inclinations. Cue a chemical vacation in Thailand and an effortless metamorphosis from recreational drug user to fully fledged smack addict in Berlin. White's eventual wake-up call came after he robbed some innocent tourists to feed his heroin habit. Stunned to realise how low he had sunk, he was determined to get clean and his gold-star efforts at rehabilitation were rewarded with an opportunity to start again in Australia. Faced with temptation once more, White's good intentions were to prove short-lived and he slid into the murky world of substance abuse in Sydney. But this time things were different and a gradual but life-defining epiphany rescued White from the edge. Mr Nasty is a thrilling yet cautionary tale of a decade lived within the narcotics underworld. Illuminating both the exciting and destructive sides of such an existence, it is ultimately a testament to how a strong will can sometimes overcome the lure of vice and break the chains of addiction.

Mr Nasty

Misadventures in the Drug World

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

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

Brian Bailey

'My Lord, You are aware that, at this moment, the public feeling is strongly excited against the perpetrators of the late foul and cold blooded murders that have taken place in the very centre of a populous and civilised city . . . Your Lordship is aware, that in all civilized nations, blood calls for blood . . .' 
From ' Letter to the Lord Advocate . . . By The Echo of Surgeons' Square' 
 
Early nineteenth century Edinburgh was gripped by fear of body snatchers. New graves were constantly under threat from unscrupulous ghouls keen to profit from the medical school's voracious appetite for corpses. In 1828, Burke and Hare, a pair of opportunistic low-lives, took the practice to a new extreme. They murdered at least 16 innocent victims, including a 12-year-old boy, in the name of medical science - and the freshness of the corpses they delivered for dissection earned them extra money. 
 
The names of Burke and Hare have become synonymous with body-snatching, but the true details of their crimes have been obscured by mythology and questions still surround the case. In Enlightenment Edinburgh, how were Burke and Hare able to carry on their repulsive and murderous trade undetected for so long? Why was only one of the homicidal due brought to justice? And what were the roles of Burke and Hare's common-law wives, the medical students who took delivery of the corpses and Dr Robert Knox, the distinguished teacher of anatomy whose dissecting table was the final resting place of the unfortunate victims? 
 
Bailey reveals a sordid side to a society which was famed for its intellectual and progressive thinking, yet depended on predatory criminals for the advance of medical knowledge. In this compulsive and absorbing book, the evidence is thoroughly re-examined - and startling conclusions are reached.

Burke and Hare

The Year of the Ghouls

Theresa Murphy

This is the story of an arena of crime and degradation, of infamy and human suffering. It is the history of the Old Bailey, an institution as flawed as all man-made attempts at justice are doomed to be. 
 
In the beginning there was barbarity and injustice. The court was packed with a restless, muttering mob, eager for the verdicts of 'Guilty' so they could enjoy public executions, hurling abuse and missiles at those with the noose around their neck. Today we fool ourselves that we have evolved beyond barbarism, but are made uneasy by the continuing exposure of miscarriage of justice. If we use the Old Bailey as a yardstick, it is possible to argue that mankind has not made much progress through the centuries. 
 
In these pages, we tour the courts of long ago, meeting the Dracula-garbed court chaplains, drunken, brutal judges and cold-blooded hangmen. With wit and skill, Theresa Murphy brings to life a cast of hundreds, from the well-known to the less imfamous, who together make up the harrowing history of the Old Bailey.

The Old Bailey

Eight Centuries of Crime, Cruelty and Corruption

John Burrowes

There are few cities in the world to rival Glasgow and the extraordinary happenings that have occurred there, and in this engrossing sequel to Great Glasgow Stories, more of the finest of these are recounted. 
 
From the story of the biggest youth movement the world has ever known to the life and crimes of Scotland's most colourful criminal, Johnny Ramensky, whom even the police dubbed 'Gentle Johnny', a vivid picture of the city's eventful history emerges. 
 
Elsewhere, the hilarious scenes that greeted the most sensational visitor Glasgow ever had - Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess - are recounted, and the shocking case of one of BBC radio drama's best-known personalities, who was found brutally murdered in his flat in Govan, is explored. 
 
Read, too, about doomed pugilist Jackie Peterson, dubbed 'the second Benny Lynch', and about the accidental death in 1931 of Celtic's 'Prince of Goalkeepers', John Thomson, which shocked the city and remains the saddest event in the club's history. 
 
These are just some of the highlights to be found in this compelling collection of stories about the great city of Glasgow and its myriad entertaining characters.

Great Glasgow Characters

The pre-dawn arrests of the last remaining mafiosi in December 2008 signalled the end of the Sicilian Mafia as we know it. In Mafia: Inside the Dark Heart, A.G.D. Maran charts the complete history of the world's most infamous criminal organisation, from its first incarnation as an alternative form of local government in the Sicilian countryside and arguable force for 'good' to the more familiar form that has been immortalised in films such as The Godfather, and its final defeat after a long-awaited change of attitude by the Italian government. 
 
The author has used his many Italian contacts and a decade of exhaustive research to bring to life the story of the Sicilian Mafia while also exploring the links to the Cosa Nostra in America. Along the way, he asks many provocative questions, including: 
 
 Why was Lucky Luciano, the father of modern organised crime, freed from a life sentence in America and deported to Italy, allowing him to organise the international drug trade? 
 Was the Mafia involved in the death of Pope John Paul I? 
 Why did the Mafia murder Roberto Calvi, known as God's Banker? 
 What is the relationship between the Mafia and Freemasonry? 
 Why did successive Italian governments fail to tackle the Mafia? 
 Why did it take 40 years to find the Last Godfathers? 
 
These and many other riveting issues are covered in Maran's refreshing new take on a perennially enthralling subject.

Mafia

Inside the Dark Heart

Sean Bridges

Better To Be Feared is the true story of a 48-year-old businessman who, having pled guilty to perpetrating a fraud involving a fake business contract, was plunged into the dark world of life inside some of Britain's hardest jails. 
 
Never having had any contact with criminal justice previously, Sean Bridges' adjustment to life behind bars raised many questions and forced him to confront the daily round of violence and drugs abuse within these maximum-security prisons. His life inside exploded when he witnessed another con being badly beaten by three fellow prisoners. He planned revenge and exacted it in spectacular fashion. Bridges became a problem by challenging the inadequacies of an antiquated system which effectively feeds itself - never to be short of repeat customers. 
 
This is not the story of another white-collar criminal's time inside. It is a shocking personal account of the reasons why the criminal justice system fails society today. That system has changed Sean Bridges forever.

Better to be Feared

Jail Life in the Raw

Irshad Manjii

Irshad Manji calls herself a Muslim refusenik. 'That doesn't mean I refuse to be a Muslim,' she writes, 'it simply means I refuse to join an army of automatons in the name of Allah.' These automatons, Manji argues, include many so-called moderate Muslims in the West. In blunt, provocative and deeply personal terms, she unearths the troubling cornerstones of Islam as it is widely practised today: tribal insularity, deep-seated anti-Semitism and an uncritical acceptance of the Quran as the final, and therefore superior, manifesto of God. 
 
In this open letter to Muslims and non-Muslims alike, Manji breaks the conspicuous silence that surrounds mainstream Islam with a series of pointed questions: 'Why are we all being held hostage by what's happening between the Palestinians and the Israelis? Who is the real coloniser of Muslims - America or Arabia? How can we read the Quran literally when it's so contradictory and ambiguous? Why are we squandering the talents of women, fully half of God's creation?' Not one to be satisfied with merely criticising, Manji offers a practical vision of how Islam can undergo a reformation that empowers women, promotes respect for religious minorities and fosters a competition of ideas. Her vision revives Islam's lost tradition of independent thought. 
 
The recipient of death threats as well as heartfelt support from her co-religionists, Manji travels throughout the world with her challenge for both Muslims and non-Muslims: dare to ask questions - out loud.

The Trouble with Islam Today

A Wake-Up Call for Honesty and Change

Eileen Munro

In her bestselling memoir As I Lay Me Down to Sleep, Eileen Munro vividly documented the abuse she experienced at the hands of her adoptive parents and, later, within the care system. The birth of Eileen's son, Craig, and her escape from the authorities' clutches should have seen her turn a corner, but she remains haunted by the spectre of her past. 
 
In If I Should Die Before I Wake, Eileen chronicles her search for her real parents and her battle for an education for both Craig and herself. She faces exploitation, suffers further sexual and physical abuse, and endures periods of homelessness and bad health. Still she perseveres, clinging to her hopes for the future, until she eventually finds the sense of belonging that has previously eluded her. 
 
In this harrowing but ultimately inspirational second volume of memoir, Eileen Munro proves that, against all the odds, happiness does sometimes come to those who never give up hope.

If I Should Die Before I Wake

David Smith

Carol Ann Lee

Despite standing as chief prosecution witness in the Moors Murders trial, David Smith was vilified by the public due to the accusations thrown at him by Myra Hindley and Ian Brady about his involvement in their crimes. Hindley's later confession that she and Brady had lied in an attempt to reduce their sentences did little to diminish the slurs against his name. 
 
 For almost 45 years, Smith was asked by writers and film-makers to tell his story. Apart from a handful of brief interviews, he always refused. Carol Ann Lee met Smith during her research for One of Your Own, her critically acclaimed biography of Hindley, following which he finally agreed to reveal all. 
 
 In Witness, interviews, archival research and, most significantly, David Smith's own vivid memoir are fused to create an unforgettable, often harrowing account of his life before, during and after the Moors Murders.

Witness (later issued as Evil Relations)

The Story of David Smith, Chief Prosecution Witness in the Moors Murders Case

Nicholas Davies

Following the revelations of the secret conspiracy between British Military Intelligence and the gunmen of the Ulster Defence Association in Ten-Thirty-Three, Nicholas Davies now dramatically reveals the evidence and facts that the Sir John Stevens Inquiry is still trying to establish regarding links between the security services and loyalist terrorist groups.In Dead Men Talking, Davies exclusively details the covert killing operations planned, organised and carried through by the RUC Special Branch and MI5, as well as by the British Army's covert intelligence organisation, the Force Research Unit. He provides new evidence on the killings that were authorised at the highest level of MI5 and the British Government, and carried out by loyalist terror groups. Davies also reveals the existence of a hitherto unknown secret intelligence unit operating under MI5 and examines its role in the government's undercover operation. Davies traces the work carried out by the legendary 'Steak Knife', the British super-spy who infiltrated the highest echelons of the Provisional IRA and passed their secrets to MI5 over a 30-year period. For the first time, Davies gives details of Steak Knife's extraordinary life, reveals some of the Provo bombings and shootings which he thwarted, and details vital secrets he passed to British Intelligence. Dead Men Talking uncovers the true story of the murder of Belfast solicitor Patrick Finucane, of UDA gunman William Stobie and the subsequent murders of others allegedly involved. Dead Men Talking uncovers the true story of the murder of Belfast solicitor Patrick Finucane, of UDA gunman William Stobie and the subsequent murders of others allegedly involved.

Dead Men Talking

Collusion, Cover-Up and Murder in Northern Ireland's Dirty War

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

Des Wilson

Poker has taken over the world. It is said that 80 million people now play regularly and close to $100 million is played for online every day. Tournaments generate prize pools that far outstrip all other recreational events - the top prize in the World Series of Poker in recent years has been greater than the money collected by the winners of the four golf majors and the Wimbledon singles tennis champions all added together. 
 
But for all its amazing popularity, the game's origins and history are surprisingly unclear. Instead of records and statistics, there is folklore and legend, a gallery of larger-than-life characters and an equal measure of fame and infamy. Here, for the first time, the true stories of poker are told. 
 
This is history as a thriller. Des Wilson has approached his definitive account of the game's development as a detective story. He has personally gone back to where poker has been played, stirring up controversy in his refusal to let sleeping dogs lie, and has delved deeper than anyone before to restore to their rightful place in history the ghosts who sit at the table of every poker game played today. 
 
Packed with stories that will enthral both poker players and the non-playing public, this is the book that was waiting to be written.

Ghosts at the Table

Jason Peter

Tony O'Neill

Blighted by a neck injury at a young age, sports superstar Jason Peter was forced to retire prematurely. In just a few short years, Peter's brilliant career was in ruins as he found himself consumed by painkillers, then crack and finally heroin. His addiction transformed him from a pumped-up athletic gladiator to a small, wispish shell of his former self. 
 
In Millionaire Junkie, Peter tells of the lost days and nights spent prowling the streets of Manhattan, flying cross-country with high-class call girls and doing piles of heroin and cocaine. It is a visceral, ragged-edged story of true glory, self-destruction, addiction and, finally, redemption.

Millionaire Junkie

My Journey Down to Heroin - and Back

Paolo Hewitt

The Soul Stylists is about six decades of Modernism and a highly influential world of clothes and music, but one deliberately hidden away for years from the mainstream media. This book explores the enduring relationship that exists between American black music and British working-class style, tracing a Mod tradition that began in Soho just after the Second World War and continues to this day. 
 
 From Mod to Casual, from Skinhead to Northern Souler, the soul stylists are an amazing family joined together by a tradition of secrecy, exclusivity and absolute indifference towards the outside world. They pass unnoticed because soul stylists always shun the spotlight. To them, attention to detail is far more important than attention seeking. And here in this book, for the very first time, are some of their stories.

The Soul Stylists

Six Decades of Modernism - From Mods to Casuals

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

David Leslie

Crimelord is the gripping life story of elusive multimillionaire gangster Tam McGraw. A notorious criminal kingpin, McGraw has risen from extreme poverty in the East End of Glasgow to become one of Scotland's wealthiest men. 
 
When hash started to flood into Scotland from the late 1980s onwards, suspicion centred on McGraw, leader of the infamous Barlanark Team. After a two-year surveillance operation, police discovered the drug had been hidden in buses carrying young footballers and deprived Glasgow families on free holidays abroad. It was a scam reminiscent of the movie The Italian Job, only this time Scots kids had been sitting on hash worth over £40 million. Police claimed McGraw was the financier and mastermind but in 1998 a jury declared him innocent while other suspects were jailed. 
 
As McGraw refuses to discuss his life publicly, his remarkable tale is told through friends, fellow crooks and the occasional rival. It is an outrageous, often hilarious, true gangster story.

Crimelord: The Licensee

The True Story of Tam McGraw

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

'Infamous, I have become disowned, but I am one of your own' - Myra Hindley, from her unpublished autobiography 
 
On 15 November 2002, Myra Hindley, Britain’s most notorious murderess, died in prison, one of the rare women whose crimes were deemed so indefensible that ‘life’ really did mean ‘life’. 
 
But who was the woman behind the headlines? How could a seemingly normal girl grow up to commit such terrible acts? Her defenders claim she fell under Ian Brady’s spell, but is this the truth? Was her insistence that she had changed, that she felt deep remorse and had reverted to the Catholicism of her childhood genuine or a calculating bid to win parole? 
 
One of Your Own explores these questions and many others, drawing on a wide range of resources, including Hindley’s own unseen writings, hundreds of recently released prison files, fresh interviews and extensive new research. Compellingly well written, this is the first in-depth study of Hindley and the challenging, definitive biography of Britain’s ‘most-hated woman’.

One of Your Own

The Life and Death of Myra Hindley

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

A Private Thriller

A series of children's modern classic novels by renowned 20th century children's writers. All the titles in this series have the A Puffin Book logo, contemporary-style covers, and child-friendly endnotes.

A Puffin Book

A Ripley Novel

A Slice of the Moon

A Victorian Mystery

A Walk in...

A Women’s Murder Club Thriller

A chef Paul Delamare Mystery

Aberrations

Across the Universe

Actiphons

Adelia Aguilar

Adrian Mole

Adventures in Time

Aftermath

Against War

Age of X

Agent 21

Agent Z

Detective Aidan Waits is a troubled junior detective haunted by his past. Facing an uncertain future, and disconnected from his history, DC Waits and his partner, Detective Inspector Peter 'Sutty' Sutcliffe work on Manchester's streets to uncover the city's worst criminals among the grime of the underworld.

Filters

Category

Publication Date

Format

Imprint

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter