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Reg McKay

Paul Ferris

On Glasgow's meanest streets life started well for the young Paul Ferris. How did he become Glasgow's most feared gangster, deemed a risk to national security? 
 
Arthur Thompson, Godfather of the crime world and senior partner of the Krays, recruited young Ferris as a bagman, debt collector and equaliser. Feared for his capacity for extreme violence, respected for his intelligence, Ferris was the Godfather's heir apparent. But when gang warfare broke, underworld leaders traded in flesh, colluding with their partners - the police. Disgusted, Ferris left the Godfather and stood alone. 
 
They gave him weeks to live. 
 
While Ferris was caged in Barlinnie Prison's segregation unit accused of murdering Thompson's son, Fatboy, his two friends were shot dead the night before the funeral and grotesquely displayed in a car on the cortége's route. Acquitted against all the odds, Ferris moved on, determined to make an honest living. 
 
They would not let him. 
 
The National Crime Squad, MI5, the police and two of the country's most powerful gangsters saw to that. A maximum-security prisoner, Ferris is known as 'Lucky' because he is still alive. 
 
This is one man's unique insight into Britain's crime world and the inextricable web of corruption - a revealing story of official corruption and unholy alliances.

The Ferris Conspiracy

Christopher Parnell

Prepare yourself for a journey into the indonesian penal system, a world where murder, torture and fights to the death are the norm. 
 
Hell's Prisoner is the powerful story of one man's battle to survive in some of the world's cruellest and most inhumane prisons. Christopher Parnell, wrongly accused of drug trafficking, found himself catapulted into the maelstrom of madness and degradation that exists within Indonesian jails. Surrounded by murderers and sadistic, violent criminals, he soon learned that life can be as cheap as a bowl of rice or a cigarette. 
 
During his imprisonment, Parnell was subjected to unthinkable sessions of torture, both physical and psychological. Left to starve and fight every day for his survival, he was forced to eat everything from cockroaches to human flesh. 
 
This is an incredible tale of fatalism and bureaucracy, of corruption and the horrors of prison, but most of all it is a no-holds-barred account of what the human spirit can endure.

Hell's Prisoner

The Shocking True Story Of An Innocent Man Jailed For Eleven Years In Indonesia's Most Notorious Prisons

Graham Johnson

'An astonishing story' - Sunday Mirror 
 
'The best gangster book of modern times' - Donal MacIntyre 
 
Gangster Paul Grimes was a one-man crimewave with a breathtaking capacity to steal. Any villains who got in his way were made to pay - often with their blood. But when his son died of a drugs overdose, the old-school mobster swore revenge on the new generation of Liverpool-based heroin and cocaine dealers. Against all odds, he turned undercover informant. 
 
The first gangster to fall foul of Grimes' change of heart was Curtis Warren, aka 'Cocky', the wealthiest and most successful criminal in British history. Grimes infiltrated his cocaine cartel and led Customs to the largest narcotics seizure on record, putting Warren in the dock in the drugs trial of the twentieth century. 
 
After turning his attention to heroin baron John Haase, Grimes rose to become the boss of the villain's notoriously bloodthirsty 'security firm' - a professional gang of racketeers addicted to cocaine, explosive violence and non-stop criminality. But as his net began to tighten, Grimes was confronted with the ultimate dilemma. He discovered his second son was now a rising star in the drugs business. The life-or-death question was: should he shop him or not? 
 
Powder Wars also reveals the secrets behind one of the most controversial episodes in British judicial history - how former Home Secretary Michael Howard was duped into granting John Haase a Royal Pardon. 
 
Today, Paul Grimes has a £100,000 contract on his head and is a real-life dead man walking. 
 
Powder Wars is a riveting account of modern gangsters told in brutal detail.

Powder Wars

The Supergrass who Brought Down Britain's Biggest Drug Dealers

IAN SAYER

Douglas Botting

'A riveting thriller-style account of what happened to the Nazi gold hoard' Guardian 
 
'A major feat of detection . . . a remarkable story' Birmingham Post 
 
In 1945, as Allied bombers continued their final pounding of Berlin, the panicking Nazis began moving the assets of the Reichsbank south for safekeeping. Vast trainloads of gold and currency were evacuated from the doomed capital of Hitler's 'Thousand-year Reich'. 
 
Nazi Gold is the real-life story of the theft of that fabulous treasure - worth some 2,500,000,000 at the time of the original investigation. It is also the story of a mystery and attempted whitewash in an American scandal that pre-dated Watergate by nearly 30 years. Investigators were impeded at every step as they struggled to uncover the truth and were left fearing for their lives. 
 
The authors' quest led them to a murky, dangerous post-war world of racketeering, corruption and gang warfare. Their brilliant reporting, matching eyewitness testimony with declassified Top Secret documents from the US Archives, lays bare this monumental crime in a narrative which throngs with SS desperadoes, a red-headed queen of crime and American military governors living like Kings. Also revealed is the authors' discovery of some of the missing treasure in the Bank of England.

Nazi Gold

The Sensational Story of the World's Greatest Robbery – and the Greatest Criminal Cover-Up

Simon Cox

Written in a clear and concise A to Z format, Decoding the Lost Symbol is the essential guide to the thrilling third Dan Brown novel to feature Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, The Lost Symbol. 
 
 Decoding the Lost Symbol takes you on a journey of discovery through the world of Dan Brown and Robert Langdon, opening up the real mysteries and historical facts that are the basis of The Lost Symbol. Set over a breathtaking twelve hours, The Lost Symbol creates a world of intrigue and mystery based around the city of Washington DC. You will discover the amazing truth behind the storyline in Decoding the Lost Symbol, the must-have definitive guide to the Dan Brown novel. 
 
 Simon Cox is the world-renowned expert on the mysteries of Dan Brown, having already authored the international bestseller Cracking the Da Vinci Code, Illuminating Angels &amp; Demons and The Dan Brown Companion. His guides are essential reading for all fans of the Robert Langdon series of novels and are available in more than fifteen languages.

Decoding the Lost Symbol

Unravelling the Secrets Behind Dan Brown's International Bestseller: The Unauthorised Guide

Jim Craig

Pat Woods

Celtic Football Club’s story is laced with drama and excitement, featuring a host of colourful individuals and a social history matched by few, if any, football clubs. 
 
In Celtic: Pride and Passion, Lisbon Lion Jim Craig and Pat Woods, a historian of the club, take a fresh look at several lesser-known episodes in Celtic’s history, including: the fascinating link between Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and a dramatic Ne’erday match at Celtic Park; the unforgettable night the ‘playboy of the Eastern world’ lit up Parkhead with a performance that helped to sow the seeds for a revolution at the club; the remarkable story of a trophy that was such a source of friction that the club kept it locked in a safe; and the pivotal year in which the rivalry between Celtic and Rangers took on a darker hue. They also recount the revealing story, told through the eyes of the European press, of how Celtic captivated a continent in the annus mirabilis of 1967. 
 
Celtic: Pride and Passion is a book that no discerning fan of Celtic Football Club will want to be without.

Celtic: Pride and Passion

Lew Yates

Bernard O'Mahoney

Everybody in the unlicensed fight game knows that only one man has the honour of being titled 'Guv'nor' - and that man is Lew 'Wild Thing' Yates. Yates began boxing at the age of six, and as an adult he was ruthless in pursuit of his dream of becoming world heavyweight champion. But when his licence was revoked following an assault on a referee, he turned to unlicensed boxing. 
 
 By day, Yates pounded punchbags and the streets in an effort to reach the peak of physical fitness as he prepared for his epic battle with Roy 'Pretty Boy' Shaw. At night, he pounded gangsters and drug dealers foolish enough to take him on in the nightclubs where he worked. 
 
 Wild Thing documents how Yates rose to the top of his bloody profession. When it comes to his fighting ability, he doesn't need to boast, brag or exaggerate. With Lew Yates, what you see is what you hope you're never going to get. This is his remarkable story.

Wild Thing

The True Story of Britain's Rightful Guv'nor

Bernard O'Mahoney was a key member of the Essex Boys firm - one of the most violent criminal gangs in Britain. In December 1995, the three leaders of the gang were executed as they sat in their Range Rover down a deserted farm track. For many, this meant that the horror of the gang's brutal reign was over. 
 
For Jack Whomes and Michael Steele, the nightmare had just begun. Convicted of the murders on the word of a supergrass, these two men have spent more than a decade in prison for crimes they claim they did not commit. In Bonded by Blood, O'Mahoney goes back to exorcise his ghosts and lay the past to rest. He returns to the scene of the murders and relives the bloody encounters that marked his time as a gang member. 
 
Divided by greed, bonded by the blood of their victims, the Essex Boys' rise to the top of the criminal underworld was as dramatic as their final fall.

Bonded by Blood

Murder and Intrigue in the Essex Ganglands

David Leslie

Convicted murderer Billy Ferris has endured more than three decades behind bars in many of Britain's prisons. In The Hate Factory, he candidly documents his experiences in jail with some of the UK's most notorious criminals. 
 
 Jailed for life in 1977 for a crime of passion, Ferris experienced betrayal and treachery on the inside. He unexpectedly formed friendships that led to his being labelled a 'bombers' crony' and found love while on the run after a dramatic escape. He vividly describes the cruelty, savagery and degradation that go hand in hand with prison life and details the nightmare that was Wormwood Scrubs, the prison he christened 'the Hate Factory'. He relays what happened when his cell was used as a courtroom for an IRA punishment trial and how he hatched a plan to assassinate the son of a legendary underworld godfather and plotted to murder an informer. 
 
 Over the 30 years during which Ferris has been imprisoned, his fellow inmates have included some of the UK's 'most wanted' from London underworld enforcer 'Mad' Frankie Fraser to Archie Hall, the serial killer dubbed 'the Monster Butler'.

The Hate Factory

Thirty Years Inside with the UK's Most Notorious Villains

John Burrowes

Irish is the story of the mass migration from Ireland to Glasgow that took place in the wake of the Great Famine of the mid-nineteenth century. It is an epic account of the coming together of a nation and a city. This is the tale of those who escaped a nightmare existence in the poorest and most deprived country in Europe and changed the city of Glasgow forever. Irish brings to life the horrot of those grim days and reveals the unimaginable suffering endured as a result of the Potatoe Blight. It describes in vivid detail the hazards and hardships faced by those fleeing Ireland in search of a better life overseas, including a startling account of one of the most deplorable maritime crimes ever committed, the voyage of the SS Londonderry. The coming of the Irish to Glasgow had a bigger impact on the city than other event. Now, for the first time, the truth about this most significant and stirring episode is vividly unfolded. It tells of the contribution made by Irish labourers in Glasgow to the Industrial Revolution; reveals that the legendary football clubs of Celtic and Rangers may never have existed were it not for the migrant's arrival; and describes the "Partick War", and the occasion of the first-ever Orange Walk.

Irish

The Remarkable Saga of a Nation and a City

David Malone

Ireland 1973: a very different world. But a tiny village in County Dublin was about to lose its innocence for ever. 
 
On a bright and sunny June afternoon, a seven-year-old boy was left in the care of his teenage neighbour. No one knew, or would even have dreamed of suspecting, that the teenager was a Satanist. The two went out to the fields to look for rabbits. The child was never seen alive again. 
 
 For the first time, in The Boy in the Attic, David Malone reveals the exact events of that summer day: how the youngster was lured to his death, how the teenager came to delve so deeply into the occult and the nightmarish scene awaiting police when they entered the attic. 
 
But there is another disturbing question - how is it that this murder, which was easily one of the most shocking and horrific in living memory, was barely reported upon at all? Why have you never heard of the boy in the attic until now?

The Boy in the Attic

The Chilling, Real-Life Story of a Satanic Murder and the Truth that Haunts

Joe Jackson

Glasgow is known as the murder capital of Britain and no one understands why better than Joe Jackson. For over 30 years, Jackson worked the crime beat, first as a uniformed cop then as a seasoned murder squad detective. In this hard-hitting memoir of his most memorable cases, he reveals the reality behind chasing killers and other crooks in 'No Mean City'. 
 
 As a young cop, Jackson was threatened by Glasgow's most ruthless gangster, Arthur Thomson, and, as a fresh detective, he took part in the hunt for Bible John, Glasgow's most shadowy serial killer. He locked up more than his fair share of paedophiles and sex beasts along the way and, as a veteran Senior Investigating Officer, he cracked the hardest homicide nut there is: a murder without a body. Jackson's investigations have grabbed headlines, while his 'collars' have filled jails. 
 
 Chasing Killers will shock readers with its behind-the-scenes look at how murder probes are run. Every case is related with candour and humour, and is laced with the kind of detail that only an expert can provide. 
 
Joe Jackson has been called the real-life Taggart, but this is no TV fantasy - this is real city police work: concrete hard, soot black and blood red.

Chasing Killers

Three Decades of Cracking Crime in the UK's Murder Capital

George Kimball

Sports fans and boxing enthusiasts alike will love this compelling study of the resurgence of boxing in the early 1980s - and the four 'greats' who effected that change. Four Kings captures the contests, fighters and the period with a wonderful perception and vividly conjures up those by-gone smoky and raucous ringside nights in Vegas... 
 
'Thrilling, insightful and often humourous' - The Independent 
'A flawless and singular account of fights that remain potent and important decades after the final bell' - Irish Times 
'A fascinating read' - ***** Reader review 
'Very rarely is a non-fiction book so riveting it's almost impossible to put down but this is one of those books' - ***** Reader review 
'Beautifully written and absolutely fascinating' - ***** Reader review 
'Outstanding' - ***** Reader review 
 
***************************************************************************** 
By the late 1970s, boxing had lapsed into a moribund state and interest in it was on the wane. In 1980, however, the sport was resuscitated by a riveting series of bouts involving an improbably dissimilar quartet: Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvellous Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns and Roberto Duran. 
 
Like Ali and Frazier, Dempsey and Tunney, Robinson and LaMotta, the 'Four Kings of the Ring' brought out the best in each other, producing unprecedented multi-million-dollar gates along the way. Each of the nine bouts between the four men was memorable in its own way and at least two of them - Leonard-Hearns in 1981 and Hagler-Hearns in 1985 - are commonly included on any list of the greatest fights of all time. The controversial outcome of another - the 1987 Leonard-Hagler fight - remains the subject of heated debates amongst fans to this day. 
 
In Four Kings, award-winning journalist George Kimball documents the remarkable effect they had on the sport and argues that we will never see their likes again. Leonard, Hagler, Hearns and Duran didn't set out to save boxing from itself in the post-Ali era, but somehow they managed to do so.

Four Kings

The intoxicating and captivating tale of four men who changed the face of boxing from award-winning sports writer George Kimball

Few cities in the world abound with so many extraordinary stories as Glasgow. The city has been the silent witness to some of the most significant events of the past century, from major triumphs to cataclysmic calamities, and the best of these anecdotes are compiled here to form this unique collection. 
 
 Amongst the notable events revisited are the launching of the Queen Mary, which captivated the city's inhabitants in 1934, the victorious 16-month work-in campaign by the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders in the early 1970s, the Ibrox disaster of 1971 and the plague that gripped the Gorbals in 1900. 
 
 Some of Glasgow's most successful people are also covered, including Clydeside revolutionary John Maclean, founder of the Barras Maggie McIver and the inimitable Billy Connolly, whose humour and colourful personality are synonymous with the city. 
 
 From the Battle of George Square to the bravery of the Glasgow people during the Blitz, Great Glasgow Stories provides an all-encompassing view of the city throughout the eras.

Great Glasgow Stories

Martin Dillon

In The Trigger Men, bestselling author Martin Dillon delves into the dark and sinister world of Irish terrorism and counter-terrorism. Over three decades he has interviewed and investigated some of the most professional, dangerous and ruthless killers in Ireland. Now Dillon explores their personalities, motivations and bizarre crimes.Many of Ireland's assassins learned their trade in fields and on hillsides in remote parts of Ireland, while others were trained in the Middle East or with Basque separatist terrorists in Spain. Some were one-target-one-shot killers, like the sniper who terrorised the inhabitants of Washington State in the autumn of 2002, while others were bombers skilled in designing the most sophisticated explosive devices and booby traps. Another more powerful group of 'trigger men' were the influential figures in the shadows, who were experts in motivating the killers under their control. All of these men, whether they squeezed the trigger on a high-powered rifle, set the timer on a bomb or used their authority to send others out to commit horrific and unspeakable acts of cruelty, are featured in this book. The Trigger Men takes the reader inside the labyrinthine world of terrorist cells and highly classified counter-terrorism units of British Military Intelligence. The individual stories are described in gripping, unflinching detail and show how the terrorists carried out their ghastly work. Dillon also explores the ideology of the cult of the gunmen and the greed and hatred that motivated assassins in their killing sprees. There are penetrating insights into the mindset of the most infamous assassins: their social and historical conditioning, their callousness......

The Trigger Men

Assassins and Terror Bosses in the Ireland Conflict

David Smith

Carol Ann Lee

The chief prosecution witness in the Moors Murders trial gives his account of the case after more than four decades of silence 
 
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 over four decades, 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 Evil Relations (previously published as 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. 
 
David Smith lived in rural Ireland with his wife prior to his death in May 2012. He is survived by four children and several grandchildren. 
 
Carol Ann Lee is an acclaimed biographer and has written extensively on the Holocaust. Her most recent publication, One of Your Own, focused on the life and death of Myra Hindley.

Evil Relations (formerly published as Witness)

The Man Who Bore Witness Against the Moors Murderers

In December 1995, three key members of the infamous Essex Boys firm were executed in their Range Rover after being lured to a deserted farm track by the promise of a lucrative drug deal. The police predicted that the void left as a result of the murders would cause a gangland war that would extend across London and much of the south-east. 
 
 Essex Boys, The New Generation tells the chilling true story of the gang that destroyed everything that stood in their way to take control of their fallen predecessors' drug empire. With a reputation for ruthless violence, the gang expanded and protected their drug-dealing operation with a terrifying combination of bloodshed and intimidation. 
 
 In February 2001, tensions within their circle boiled over and resulted in one member being shot dead. The police investigation was met with a wall of silence and for three years it seemed as if the case would remain unsolved. A leading member of the gang was eventually charged, but in an unexpected twist he became the prosecution's star witness. While a murder conviction was finally secured, the real truth surrounding the murder and the gang's psychotic crimes has never been revealed. 
 
 Now, for the first time, former Essex Boys member Bernard O'Mahoney tells the full, extraordinary story of the rise and fall of the gang that took over the Essex underworld from him and his associates.

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