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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

Hector MacLeod

Malcolm McLeod

Peter Manuel was an icy-eyed psychopath and sexual predator, a petty thief and a relentless liar given to violent and uncontrollable rages. His unprecedented crimes presented the Scottish police and public with a new sort of criminal: the ruthless serial killer. 
 
Manuel was hanged at the age of thirty-one and convicted of seven murders, but suspected of many more. He slew many of his victims as they lay sleeping in bed, while others were picked up in lonely places and strangled or savagely beaten to death. Right up to his final arrest, he played a taunting game with the police, mocking their bungling attempts to trap him and continuing to kill with impunity - that is until he was trapped by his own vanity and arrogance. 
 
This definitive definitive biography recounts Manuel's chilling story from his birth in the USA to the moment the hangman's rope snapped his spine in Glasgow's notorious Barlinnie Prison.

Peter Manuel, Serial Killer

Peter Mortimer

It was the worst winter in a decade, the winter of foot-and-mouth, when island power cuts ran for up to 72 hours - and two days before Peter Mortimer's planned departure, his father died.100 DAYS ON HOLY ISLAND is a quirky and often moving account of one man's self-imposed exile to a remote island off the coast of North-east England. Eschewing the usual historical or religious portrayal, Mortimer gives a vivid, humourous and often dramatic account of a confirmed urbanite in a small, tight-knit community cut off twice daily by the tides. Throwing himself into island life, he explores the landscape, people and myths that surround this remote `cradle of Chrisianity'. All of Mortimer's experiences within this unique island community are depicted with warmth and humour. The bleak winter scenery and idiosyncrasies of the island's inhabitants are described with an insight and understanding that could only have been achieved from personal experience. He helped in the local school, worked on the land, was the first person to be voluntarily cut off in the island refuge box and spent three tides isolated on the exposed outcrop, St Cuthbert's Island. The 100 days changed him - and probably changed the island. 100 DAYS ON HOLY ISLAND is a personal homage to the island and a remarkable account of a micro-society unique in modern Britain.

100 Days On Holy Island

A Writer's Exile

Peter Storey

True Storey is the compelling autobiography of notorious 1970s football legend Peter Storey, dubbed 'the bastard's bastard', who gained a reputation for ultra-violence on the pitch and had a capacity to find even greater trouble off it - a fact borne out by a string of criminal convictions and several jail sentences. 
 
 A key member, as their midfield enforcer, of the resilient Arsenal team that won the European Fairs Cup followed by the cherished Double in 1970-71, Storey was a confirmed ladies' man who loved a drink. In the mid-'70s, Storey's pub, the Jolly Farmers in Islington, became a magnet for north London villains and he rubbed shoulders with Great Train Robber Tommy Wisbey and Howard 'Mr Nice' Marks, Britain's biggest drug smuggler. 
 
 Storey talks candidly about the crimes he committed and the spells in prison that blighted his life. He reveals the truth about his feud with George Best and relays an astonishing account of how Bertie Mee tried to make him miss the 1971 FA Cup final against Bill Shankly's Liverpool side because the Arsenal manager wanted Eddie Kelly to start instead. 
 
 Today, Peter is an elusive character but a man transformed and at ease with life. Only now does he feel the circumstances are right to set the record straight and tell his side of a remarkable True Storey.

True Storey

My Life and Crimes as a Football Hatchet Man

Peter Osgood

Martin King

Martin Knight

In a 16-year career spent with Chelsea and Southampton, goal-scoring legend Peter Osgood made 560 appearances, scoring 220 goals and winning two FA Cup-winner's medals. He was part of the victorious Chelsea side that defeated the mighty Real Madrid in the 1971 European Cup-Winners Cup final and is the last player to have scored in every round of the FA Cup, including the final. 
 
Ossie tells the story of the career and the extraordinary roller-coaster personal life of the man who spearheaded a team that made as many headlines off the field as on. The truth about the hard-drinking and hard-living antics of these Kings Road dandies - Hudson, Cooke, Baldwin and company - has never before been told. Osgood tells of his strained relationship with manager Dave Sexton, which resulted in his and other stars' departures, triggering a decline in Chelsea FC's fortunes that took some 20 years to reverse. He recounts his experience in the Mexico World Cup of 1970 and is brutally honest about the challenges and problems faced by ex-footballers as they attempt to adjust to life in mainstream society. 
 
Peter Osgood was no ordinary footballer and Ossie is no ordinary football autobiography. Like the King of Stamford Bridge himself was, this book is entertaining, outspoken and full of surprises.

Ossie

King of Stamford Bridge

Jackie Todd

It was love at first sight: the huge pale-green eyes, the ruffled tawny hair and the cute way he held his head to one side. What really swung it, though, was his feet being way too big for his body, his ears too big for his head and that, while trying to look brave, he was obviously terrified. Charly was the first of what grew to be a large family of abandoned Spanish dogs taken in by Jackie Todd and her husband Stephen after they emigrated in 1997 to Frigiliana, a picturesque Spanish village in Andalucia. By the time Charly was four, something magical had happened: the people of the village had become close friends and the Todds' memories of their old lives were as weak as British sunshine. 
 
Fourteen years on from that first arrival they have ten dogs and eight cats of their own and regularly foster tiny strays that need bottle-feeding until they can be found homes. In 2007, 123 puppies and kittens passed through their door; in 2008, it was 119; and the tragic procession continues today. 
 
Millions of people dream of turning their summer holiday into permanent reality. Dog Days in Andalucía is the heart-warming and inspirational story of an ordinary British couple who did just that, making a mighty impression on the village, its people and its surrounding animal population along the way.

Dog Days in Andalucía

Tails from Spain

When author Peter Mortimer was commissioned to write a play about a little-known riot between Yemeni and British seamen at Mill Dam, South Shields, in 1930, he decided to take the long trip to Yemen itself in search of inspiration. Undeterred by post-11 September government warnings against visiting this 'highly dangerous' area, Mortimer set off and found an extraordinary and surprisingly Anglophile country. 
 
Cool for Qat documents this remarkable journey, during which Mortimer pieces together how the riots of 1930 arose and considers their relevance to Western attitudes towards Muslims today. He meets many remarkable characters along the way and immerses himself in the national custom of chewing the narcotic qat leaf. 
 
After visiting the ex-British Protectorate of Aden - through which many of the seamen passed en route to Britain - Mortimer travels on to San'a and then Tai'iz. It is while visiting the isolated mountain villages surrounding this city that Mortimer finally meets men who worked in South Shields some 50 years ago. Carrying a battered book with images of Yemenis living in the North-east in the '30s from home to home, trying to jog distant memories, he realises his visit has taken on a new purpose - bringing a small part of the country's history back to where it belongs. 
 
Back in the UK, Mortimer's investigations into the 1930 riot reveal a society with many striking similarities to current times. Then, as now, Muslim immigrants were treated as scapegoats for all manner of ills, tabloid newspapers drummed up prejudice and hatred, and the powers that be often used fear and racial mistrust to disguise their own economic failings. 
 
Cool for Qat questions just how 'civilised' the Western world - and Britain in particular - is in comparison to Yemen. It is a touching, thought-provoking and at times humorous document of one man's travels through a country about which little is known in the West.

Cool for Qat

A Yemeni Journey: Two Countries, Two Times

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

Jim Wilkie

The star Argentiniean striker Claudio Caniggia has described Dundee as 'a football town' and, as the favoured partner of arguably the world's greatest-ever player Diego Maradona, he should know. But why should he care? What was this man doing, plying his trade in Dundee? 
 
Dundee Football Club - the Dark Blues - do have a tradition; they have produced a number of outstanding players, won all the major Scottish trophies and, in 1963, reached the semi-final of the European Cup. For the next three decades, however, their story was one of gradual decline - and you can lose a lot of supporters in 30 years. 
 
When brothers Peter and Jimmy Marr, local businessmen, took over at Dens Park in 1997, the fans didn't know what to expect. They were a different proposition from their predecessors in that they had experience of running successful amateur and junior football clubs - but while the team performed creditably under Jocky Scott, there were still a number of very average players getting a game and the wider fan base was only inclined to attend a handful of matches during the season. 
 
Having battled to get promotion to the Scottish Premier League and build new stands, however, Peter Marr proceeded to make a leap of cultural faith. He knew that quality football was the key to any form of success and that, generally speaking, it could be found on the European continent. 
 
Marr originally expressed interest in Ivano Bonetti as a player, but when he discovered that the Italian was also interested in management, decided to embark on a footballing adventure with him. What followed has been one of the most remarkable episodes in recent Scottish football history. In the face of great cynicism and limited resources, Bonetti has assembled a squad of outstanding international talent, with his friend Claudio Caniggia the jewel in the crown. Results have been both good and bad - and sometimes downright weird - but the football has always been consistently entertaining and frequently breathtaking. No Dundee fan will ever forget season 2000-01. In this book Jim Wilkie reviews the tradition of the club and, using key profiles and reports, charts their amazing transformation to Bonetti's Blues.

Bonetti's Blues

Dundee FC and its Cultural Experiment

Frank Maloney

Kevin Brennan

From the streets of Peckham to the neon-lit strip of Las Vegas, Frank Maloney's life has been a roller-coaster ride that even he finds hard to believe at times. The Cockney-born son of Irish parents, who once harboured thoughts of becoming a priest, instead went on to manage Lennox Lewis for 12 years and help him become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.In No Baloney, Frank lifts the lid on the world of big-time boxing and its household names, and gives a remarkable account of his time with Lewis, revealing stories and offering opinions that can only come from a true insider. He also gives an insight into the way money, sex, drugs, politics, bribery and corruption have played their part in the sport. But Maloney's story is not just about boxing. It is also about one of life's characters, whose colourful story is told with a brand of humour and emotion that makes it compelling reading. Before settling on a career in boxing, he tried his hand at being a jockey, street trader, chef, pub landlord, cab driver and greengrocer. Along the way there have been girls, fights, a murder investigation and a broken marriage, but through it all there has also been a determination to succeed against the odds. Once dubbed a 'Mental Midget' and 'Pugilistic Pygmy' by Don King, Frank Maloney has gone on to have the last laugh over the flamboyant American promoter and over those who believed he would fail. For, above all, No Baloney is the story of a man who has been lucky enough to experience the kind of life he could not have imagined in his wildest dreams all those years ago in south-east London - and Maloney has made sure he's lived it to the full.

No Baloney

A Journey From Peckham To Las Vegas

Phil Rostron

Leeds United have arguably experienced the most dramatic upheaval in fortunes of any club in the recent history of English football. From their rise to a championship challenge in the Premiership and subsequent participation in the Champions League semi-finals, they plunged to the brink of bankruptcy and were relegated to the Coca-Cola League - for the first time in their proud history. 
 
 Theirs is a story of financial mismanagement on a grand scale. In living the dream, they ran up debts of £100 million, and the dream became a nightmare, not just on the pitch, but also in the tabloids, with the trials of Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate. A succession of managers - David O'Leary, Terry Venables, Peter Reid, Kevin Blackwell and Dennis Wise - have come and gone. Following on from the departure of Peter Ridsdale, a succession of businessmen have also tried to steady the ship in the boardroom, culminating in the dramatic purchase of the club by a certain ex-chairman of Chelsea - Ken Bates - in early 2005. 
 
 Under Dennis Wise, an inexperienced team was rejuvenated, with the club overcoming a 15-point penalty imposed by the Football League and pushing for automatic promotion. Sadly, their young manager departed to pastures more lucrative mid-season and the challenge died in yet another play-off defeat under the new regime of former hero Gary McAllister. What lies in store for Leeds United now? Can they regain past glories and taste Premier League football once more? 
 
 Revised and updated, Leeds United: Trials and Tribulations continues the story of Leeds' struggle, with exclusive interviews with many of the club's leading figures during this turbulent period - including Allan Leighton, Peter Ridsdale, Dominic Matteo and Peter Reid.

Leeds United

Trials and Tribulations

Peter Jackson

England has contributed some of the greatest players and most colourful characters to the rich history of the Lions, and never more so than in recent years. During the course of little more than a decade, a golden era for the Red Rose yielded four Grand Slams en route to the thrilling climax of the World Cup victory in Sydney, a triumph which has catapulted some of the side's stars to a higher plane in the nation's affections. It is not surprising, therefore, that English players have dominated the last four Lions tours in a way which none of the home countries has done before. 
 
Lions of England presents the country's most famous players in a series of revealing portraits, each telling a fascinating story woven around monumental Test matches. Rich in previously untold anecdote and humour, these accounts illustrate the lives and times of the greats spanning three-quarters of a century - from one pre-war knight of the realm, Carl Aarvold, to a more recent one, Clive Woodward. All the evocative names of English rugby are featured here, from Dickie Jeeps to Martin Johnson, Jeff Butterfield to Jason Robinson, Dean Richards to Lawrence Dallaglio. Other chapters are devoted to Peter Jackson (a rather better player than the author), John Pullin, Roger Uttley, Fran Cotton, David Duckham, Bill Beaumont, Peter Wheeler, Jeremy Guscott, Rob Andrew, Jason Leonard and, of course, Jonny Wilkinson. 
 
Peter Jackson, the Daily Mail's award-winning rugby writer, has drawn on all his experience and eye for the unusual to give the reader an insight into what makes these talented players tick as people, the early influences which shaped their careers and the momentous events which made them household names. 
 
Bang up to date with the inclusion of the summer 2005 series against the All Blacks and a comprehensive records appendix, Lions of England is sure to inform and entertain rugby lovers of every generation in equal measure.

Lions of England

Edmund Gregory

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

Not Waving But Drowning

The Troubled Life and Times of a Frontline RUC Officer

Jan de Vries

MOTHER AND CHILD is the long awaited follow up to Jan's phenomenally successful Preganancy and Childbirth and the next instalment in his excellent Well Woman series. In Mother and Child Jan De Vries focuses on the first crucial years of a child's life and explores the unique relationship that develops between mother and child in these formative years. The book comprises practical advice for new mothers dealing with the stress of their first baby and gives suggestions on how to recognise and treat the many diseases to which children are prone in their early years. There is also valuable advice on child healthcare and covers everything from sleep disorders to breastfeeding. Not only is Jan De Vries a professional authority on alternative healthcare, but he is also a father of four and grandfather of ten. Jan De Vries was born in 1937 and after initially graduating in pharmacy he soon moved on to study alternative medicine. He set up his first clinic in Troon in 1970 and today has clinics in Edinburgh, London, Belfast, Dublin and Manchester. Writing extensively on the value of alternative medicine and the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, he also lectures throughout the world and makes regular television and radio appearances.

Mother and Child

My Life and Work with Alfred Vogel is the third instalment of Jan de Vries's memoirs covering his life and career as a renowned alternative health practitioner. This volume focuses on his long and fruitful working relationship with Alfred Vogel, which prospered right up until Vogel's death in 1996. Jan de Vries was the only person to whom Vogel taught his unique healing methods and philosophies, and as a result of their close professional links they also became great friends, sharing a mutual respect and trust over a period of 40 years. 
 
In this revealing and informative memoir, de Vries details the methods employed by Vogel and the profound influence that the Swiss naturopath had on him and his career. De Vries reflects upon the controversial, often almost impossible, situations that he shared with Vogel as they travelled throughout the world to promote their methods and practices. 
 
De Vries also provides invaluable practical advice for daily living and stresses how, by employing old folklore methods and taking on board aspects of dietary management, long-term health and happiness can be achieved by all.

My Life and Work with Alfred Vogel

John Beattie

In 1992, John Beattie set out to sail around the world. Joined at times by an assortment of exotic characters - including a parrot called Hamish and the former Beirut hostage Brian Keenan - the joys and travails of his journey are depicted with complete honesty. But be it a storm at sea, a single-handed Atlantic crossing, or a near shipwreck in an uncharted jungle river, his humour and fortitude shine through. 
 
 A compelling travelogue, a voyage of the spirit and a love story, The Breath of Angels is also a tale which might never have been told but for one chance-in-a-million encounter. Once day at dawn, a man lay dying of thirst in an open boat that had been swept out to sea - his partner had already died in his arms. In the gloom of the early morning light he sees a tiny fleck of white on the distant horizon. The Warrior Queen is homeward bound from Venezuela and the dying man has one last slender chance of life . . .

The Breath Of Angels

Jack Milburn

Written by his own son, Jackie Milburn: A Man of Two Halves gives an unprecedented insight into the life and career of the legendary Newcastle United forward. To this day, 'Wor Jackie' remains the Magpies' top goalscorer, having notched up 238 goals in 492 appearances in the black-and-white shirt throughout the 1940s and '50s. Milburn also won the FA Cup with Newcastle three times in five years. 
 
Jackie Milburn delves beneath the surface glory to reveal how, in spite of his remarkable success as a player, Milburn was constantly tortured by his lack of self-belief. It details his days across the Irish Sea after becoming player/coach at Protestant Linfield FC and explains why he felt the need to move on after receiving menacing threats directed at his family. It reveals how, as newly appointed manager of Ipswich Town, he had a totally unexpected falling out with the departing England supremo, Alf Ramsey. We also learn how the pressures of work took their toll on Milburn and how he spent his post-football days working in a scrapyard, before being rescued by the world of sports journalism. 
 
Later in life, many honours continued to be bestowed upon Milburn, and when he died in 1988 huge crowds lined the streets for his funeral parade. 
 
Few people had a bad word to say about Jackie Milburn, and this candid biography, with contributions from Sir Bobby Robson and Alan Shearer, expertly demonstrates why he is still held in high esteem half a century after the peak of his career and 16 years after his death.

Jackie Milburn

A Man of Two Halves

John Cairney

'Clutching in my hand my seven copper pennies, I ran down the two flights of stone stairs from our tenement flat and through the East End to Kinloch Street, where, puffing a bit, I joined the queue of other wee boys lining up to place their coins on the brass plate above the iron turnstile, push hard against it, then climb up onto the dirt terracing and into Paradise. The rest of the world called it Celtic Park.' 
 
This is a story seen through green-and-white spectacles. It begins when nine-year-old Glaswegian John Cairney walks through the boys' gate at Celtic Park and embarks on a series of adventures that, over the years, take him all over Scotland and beyond. 
 
The Sevenpenny Gate is about a search for heroes, Celtic heroes. It is also the tale of an East End club of humble Irish origins that has developed into a worldwide brand and continues to command the devotion of its fans, even with the Celtic diaspora now spread across the globe.

The Sevenpenny Gate

A Lifelong Love Affair with Celtic FC

Gary Edwards

He made you cry with laughter with Paint It White, now the celebrated Leeds-supporting, cartoon-drawing, painting-and-decorating eccentric Gary Edwards is back. It turns out that his first book was only an undercoat and now the story of his crazy life following Leeds needs a second coat. 
 
No wonder: Edwards, you see, has seen every Leeds game - competitive and friendly anywhere in the world - since 17 January 1968*. During those 37 years, he's been there, done that and bought the T-shirt. So, after subtle prompts from his travelling companions, he's back with more tales that simply would not fit into the first volume. 
There's barely a pub in the land he can step into without some well-meaning soul coming up to him and demanding, 'Loved the book, Gary! When are you going to do another - with me in it?' So here it is - another fabulously entertaining collection of travelling tales and friends remembered. Eventually. 
 
In this follow-up instalment of high gloss and drama, Edwards recounts how he befriended a real-life Leeds-supporting Dalek, convinced Rolf Harris that the earth was flat, was accosted by firemen while trying to paint a fire engine white, appeared on the sides of buses with his face painted in Leeds colours and received letters from the Queen and the Prime Minister after he complained about David Beckham getting an OBE! 
 
Leeds United: The Second Coat is another hilarious account of the scrapes, adventures and moments of comedy that a life's passion for Leeds United has brought Gary Edwards. 
 
*OK, he missed one but he still has the match ticket, and only a strike by Spanish air traffic control stopped him getting to a one-off friendly in Toronto.

The Second Coat

Colin MacFarlane

In his last book, The Real Gorbals Story, Colin MacFarlane detailed how he witnessed a once great area, home to wonderful characters and grand old buildings, disappear before his eyes. By the time MacFarlane's tenement was knocked down in the early 1970s, he had left school and been rehoused in another part of the city. In an attempt to extricate himself from his Gorbals gang days, he took a job as an apprentice chef at one of Glasgow's top restaurants, where he soon discovered that his colleagues were just as insane as those he had mixed with on the city streets. Meanwhile, MacFarlane struggled to integrate into the more affluent area that his family had been moved to and soon found himself returning to his old haunts and back in trouble again. 
 
In No Mean Glasgow, MacFarlane charts his eventful, fun-packed passage from Gorbals street boy to grown man on the brink of a new beginning. He describes his adventures with a mixture of humour, sadness and delight. It is a book for those people living all over the world who remember the old Glasgow - a city teeming with warmth, passion, patter and characters who could brighten up even the darkest of days.

No Mean Glasgow

Revelations of a Gorbals Guy

Thomas Myler

In Boxing's Hall of Shame, Thomas Myler tells the inside stories of the real fight game. He reveals the sport's heroes and villains, mobsters and fixers, its shame and sorrows, providing the reader with a ringside seat at boxing's greatest and most controversial contests along the way. 
 
This no-holds-barred volume includes the enraged Mike Tyson taking a chunk out of Evander Holyfield's ear; Roberto Duran's baffling retirement against Sugar Ray Leonard; the Riddick Bowe-Andrew Golota fiasco that ended in an ugly full-scale riot; Sonny Liston - whose mobster background was not unknown to boxing authorities - going down under Muhammad Ali's phantom punch; and Jake LaMotta's botched dive against Billy Fox, which turned the 'Raging Bull' into boxing's bad boy overnight. 
 
Boxing's Hall of Shame sensationally revisits the boxing scandals, the fixed fights and the powerful influence of the underworld, taking the reader behind the scenes of the glove sport to reveal the shady underbelly of boxing through the ages.

Boxing's Hall of Shame

The Fight Game's Darkest Days

Pete May

West Ham are back in the Premiership and, to celebrate, Pete May reflects on a lifetime of supporting the Irons. It's all here in Hammers in the Heart, from a full account of West Ham's triumph against Preston in the Coca-Cola Championship play-off final at Cardiff on 30 May 2005 to his early recollections of Bobby Moore, high-leg DM boots in the North Bank, Billy Bonds' pirate chic, obscene humour in the Chicken Run, Trevor Brooking's sideburns, the FA Cup triumphs of 1975 and 1980, promotions, relegations and sides invariably 'down to the bare bones'. 
 
 With the dark humour necessary to be a Hammers fan, Pete May recalls Frank McAvennie's Neighbours mullet; Paolo Di Canio's walk-off against Bradford; 'Two Bob' Florin Raducioiu, who preferred shopping in Harvey Nichols to playing for West Ham; Iain Dowie's legendary own goal at Stockport; homeboy Joey Beauchamp; John Hartson attempting to kick off Eyal Berkovic's head in training; beating Bury 10-0 and signing their centre-half; chants of 'We want a new back four!' and relegation with the most talented side ever to go down; and, of course, the sublime skills of Brooking, Devonshire and Di Canio. 
 
 You'll laugh, you'll wince, you'll probably need a cup of Rosie Lea in Ken's Café after reading Hammers in the Heart, an epic tale of dreams that didn't always fade and die.

Hammers in the Heart

A Lifetime of Supporting West Ham

Dave Hadfield

Along the way he met the people whose enthusiasm for the game has made it so durable - current and former internationals as well as others involved at all levels - as well as a few miserable old gits for balance. In this intimate account, Hadfield observes the way rugby league fits into the history and sociology of towns like Wigan and Castleford, with which it is synonymous. His record of the journey is in the great tradition of writers from Wordsworth to Laurie Lee, who found in long walks the perfect medium to explore and reflect upon their surroundings. Up and Over is the definitive book about the game and the local passions it engenders, as Hadfield seeks out the poignant and the humorous on a personal journey of discovery. For those who follow rugby league, it will give a unique perspective on the parts of the world they know intimately; for others it will be an introduction to a different world, seen via one of the elements that gives it its identity.

Up and Over

A Trek Through Rugby League Land

Alex Caine

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

Befriend and Betray

Infiltrating the Hells Angels, Bandidos and Other Criminal Brotherhoods

Ian Botham

Sir Ian Botham and the Ashes are as closely intertwined as willow and leather or Merv Hughes and his moustache. You simply cannot think of one without the other. In this book, Sir Ian takes you on a ride through a lifetime's relationship with cricket's oldest and most treasured prize, revealing just how it has shaped his life and how he has helped to turn it into the contest it is today. 
 
From the moment he first watched the likes of Ken Barrington stride to the wicket in jaw-jutting defiance to the day he flayed Australia's bowling attack around Headingley as if playing with his mates in the park, and then onwards to his role in commentating on what was arguably the finest series of the lot, in 2005, Sir Ian has a rich and varied connection with the Ashes, and he tells all here. 
 
The Ashes is a series that has provided incredible highs and heartbreaking lows for English and Australian fans alike over the past 35 years. Sir Ian has often been at the centre of the roller-coaster ride. Whether it is his account of his days as England's dogsbody in 1977 in Melbourne or the story of his refusal to let Bob Willis bowl downwind until he was angry enough to skittle the Aussies in 1981, all is revealed in depth in Botham's Book of the Ashes.

Botham's Book of the Ashes

A Lifetime Love Affair with Cricket's Greatest Rivalry

David Leslie

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

The Happy Dust Gang

How Sex, Scandal and Deceit Founded a Drugs Empire

Diane Blood

Diane Blood first hit the headlines in 1996 when she went to court to fight for the right to use her late husband's sperm to try for the child they had planned together before his sudden death from meningitis. Diane's case caused an ethical storm and was debated in the courts, in Parliament and in the media. With huge public support, yet against almost impossible odds, she won on appeal and went on to have two miraculous little boys. 
 
 The legal battles were not over, however, as the law still prevented Diane from naming the boys' father on their birth certificates. After many hurdles and stumbling blocks, she triumphed again and made constitutional history when the Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Deceased Fathers) Act finally came into force on 1 December 2003 and she was allowed to re-register her children's births. 
 
 Flesh and Blood asks many important questions and helps provide some of the answers. It shows how controversial policies are made that affect all our lives. Beyond that, it is a simple story of life, death and procreation: an incredibly vivid account written by the woman who lived through the despair and jubilation.

Flesh and Blood

The Harrowing and Moving Story of a Mother's Fight to Bear Her Late Husband's Children

Dominic Gill

When Dominic Gill set out from Alaska on his bicycle, it was to be no ordinary ride. His goal was to reach Ushuaia, the southernmost city in South America, and he was starting off far from confident and with barely enough food to last a week. But Dominic had a secret weapon: the spare seat. His bicycle was a tandem and he would invite strangers to join him on his long journey. 
 
Over 26 months, Dominic covered 18,449 miles down the west coast of the Americas, passed through 15 countries, was looked after by countless strangers, crashed into a banana truck and was attacked by a man with a rusty machete. But Dominic's journey wasn't just an endurance challenge full of derring-do. While sharing his bicycle with 270 strangers who wanted to help him on his way, Dominic discovered a world that differed dramatically from the scare stories and the sensationalist press reports that had shaped his preconceptions about life in the Americas. What started as a physically demanding road trip turned into the inspirational adventure of a lifetime.

Take a Seat

One Man, One Tandem and Twenty Thousand Miles of Possibilities

Sal Polisi

Steve Dougherty

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

The Sinatra Club

My Life Inside the New York Mafia

Phil Sparrowhawk

Grass is the incredible story of Phil Sparrowhawk, a working-class boy with gambling in his blood. Like most punters, he enjoyed an incredible run of luck, but finally rolled the dice once too often. 
 
Before he had come of age, Phil had accumulated a small fortune from street trading. He then staked his entire capital on Njinsky in the 1970 Derby - and won. With his now large capital base, he launched a business importing clothes. Enter Howard Marks (aka Mr Nice), who was enthused by Phil's Far East connections and introduced him to the far more lucrative world of the 'movement of beneficial herbs' - or drug smuggling, as it is known to the authorities. 
 
Phil struck out on his own and from his new base in Thailand became involved in many large-scale cannabis deals, whilst at the same time developing highly successful legitimate businesses. Read of his encounters with Greenpeace, Mother Teresa, gangsters and leading politicians, Lord Moynihan, religious cults, former pop singers and many other diverse characters as his life became more and more surreal. 
 
The winning streak came to an end in 1988 when the US Drug Enforcement Agency closed in. Phil's £30m fortune was promptly confiscated and he spent the next four years in two of Thailand's most notorious jails before being extradited to the US, where he served further time in a series of penitentiaries. 
 
Grass details the life of an ordinary young man with a taste for adventure, who ended up on the most extraordinary journey. Sit back, take a deep breath and enjoy.

Grass

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