Today Amazon offers Five True Crime Books: From the murderous rise and fall of America’s bloodiest Asian gang to the brutal lives of the New York City mobsters who ruled Hell’s Kitchen, reality is often more thrilling than fiction. Today’s selection of five true-crime stories hammers home this point, and they’re just $1.99 each (up to 88% off).
1. Born to Kill: The Rise and Fall of America’s Bloodiest Asian Gang by T. J. English
They are children of the Vietnam War. Born and raised in the wasteland left by American bombs and napalm, these young men know a particular brand of cruelty—which they are about to export to the United States. When the Vietnamese gangs come to Chinatown, they adopt a name remembered from GI’s helmets: “Born to Kill.” And kill they do, in a frenzy of violence that shocks even the old-school Chinese gangsters who once ran Canal Street. Killing brings them turf, money, and power, but also draws the government’s eye. Even as Born to Kill reaches its height, it is marked for destruction.
This story is told from the perspective of Tinh Ngo, a young gang member who eventually grows disenchanted with murder and death. When he decides to inform on his brothers to the police, he enters a shadow world far more dangerous than any gangland.
2. The Westies: Inside New York’s Irish Mob by T. J. English
It’s men like Jimmy Coonan and Mickey Featherstone who gave Hell’s Kitchen its name. In the mid-1970s, these two long-time friends take the reins of New York’s Irish mob, using brute force to give it hitherto unthinkable power. Jimmy, a charismatic sociopath, is the leader. Mickey, whose memories of Vietnam torture him daily, is his enforcer. Together they make brutality their trademark, butchering bodies or hurling them out the window. Under their reign, Hell’s Kitchen becomes a place where death literally rains from the sky.
When Mickey goes down for a murder he didn’t commit, he suspects his friend has sold him out. He returns the favor, breaking the underworld’s code of silence and testifying against his gang in open court. From his testimony comes this incredible story of what it means to make it in a world where murder is commonplace.
3. Who Killed My Daughter? by Lois Duncan
In this tragic memoir and investigation, Lois Duncan searches for clues to the murder of her youngest child, eighteen-year-old Kaitlyn Arquette. Duncan begins to suspect that the official police investigation of Kaitlyn’s murder is inadequate when detectives ignore her daughter’s accidental connection to organized crime in Albuquerque. When Duncan loses faith in the system, she reaches out to anyone that can help, including private investigators, journalists, and even a psychic. Written to inspire other families who have lost loved ones to unsolved crimes, Who Killed My Daughter? is a powerful testament to the tenacity of a mother’s love.
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Lois Duncan including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the author’s personal collection.
4. The Good-Bye Door (True Crime) by Diana Franklin
The true story of the first female serial killer to die in the electric chair. Nicknamed “the Blonde Borgia,” Anna Marie Hahn was a cold-blooded serial killer who preyed on the elderly in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine district in the 1930s. When the State of Ohio strapped its first woman into the electric chair, Hahn gained a place in the annals of crime as the nation’s first female serial killer to be executed in the chair. Told here for the first time in riveting detail is Anna Marie’s gripping story, an almost unbelievable tale of multiple murders, deceit, and greed. Born in Bavaria in 1906, Anna Marie brought shame to her pious family when, as a teenager, she gave birth to an illegitimate son, Oscar. She was shipped off to America in 1929 where she initially lived with elderly relatives in Cincinnati. A year later she married Philip Hahn, a Western Union telegrapher, with whom she bought a new house and opened a delicatessen/bakery.Pressed economically by the Great Depression, the ever-resourceful Anna Marie found other ways to get the money to support her passionate past-time—betting on horses. She tried burning down the house, then the deli, for the insurance; and she tried killing her husband, also for the insurance. Then she took to befriending the neighborhood elderly, latching on to their life savings before feeding them arsenic with deadly results. For weeks her Cincinnati trial for “the greatest mass murder in the history of the country” was a front-page sensation across the nation. A thousand or more curiosity seekers came daily to the courthouse to try to get just a glimpse of her. Nearly 100 witnesses gave damning testimony against her, and the jury’s guilty verdict put her on the path to the electric chair. Finally, after a year, all appeals were exhausted, and Anna Marie, age 32, was executed on December 7, 1938, at the state penitentiary in Columbus. True crime buffs, historians, legal professionals, and others seeking an extraordinary story will find The Goodbye Door a compelling addition to true crime literature.
5. Circle of Six: The True Story of New York’s Most Notorious Cop Killer and The Cop Who Risked Everything to Catch Hi by Randy Jurgensen, Robert Cea.
Circle of Six is the true story of what is perhaps the most notorious case in the history of the New York Police Department. It details Randy Jurgensen’s determined effort to bring to justice the murderer of Patrolman Phillip Cardillo.
Cardillo was shot and killed inside Harlem’s Mosque #7 in 1972, in the midst of an all-out assault on the NYPD from the Black Liberation Army. The New York of this era was a place not unlike the Wild West, in which cops and criminals shot it out on a daily basis.
Despite the mayhem on the streets and the Machiavellian corridors of Mayor Lindsay’s City Hall, Detective Jurgensen single-handedly took on the Black Liberation Army, the Nation of Islam, NYPD brass, and City Hall, capturing Cardillo’s killer, Lewis 17X Dupree. He broke the case with an unlikely accomplice, Foster 2X Thomas, a member of the Nation of Islam who became Jurgensen’s witness. The relationship they formed during the time before trial gave each of the two men a greater perspective of the two sides in the street war and changed them forever. In the end, Jurgensen had to settle for a conviction on other charges, and Dupree served a number of years. The murder case is still officially unsolved. In 2006 the NYPD re-opened the case, and it is once again an active investigation with full media attention.
The book has received acclaim from current New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, as well as former Commissioner William Bratton.
Randy Jurgensen’s co-author is Robert Cea (No Lights, No Sirens), also a former NYPD detective.
For young readers Amazon offers Johnny Tremain written by Esther Hoskins Forbes just for $0.99.
Johnny Tremain, winner of the 1943 Newbery Medal, is one of the finest historical novels ever written for children. As compelling today as it was fifty years ago, to read this riveting novel is to live through the defining events leading up to the American Revolutionary War. Fourteen-year old Johnny Tremain, an apprentice silversmith with a bright future ahead of him, injures his hand in a tragic accident, forcing him to look for other work. In his new job as a horse-boy, riding for the patriotic newspaper, the Boston Observer, and as a messenger for the Sons of Liberty, he encounters John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Dr. Joseph Warren. Soon Johnny is involved in the pivotal events shaping the American Revolution from the Boston Tea Party to the first shots fired at Lexington. Powerful illustrations by American artist Michael McCurdy, bring to life Esther Forbes’ quintessential novel of the American Revolution.
Some words about the Author
Esther Forbes received the Pulitzer Prize for history for Paul Revere and the World He Lived In.
As usual Amazon makes a one game for free every day. Today it is Topple Drop.
New! Topple Drop now has a total of 90 levels (50 new ones)!
Use your noggin’ deleting blue cubes and purple-blue platforms to topple the red one-eyed monsters from platforms without toppling the green cubes. Sound easy? It is at first, but then it gets more challenging. Topple Drop features challenging physics-based puzzles adding up to lots of fun for all ages.
Product features:
- 90 fun physics puzzles in a 3D environment.
- Use helicopter, ice, balloon and bouncing pieces to solve each puzzle.