True Crime Robberies

From murder and robberies to arson and blackmail, the 20 stories in this book are some of the most fascinating true crime stories ever recorded. Each of these cases is so bizarre that they confounded the police, baffled investigators and captured the attention of the press all over the world. These short and accessible stories include encyclopaedic information on when and how the crimes were committed, the background of each criminal, and their trials and punishments - for those that were caught.

Whether in Truman Capote’s detailed murder of the Clutter family or Ted Bundy’s small-town charm, criminals have always roamed rural America and towns worldwide. Featuring murder stories, criminal case studies, and more, The Best New True Crime Stories: Small Towns contains all-new accounts from writers of true crime, crime journalism, and crime fiction. And these entries are not based on a true story - they are true stories. Edited by acclaimed author and anthologist Mitzi Szereto, the stories in this volume span the globe.

In the Australia of the 1960s, '70s and '80s, armed robbers were the top of the criminal food chain. Their dash and violence were celebrated, and men like Ray Denning and Russell 'Mad Dog' Cox were household names long before Underbelly established Melbourne's gangland thugs as celebrities. Both were handsome, charismatic bandits who refused to bow to authority. Both were classified as 'intractable' in prison, and both escaped. Cox was the only man to escape from Katingal, Australia's only 'escape-proof' jail. Soon after he broke out, he tried to break in again and rescue his mates.

Atop the hierarchy of Australian bushrangers sits Ned Kelly–the ultimate outlaw–and just below him, the tragic figure of Ben Hall, who joined a gang led by a man whose name today is less well known, but in his time was much more famous than any other: Frank Gardiner. Mastermind of the largest gold robbery in Australia’s history, Gardiner led an extraordinary life, the full telling of which is long overdue. In a tough country and among a group of tough men, Gardiner was the toughest of them all.

Joan Hannington was the most notorious female figure in London's criminal underworld during the 80s, earning her the nickname 'The Godmother'. With her stunning looks and glamorous wardrobe, Joan was constantly underestimated, but she used this to her advantage and became an undetected mastermind in high-stakes jewellery theft. Often transforming herself into different characters, Joan seamlessly got away with millions of pounds in diamonds. Joan is the true story of her meteoric rise from petty offender to one of Britain's most accomplished diamond thieves

Here is a glittering true-crime tale unlike any you have ever encountered. Glittering because the take involved rubies, emeralds, diamonds, sapphires. The thieves were two men from Yonkers, Dominick Latella and Pete Salerno, who hit the East Coast mansions of the wealthy enclaves of Westchester and Palm Beach. Over 20 years they became known as the most successful jewel thieves in American history...until one bleak night when they got careless.

Norco '80 tells the story of how five heavily armed young men - led by an apocalyptic born-again Christian - attempted a bank robbery that turned into one of the most violent criminal events in US history, forever changing the face of American law enforcement. Part action thriller and part courtroom drama, Norco '80 transports the listener back to the Southern California of the 1970s, an era of predatory evangelical gurus, doomsday predictions, megachurches, and soaring crime rates, with the threat of nuclear obliteration looming over it all.

Mix in murderous maids, bumbling burglars, and unflinching local heroes and you have True Crime Philadelphia.

This is the story of how Securicor guard Eddie Maher managed to pull off a £1.2 million heist, fled the country despite every port being closed, spawned an international manhunt and managed to evade capture for 20 years. As Britain's most wanted man, he led 30 detectives, FBI and Interpol on a wild goose chase across the USA. Dubbed 'Fast Eddie' by the press, he was always one step ahead.

For centuries, works of art have been stolen in countless ways from all over the world, but no one has been quite as successful at it as the master thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Carrying out more than 200 heists over nearly ten years - in museums and cathedrals all over Europe - Breitwieser, along with his girlfriend who worked as his lookout, stole more than 300 objects, until it all fell apart in spectacular fashion. In The Art Thief, Michael Finkel brings us into Breitwieser’s strange and fascinating world.

One hot Monday morning in 1976, Albert Spaggiari engineered the European crime of the century. A bank president in Nice, France found his vault welded shut—from the inside. Spaggiari and his gang of 20 men had dug a 25-foot tunnel from the city's sewer system into the bank, where they spent a weekend cooking meals, drinking wine, and clearing millions of dollars in gold, jewelry, gems, and cash. Here is the breathtakingly compelling story of Spaggiari, his “sewer gang,” and the most daring, outrageous theft of the 20th century.

The 'Dirty Dozen' were a ruthless federation of criminals who ran the armed robbery game in London for over a decade. When charismatic leader 'Gentleman' Jim Doyle was jailed, the innovative but violent Bradish twins, Sean and Vincent, stepped up to take the throne. Hardened by a life in London's most lawless corners, they recruited a tight-knit crew to forge a reputation as the brutal kings of their underworld trade. Banks, security vans, post offices, travel agents - anywhere was fair game and nowhere was safe.

In 2016, on stage at Wembley Arena in front of thousands of adoring fans, Dr Ruja Ignatova promised her followers a financial revolution. The future, she said, belonged to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. And the Oxford-educated, self-styled cryptoqueen vowed that she had invented the Bitcoin killer. OneCoin would not only earn its investors untold fortunes, it would change the world.

As a string of high-profile jewel thefts went unsolved during the Swinging Sixties, the press dubbed the elusive thief the King of Diamonds. Like Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief, the King was so bold that he tip-toed into the homes of millionaires while they were home, hiding in their closets and daring to smoke while they were sleeping. Rena Pederson, then a young reporter with UPI, started following the elusive thief while she managed the night desk. With gymnastic skill, he climbed trees and crawled across rooftops to take jewels from heiresses, oil kings, corporate CEOs.

Catch Me If You Can meets The Great Gatsby meets the hit Netflix series Lupin in this captivating true-crime caper. A skilled con artist and perhaps one of the most charming, audacious burglars in history, Arthur Barry slipped in and out of the bedrooms of New York’s wealthiest residents, even as his victims slept only inches away. He befriended luminaries such as the Prince of Wales and Harry Houdini and became a folk hero, touted in the press as “the greatest jewel thief who ever lived” and an “Aristocrat of Crime.”

Deutschlands erfolggekrönter True Crime-Bestsellerautor Adrian Langenscheid entfesselt, im fünften Band seiner True Crime-Buchreihe erneut herzklopfendes Suchtlesen. Es ist ein atemberaubendes, zutiefst erschütterndes Portrait menschlicher Abgründe, das gerade wegen der kühlen, sachlich-neutralen Schilderung gewaltige Emotionen weckt. Frei von jeglicher Sensationsgier werden in achtzehn True Crime-Kurzgeschichten einige der spektakulärsten französischen Kriminalfälle der letzten Jahrzehnte nacherzählt.

2019 erschien das Erstlingswerk von Adrian Langenscheid True Crime Deutschland und erstürmte aus dem Nichts die Siegertreppchen der genrerelevanten Kategorien. Knapp 2 Jahre und 7 Bücher später ist Langenscheid einer der bekanntesten True Crime-Autoren Deutschlands. Für das achte Werk seiner Erfolgsserie recherchierte der Bestsellerautor aufs Neue einige der spektakulärsten deutschen Kriminalfälle der letzten Jahrzehnte. Dabei ist ein atemberaubendes, zutiefst erschütterndes Portrait menschlicher Abgründe entstanden, das gerade wegen seiner kühlen, sachlich-neutralen Schilderungen gewaltige Emotionen weckt.

Before the 1920s found their roar, a charismatic gambling addict named Roy Gardner dominated news headlines with daring train robberies and escapes from incarceration. Nicknamed "the Smiling Bandit," Gardner spilled no blood—except his own—as he cut a felonious path across the western United States, as the country hobbled through a recession in the aftermath of the First World War. Alcatraz Ghost Story explores the life of Roy Gardner in the context of his great love story and the larger backdrop of drug addiction, incarceration, and the racial and labor violence of the 1920s and 1930s.

Chas Smith grew up deeply enmeshed in the evangelical Christian world that grew out of Southern California in the late 1960s. His family included famous missionaries and megachurch pastors, but his cousin Daniel Courson was Grandma’s favorite. Smith looked up to Cousin Danny. He was handsome, adventurous, and smart, earned a degree from Bible college, and settled into a family and a stable career. Needless to say, it was a big surprise when Cousin Danny started robbing banks.

From daring heists to the ultimate escape, discover the true story of Punch Stanimirovic, his extraordinary crew, and his high-society family. Edgar Award winner and New York Times bestselling author Burl Barer brings to light the remarkable story of four decades and two generations of America's First Family of kind and generous "altruistic outlaws" in Stealing Manhattan: The Untold Story of America's Billion Dollar Gem Heist Masterminds.