Almost a Crime
Almost a Crime

Author: Penny Vincenzi

Publisher: Abrams

Published: 2007-10-30

Total Pages: 624

ISBN-13: 1590207947

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This suspenseful tale of a glamorous marriage, a reckless affair, and a vengeful obsession is “deliciously readable” (Daily Mail). Tom and Octavia Fleming glitter among the chattering classes of London in the late 1990s. Tom, a brilliant political strategist, and Octavia, an equally talented charity consultant, appear to have it all—good looks, money, success, and three pretty children—everything but precious time together. The truth is Tom is having an affair—and when Octavia realizes it, she plots her revenge against her husband. But nothing prepares Octavia for the identity of Tom’s mistress, and her misdemeanors hardly compare to the revenge enacted by the other woman after Tom calls it off . . . Described by Dominick Dunne as a writer “with verve and heart, immersing the reader in a world of engrossing and unforgettable glamour and passion,” and praised by Barbara Taylor Bradford as “marvelously engrossing,” Penny Vincenzi presents a novel packed with twists, trysts, and thrills. “Exposes the cracks in a British ‘power marriage’ and charts the frightening evolution of a spurned woman’s love into a dangerous obsession . . . [A] deft, swift contemporary epic.” —Publishers Weekly

Scoundrel
Scoundrel

Author: Sarah Weinman

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2022-02-22

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 0062899791

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A Recommended Read from: The Los Angeles Times * Town and Country * The Seattle Times * Publishers Weekly * Lit Hub * Crime Reads * Alma From the author of The Real Lolita and editor of Unspeakable Acts, the astonishing story of a murderer who conned the people around him—including conservative thinker William F. Buckley—into helping set him free In the 1960s, Edgar Smith, in prison and sentenced to death for the murder of teenager Victoria Zielinski, struck up a correspondence with William F. Buckley, the founder of National Review. Buckley, who refused to believe that a man who supported the neoconservative movement could have committed such a heinous crime, began to advocate not only for Smith’s life to be spared but also for his sentence to be overturned. So begins a bizarre and tragic tale of mid-century America. Sarah Weinman’s Scoundrel leads us through the twists of fate and fortune that brought Smith to freedom, book deals, fame, and eventually to attempting murder again. In Smith, Weinman has uncovered a psychopath who slipped his way into public acclaim and acceptance before crashing down to earth once again. From the people Smith deceived—Buckley, the book editor who published his work, friends from back home, and the women who loved him—to Americans who were willing to buy into his lies, Weinman explores who in our world is accorded innocence, and how the public becomes complicit in the stories we tell one another. Scoundrel shows, with clear eyes and sympathy for all those who entered Smith’s orbit, how and why he was able to manipulate, obfuscate, and make a mockery of both well-meaning people and the American criminal justice system. It tells a forgotten part of American history at the nexus of justice, prison reform, and civil rights, and exposes how one man’s ill-conceived plan to set another man free came at the great expense of Edgar Smith’s victims.

Until We Reckon
Until We Reckon

Author: Danielle Sered

Publisher: The New Press

Published: 2019-03-05

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 1620974800

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The award-winning “radically original” (The Atlantic) restorative justice leader, whose work the Washington Post has called “totally sensible and totally revolutionary,” grapples with the problem of violent crime in the movement for prison abolition A National Book Foundation Literature for Justice honoree A Kirkus “Best Book of 2019 to Fight Racism and Xenophobia” Winner of the National Association of Community and Restorative Justice Journalism Award Finalist for the Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice In a book Democracy Now! calls a “complete overhaul of the way we’ve been taught to think about crime, punishment, and justice,” Danielle Sered, the executive director of Common Justice and renowned expert on violence, offers pragmatic solutions that take the place of prison, meeting the needs of survivors and creating pathways for people who have committed violence to repair harm. Critically, Sered argues that reckoning is owed not only on the part of individuals who have caused violence, but also by our nation for its overreliance on incarceration to produce safety—at a great cost to communities, survivors, racial equity, and the very fabric of our democracy. Although over half the people incarcerated in America today have committed violent offenses, the focus of reformers has been almost entirely on nonviolent and drug offenses. Called “innovative” and “truly remarkable” by The Atlantic and “a top-notch entry into the burgeoning incarceration debate” by Kirkus Reviews, Sered’s Until We Reckon argues with searing force and clarity that our communities are safer the less we rely on prisons and jails as a solution for wrongdoing. Sered asks us to reconsider the purposes of incarceration and argues persuasively that the needs of survivors of violent crime are better met by asking people who commit violence to accept responsibility for their actions and make amends in ways that are meaningful to those they have hurt—none of which happens in the context of a criminal trial or a prison sentence.

Murder Book
Murder Book

Author: Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell

Publisher: Andrews Mcmeel+ORM

Published: 2021-11-09

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 1524876038

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Why is it so much fun to read about death and dismemberment? In Murder Book, lifelong true-crime obsessive and New Yorker cartoonist Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell tries to puzzle out the answer. An unconventional graphic exploration of a lifetime of Ann Rule super-fandom, amateur armchair sleuthing, and a deep dive into the high-profile murders that have fascinated the author for decades, this is a funny, thoughtful, and highly personal blend of memoir, cultural criticism, and true crime with a focus on the often-overlooked victims of notorious killers.

A Nearly Normal Family
A Nearly Normal Family

Author: M. T. Edvardsson

Publisher: Celadon Books

Published: 2019-06-25

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 1250204429

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Now a Netflix Limited Series "...A compulsively readable tour de force." —The Wall Street Journal New York Times Book Review recommends M.T. Edvardsson’s A Nearly Normal Family and lauds it as a “page-turner” that forces the reader to confront “the compromises we make with ourselves to be the people we believe our beloveds expect.” (NYTimes Book Review Summer Reading Issue) M.T. Edvardsson’s A Nearly Normal Family is a gripping legal thriller that forces the reader to consider: How far would you go to protect the ones you love? In this twisted narrative of love and murder, a horrific crime makes a seemingly normal family question everything they thought they knew about their life—and one another. Eighteen-year-old Stella Sandell stands accused of the brutal murder of a man almost fifteen years her senior. She is an ordinary teenager from an upstanding local family. What reason could she have to know a shady businessman, let alone to kill him? Stella’s father, a pastor, and mother, a criminal defense attorney, find their moral compasses tested as they defend their daughter, while struggling to understand why she is a suspect. Told in an unusual three-part structure, A Nearly Normal Family asks the questions: How well do you know your own children? How far would you go to protect them?

I Know You Know
I Know You Know

Author: Gilly Macmillan

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2018-09-18

Total Pages: 369

ISBN-13: 0062698613

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From New York Times bestselling author Gilly Macmillan comes this original, chilling and twisty mystery about two shocking murder cases twenty years apart, and the threads that bind them. Twenty years ago, eleven-year-olds Charlie Paige and Scott Ashby were murdered in the city of Bristol, their bodies dumped near a dog racing track. A man was convicted of the brutal crime, but decades later, questions still linger. For his whole life, filmmaker Cody Swift has been haunted by the deaths of his childhood best friends. The loose ends of the police investigation consume him so much that he decides to return to Bristol in search of answers. Hoping to uncover new evidence, and to encourage those who may be keeping long-buried secrets to speak up, Cody starts a podcast to record his findings. But there are many people who don’t want the case—along with old wounds—reopened so many years after the tragedy, especially Charlie’s mother, Jess, who decides to take matters into her own hands. When a long-dead body is found in the same location the boys were left decades before, the disturbing discovery launches another murder investigation. Now Detective John Fletcher, the investigator on the original case, must reopen his dusty files and decide if the two murders are linked. With his career at risk, the clock is ticking and lives are in jeopardy…

How to Lead a Life of Crime
How to Lead a Life of Crime

Author: Kirsten Miller

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2013-02-21

Total Pages: 373

ISBN-13: 1101604115

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A meth dealer. A prostitute. A serial killer. Anywhere else, they’d be vermin. At the Mandel Academy, they’re called prodigies. The most exclusive school in New York City has been training young criminals for over a century. Only the most ruthless students are allowed to graduate. The rest disappear. Flick, a teenage pickpocket, has risen to the top of his class. But then Mandel recruits a fierce new competitor who also happens to be Flick’s old flame. They’ve been told only one of them will make it out of the Mandel Academy. Will they find a way to save each other—or will the school destroy them both?

A Crime in the Neighborhood
A Crime in the Neighborhood

Author: Suzanne Berne

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2014-12-04

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 0241003881

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WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 'This ambitious account of a sudden coming of age reminded me strongly of To Kill a Mockingbird - and is every bit as moving and satisfying' Daily Telegraph In the long hot summer of 1972, three events shattered the serenity of ten-year-old Marsha's life: her father ran away with her mother's sister; a young boy called Boyd Ellison was molested and murdered; and Watergate made the headlines. Living in a world no longer safe or familiar, Marsha turns increasingly to 'the book of evidence' in which she records the doings of the neighbors, especially of shy Mr Green next door. But as Marsha's confusion and her murder hunt accelerate, her 'facts' spread the damage cruelly and catastrophically throughout the neighborhood. 'It is impossible not to be completely swept along. Berne's vision is gently humorous, ironic, quirky, and she writes with such piercing sensitivity . . . a compelling debut novel' The Times 'Intensely evocative. I loved it' Observer 'The writing is marvellous . . . comparisons have been made between her and Anne Tyler and Harper Lee. Same ball-park, delightfully different voice' Mail on Sunday