A thrilling crime novel about Roger Sloane, a young American living on the Cote d'Azur in the late 1920s. Sloane meets an old classmate exploring Europe after inheriting a title in England. Both men and an unusual group of people combat a sinister gang of American smugglers who have left New York and set up a sophisticated crime cartel in the South of France.
As featured on 60 Minutes, Dateline, Inside Edition, and 48 Hours, the shocking true story of banker Edmond Safra's death and the man wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for the crime. When billionaire banker Edmond Safra died in the ashes of Monaco’s La Belle Époque building on December 3, 1999, the event made international headlines—for many reasons. One, of course, was the sheer wealth of the Lebanese mogul and his formidable presence in the international banking world. But the more seductive reason for the worldwide attention was the strange and intriguing way Safra died—ensconced within the armored walls of his vigilantly secured residence in the “safest city in the world.” At 4:45 in the morning, a firestorm gutted Safra’s opulent Monte Carlo penthouse, trapping—and killing—Safra and one of his nurses, Vivian Torrente. When the fire was ruled arson, a fast finger was pointed at the only other nurse present: former Green Beret Ted Maher. The true, bizarre circumstances that led to Safra’s death and to the subsequent imprisonment of Ted Maher are contained within the pages of Framed in Monte Carlo: How I Was Wrongfully Convicted for a Billionaire’s Fiery Death. The story features a play-by-play of that deadly night, as well as Ted’s sham of a trial that put him behind bars for seven years and eight months. Brutal betrayals, harrowing kidnappings, prison breaks straight out of The Great Escape, and more pepper the pages of Framed in Monte Carlo. Ted was freed when the judge from his trial came forward with a stunning revelation. But his life was never the same. And since his return to American soil, he’s continued to unearth more and more disturbing details about his ordeal. Armed with fresh facts, a greater understanding of the players, and a wider lens of perspective, Ted now reveals all, including his never-before-released findings that seek to answer the lingering big question: Who did kill Edmond Safra? The powerful famous names legitimately put forth by the author will shock you.
After a lavish night of guilty pleasures in Monte Carlo, four best friends face an awful morning of arrests -- and a fight for survival. Only minutes after Abbie Elliot and her three best friends step off of a private helicopter, they enter the most luxurious, sumptuous, sensually pampering hotel they have ever been to. Their lavish presidential suite overlooks Monte Carlo, and they surrender: to the sun and pool, to the sashimi and sake, to the Bruno Paillard champagne. As the weekend moves into pulsating discos, high-stakes casinos, and beyond, Abbie is transported to the greatest pleasure and release she has ever known. In the morning's harsh light, Abbie awakens on a yacht, surrounded by police. Something awful has happened: something impossible, unthinkable. Abbie, Winnie, Serena, and Bryah are arrested and accused of the foulest crime imaginable. And now the vacation of a lifetime becomes the fight of a lifetime-a fight for survival. Guilty Wives is the ultimate indulgence, the kind of nonstop joy-ride of excess, friendship, betrayal, and danger that only James Patterson can create.
This title tells of the tragic and sad outcome to the life of a man, whose birthright and great sporting talent should have promised him the world. Instead he became the architect of his own destruction and met his end in one of the worst hell holes in prison history.
Beach reading suspense from the New York Times bestselling author of There's Something About St. Tropez Sunny Alvarez and Mac Reilly always seem to find trouble in the south of France. This time, all the trouble began in Monte Carlo. Sunny's relationship with Mac is in jeopardy and Monte Carlo beckons. Soon Sunny is pulled into a web of intrigue involving a series of robberies of high-end jewelry stores. Then there's her wanna-be-new-friend, who turns out to be a sociopath, involved in the sale of sex and in blackmail. Plus there's Sunny's old friend, movie star Allie Ray, who owns a vineyard in France and who comes to help sort Sunny out, while at the same time sorting out the life and appearance of her old friend, Pru Holster, with a makeover that not only changes her dowdy overweight appearance, but changes Pru into an amateur detective. If Sunny doesn't untangle this plot, she might end up an unwitting accomplice to theft, blackmail and even murder. When Mac shows up, he's ready to do anything to get Sunny back, not the least of which is to solve the crimes and save her life.
An exquisite seaside resort, an eccentric group of British aristrocrats on holiday, and rich 1930's detail lay the setting for this stupendous debut mystery of manners by a young librarian
In November of 1977, Terry Lee Farmer, a white inmate at Arizona State Prison in Florence, walked up to black prisoner Waymond Small in front of sixty witnesses and stabbed him in the heart with a shank. Small had agreed to testify before the state legislature about gang violence inside Arizona State Prison and was murdered the day before his scheduled appearance. This murder proved the catalyst for an all-out war between the State of Arizona and the Aryan Brotherhood. Through five trials, Farmer claimed self-defense and the jurors acquitted all ten of his co-conspirators. Thornton Price, one of the defense attorneys, now tells how Farmer and Small became cannon fodder in this war to reclaim ArizonaÕs prisons from rival gangs. These gangsÑthe Aryan Brotherhood, the Mau Maus, and the Mexican MafiaÑwere suspected of committing more than a dozen murders over the previous two years, motivating politicians to crack down after the violence could no longer be ignored or contained. To reconstruct the case, Price reviewed 16,000 pages of court records and conducted interviews with key participants to piece together an insiderÕs account of the crime and the politics behind its investigation. Prison murders should be easy to solve, but investigators quickly learned that the convictsÕ code of silence makes these cases often impossible to win in court. Price focuses on the special problems posed by prison crime by getting inside the skins of men like murderer Terry "Crazy" Farmer and William "Red Dog" Howard, one of the Florence Eleven and a founder of the Aryan Brotherhood. He also presents the perspectives of state investigators and reveals how they calculated to pit black witnesses against white killers until one black would break the code of silence and provoke feuding within the Brotherhood. Murder Unpunished tells how societyÕs most outrageous criminals ran the prison through gang violence as outside the walls Arizona struggled to outgrow its Wild West past. Like few other books, it reveals how prisons incubate predatory criminals and gangs, and it exposes the unique difficulties of prosecuting prison crimes. It is a gripping account that cuts to the heart of our penal system and a cautionary tale for citizens who prefer to keep prisons out of sight, out of mind.
"Curl up by the fire (and lock all the doors) for this Christmas cracker of a book." —C.S. Green, author of Sleep Tight Twelve clues. Twelve keys. Twelve days of Christmas. But how many will die before Twelfth Night? Agatha Christie meets Clue in this delightful, tense manor house murder mystery. The annual Christmas Game is afoot at Endgame House, the Armitages' grand family home. This year's prize is to die for—deeds to the house itself—but Lily Armitage has no intention of returning. She hasn't been back to Endgame since her mother died, twenty-one years ago, and she has no intention of claiming the house that haunts her dreams. Until, that is, she receives a letter from her aunt promising that the game's riddles will give her the keys not only to Endgame, but to its darkest secrets, including the identity of her mother's murderer. Now, Lily must compete with her estranged cousins for the twelve days of Christmas. The snow is thick, the phone lines are down, and no one is getting in or out. Lily will have to keep her wits about her, because not everyone is playing fair, and there's no telling how many will die before the winner is declared. Including additional scavenger hunts for the reader, this clever murder mystery is the perfect gift for fans of classic mysteries, festive Christmas books, and armchair detective work.
Sir Charles Cartwright should have known better than to allow thirteen guests to sit down for dinner. For at the end of the evening one of them is dead—choked by a cocktail that contained no trace of poison. Predictable, says Hercule Poirot, the great detective. But entirely unpredictable is that he can find absolutely no motive for murder.…
At the beginning of August 1907, an early-morning train from Monte Carlo pulled into the Gare Saint-Charles in Marseilles. A trunk with a forwarding address was taken to the baggage section to await transportation. Some hours later a station employee, Louis Pons, noticed blood dripping from the trunk. The police were called and, on opening it, discovered a naked female corpse. The head and legs were missing. Thus began the investigation into a sensational case which drew the attention of newspapers the world over. An army of reporters congregated in Marseilles and Monte Carlo to chronicle every twist and turn of the murder inquiry and subsequent trial. From the notorious casino, the trail led to Marseilles, London, Liverpool, Canada – and ultimately to County Cork and Waterford. The couple arrested for the crime were Vere St Leger Goold, an Irish aristocrat, and his French wife Marie Giroudin. He was a former Irish Open tennis champion and Wimbledon finalist whose great promise in life had disintegrated into a mire of drink, drugs and gambling. His wife was a con artist, always one step ahead of the financial posse. This fascinating tale involves the components of forensic science, psychological profiling, judicial investigation and global reporting of historical character with a very contemporary echo.