Criminal defence lawyers must make their peace with one harsh fact of life: most of their clients are guilty. Yet when William Tucker, a celebrated and self-centered star college football player, is suddenly arrested and charged with the brutal rape and murder of a college coed two years before, his broken-down, drunken estranged father Frank can't believe he's guilty. What father could? But Frank is also an ex-criminal defence lawyer. Now Frank must find a way to sober up and save his son from the death penalty sought by an ambitious district attorney. Can a father's love for his accused son save him from death?
It certainly can be argued that the brutal killings of Andrew and Abby Borden in Fall River, Massachusetts, on August 4, 1892, was the first nationally reported murder case in the United States, other than presidential assassinations. The focus in The Case Against Lizzie Borden is on the murders and the victims. Lizzie Borden is an integral part of the book, but only as to her possible involvement in the crimes. The book was not undertaken with the notion to prove or disprove Lizzie's guilt, but rather to see where the facts might lead us.This book is based on witness statements and the sworn testimonies at the inquest, preliminary hearing, and trial. Censuses, birth, marriage and death records, and similar sources are also employed. We look at Fall River itself and how it played a role in the murders and how the ethos of the times affected the subsequent investigation, arrest, and trial. We delve into the lives of the victims, as well as those around them or who had connection to the case. The events of the case are presented in chronological order according to the statements of those involved. We see the natural progression of the case against Lizzie Borden and the drama that began on the day of the murders and only intensified over the subsequent ten months through the end of the trial. The Borden murders will never be solved conclusively. But herein the reader will have the information to be able to make his or her own determinations.
A struggling lawyer. A bitter custody battle. A deadly fire. This case could cost Kenzi her career—and her life. Kenzi Rivera is furious. Passed over for promotion at her own father’s firm, the talented divorce lawyer is tired of fighting chauvinism every single day. When a desperate scientist begs for help getting her daughter back, Kenzi can’t resist… even though this client is involved in Hexitel, a group she calls her religion but others call a cult. Kenzi uncovers evidence of disturbing practices at Hexitel involving large sums of money, servitude, and sex. She also learns her client’s lab has been plagued by death threats and cutthroat competition. After the workplace burns to the ground and her client is charged with murder, the ambitious attorney knows there is much more at stake than a simple custody dispute. Can Kenzi find a path to the truth before she’s trapped in a maze of death? Splitsville is the dramatic first book in the Splitsville Legal Thriller series. If you like gutsy heroines, diverse characters, and page-turning suspense, then you’ll love William Bernhardt’s twisty tale. Buy Splitsville and strike a blow for justice!
"Using a plethora of previously unexamined documents from a number of archives, this work provides the first clear understanding of William Augustus Bowles and his exploits along the Spanish Gulf Coast and among the Creek Indians, demonstrating unequivocally that the glory-seeking adventurer was not the tragic heroic figure that he and previous historians have claimed."--F. Todd Smith, University of North Texas War on the Gulf Coast is one of the first books about the Spanish period in West Florida (1797-1805) written from the Spanish point of view. Using Spanish archival sources, Gilbert Din is able to shed new light on the machinations of William Augustus Bowles, an adventurer who sought to introduce goods, subvert the Creek Indians, and deprive the Spaniards of territory. By revealing the inner workings of the Spanish military establishment, Din makes a convincing case that West Florida--which then stretched all the way to the Mississippi River--was a vital zone of international intrigue, not an unimportant backwater. He also offers a much-needed corrective to previous depictions of Bowles, questioning his actual influence among the Creek Nation. Din highlights the naval efforts to curtail smuggling and capture Bowles and counters prevailing wisdom about why the Spanish were forced to surrender at Fort San Marcos. Gilbert C. Din is professor emeritus of history at Fort Lewis College (Colorado). He is the author of Spaniards, Planters, and Slaves: The Spanish Regulation of Slavery in Louisiana, 1763-1803, which won the General L. Kemper and Leila Williams Award for the best book on Louisiana history.
Describes how Jeanne Dominico, a hard-working single mother, was stabbed to death by her fourteen-year-old daughter, who had been convinced by her mentally disturbed Internet boyfriend that Jeanne was trying to keep them apart.
Like most things William Kunstler does, the poems in this collection rattle the foundations of venerable American institutions, in this case our poetry canon and our entrenched notion that institutionalized racism is a thing of the past. His blending of high seriousness of purpose with lightheartedness of tone appears effortless and masterful. This is not ivory tower stuff. It is experience lived as fully as possible and only then recast in lyric form. Kunstler knew most of the people he writes about. A good number of those who live on in these pages had him as their only defender, some ke kept out of prison, others from the electric chair. In many ways, this book is Kunstler's true autobiography. Reading the sonnet and accompanying prose paragraph on Dr. Martin Luther Kings, Jr., for example, we learn all we need to know about the bond between Kunstler and the younger clergyman, and the seven years they worked together. And from the sonnet and commentary on Morton Stavis we grasp how deeply Kunstler feels the calling of his profession, by his anguish at the loss of his attorney friend who had for many years defended him in the courts.
A cop killing pits defense attorney Ben Kincaid against the boys in blue in this national bestseller. “Outstanding . . . amazing . . . You never see the ending coming” (Tulsa World). It is one of the most gruesome murders Oklahoma has ever seen. A horribly mutilated man is found chained to a statue in the middle of downtown Tulsa, secured so tightly that it takes the police hours to get him down. As the city’s workforce stares, the police realize something terrible: The victim is one of their own. They arrest the dead cop’s girlfriend, a nineteen-year-old stripper whose camera-ready appearance quickly turns the trial into a media circus. And when idealistic young defense attorney Ben Kincaid gets the dancer off on a technicality, the city erupts. Unable to try their suspect a second time, the Tulsa police build a case against Kincaid, arresting him after they stumble across the murder weapon in his office. Every instrument in the state’s justice system is turned against him, but Kincaid isn’t worried. He’s faced worse odds before.
Everyone's favourite troublemaker is back in Richmal Crompton's William the Bad – with a fun and contemporary cover illustrated by Chris Garbutt and an introduction by writer Anne Fine. William doesn't understand why he's not invited to Robert and Ethel's fancy-dress party – what could possibly go wrong? Desperate for an invite, his search for the perfect costume causes mayhem. Somehow nothing ever goes to plan when William the Bad is around! There is only one William. This tousle-headed, snub-nosed, hearty, lovable imp of mischief has been harassing his unfortunate family and delighting his admirers since 1922. Enjoy more of William's adventures in William's Happy Days and William Again.
In 1953, William Golding was a provincial schoolteacher writing books on his breaks, lunch hours and holidays. His work had been rejected by every major publisher—until an editor at Faber and Faber pulled his manuscript off the rejection pile. This was to become Lord of the Flies, a book that would sell in the millions and bring Golding worldwide recognition. Golding went on to become one of the most popular and influential British authors to have emerged since World War II. He received the Booker Prize for the novel Rites of Passage in 1980, and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983. Stephen King has stated that the Castle Rock in Lord of the Flies continues to inspire him, so much so that he named his entertainment company after it and has placed the Golding novel prominently in his novels Hearts in Atlantis and Cujo. Golding has been called a British Vonnegut—disheveled and darkly humorous, perverse when it would have been easier to be bitter, bitter when it would have been easier to be lazy, sometimes more disturbing than he is palatable and above all fascinating beyond measure. Yet despite the fame and acclaim, the renowned author saw himself as a monster—a reclusive depressive ruled by his fears and a man who battled alcoholism throughout his life. In addition to being a schoolteacher, Golding was a scientist, a sailor and a poet before becoming a bestselling author, and his embitterment and alienation, his family, the women in his past, along with his experiences in the war, inform his work. This is the first book to unpack the life and character of a man whose entire oeuvre dealt with the conflict between light and dark in the human soul, tracing the defects of society back to the defects of human nature itself. Drawing almost entirely on materials that have never before been made public, John Carey sheds new light on Golding. Through his exclusive access to Golding’s family, Carey uses hundreds of letters, unpublished works and Golding’s intimate journals to draw a revelatory and definitive portrait. An acclaimed critic, Carey enriches crucially our appreciation of the literary work of Golding, bringing us, as the best literary biographies do, back to the books. And with equal parts lyricism and driving emotion, Carey brings to light a life that is extraordinary to the point of transcendent and a writer who trusted the imagination above all things.
In 1144, the mutilated body of William of Norwich, a young apprentice leatherworker, was found abandoned outside the city's walls. The boy bore disturbing signs of torture, and a story spread that it was a ritual murder, performed by Jews in imitation of the Crucifixion as a mockery of Christianity. The outline of William's tale eventually gained currency far beyond Norwich, and the idea that Jews engaged in ritual murder became firmly rooted in the European imagination. E.M. Rose's engaging book delves into the story of William's murder and the notorious trial that followed to uncover the origin of the ritual murder accusation - known as the "blood libel" - in western Europe in the Middle Ages. Focusing on the specific historical context - 12th-century ecclesiastical politics, the position of Jews in England, the Second Crusade, and the cult of saints - and suspensefully unraveling the facts of the case, Rose makes a powerful argument for why the Norwich Jews (and particularly one Jewish banker) were accused of killing the youth, and how the malevolent blood libel accusation managed to take hold. She also considers four "copycat" cases, in which Jews were similarly blamed for the death of young Christians, and traces the adaptations of the story over time. In the centuries after its appearance, the ritual murder accusation provoked instances of torture, death and expulsion of thousands of Jews and the extermination of hundreds of communities. Although no charge of ritual murder has withstood historical scrutiny, the concept of the blood libel is so emotionally charged and deeply rooted in cultural memory that it endures even today. Rose's groundbreaking work, driven by fascinating characters, a gripping narrative, and impressive scholarship, provides clear answers as to why the blood libel emerged when it did and how it was able to gain such widespread acceptance, laying the foundations for enduring antisemitic myths that continue to present.
