Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Governmental Affairs. Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring, and the District of Columbia
The subject of the HBO documentary The Jinx, convicted murderer Robert Durst's story is as outrageous as it is horrifying. Here, from the first reporter to access Durst’s NYPD files, is the authoritative account of a decades-long criminal odyssey—the very book found in Durst’s own apartment when it was searched by police. When medical student Kathie Durst vanished in 1982, she was married to Robert Durst, son of a New York real estate magnate. Kathie’s friends had reason to implicate her husband. They told police that Kathie lived in terror of Robert, and that she had uncovered incriminating financial evidence about him. But Durst’s secrets went even deeper. For decades, Kathie’s disappearance remained a mystery. Then in 2001, Durst, an heir to an empire valued at two billion dollars, was arrested for shoplifting in Pennsylvania. When the police brought him in, they discovered that he was a suspect in the murder of Texas drifter Morris Black, whose dismembered remains were found floating in Galveston Bay, and that Durst was also wanted for questioning in the killing of his friend, Susan Burman, in Los Angeles. Based on interviews with family, friends, and acquaintances of Durst, law enforcement, and others involved in the case, A Deadly Secret is a cross-country odyssey of stolen IDs and multiple identities that raises baffling questions about one of the country’s most prominent families—and one of its most elusive killers. Includes additional material not in the original Berkley edition and eight pages of photographs
Agent Svetlana Simonov of the government’s top-secret Omega Force is sent to Florida to find out if a former secret agent killed his family, then himself, or if something more sinister has happened. In Florida she comes across the beautiful Katrina Luvesky, leader of the deadly Moscow Cartel. Svetlana must infiltrate Katrina’s network and stop it before the United States finds itself in an international drug war. Passion and violence erupt as Svetlana and Katrina do battle.
From a multiple Edgar Award winner: Three gripping accounts of murder, betrayal, and greed that made headlines and shocked the nation. A Pulitzer Prize nominee for his landmark work, The Court-Martial of Lt. Calley, Richard Hammer is a fearless chronicler of the dark side of human nature. Here in one volume are three of his most electrifying true crime accounts. The CBS Murders: On a warm spring evening in New York City, four people were shot in a parking lot near the CBS television studios in Midtown. But detectives soon discovered that only one victim was the intended target; the others were eyewitnesses who tragically stumbled onto the scene of the crime. In this Edgar Award–winning account, the NYPD sets out on the trail of a merciless assassin, uncovering one of the most diabolical criminal conspiracies in the city’s history. “A gripping police procedural.” —Kirkus Reviews Beyond Obsession: Joyce Aparo seemed to be the perfect single mother, doting on her daughter, Karin. But behind closed doors, Joyce had been viciously abusing the sixteen-year-old violin prodigy for years. Then, Karin met the equally troubled Dennis Coleman, and the two fell head-over-heels into lustful infatuation. Soon after, Joyce’s strangled body was found under a bridge. Dennis would eventually confess to the murder, claiming Karin begged him to kill her mother. But Karin had a very different story to tell. Was this really a twisted case of love and obsession, or was Karin now manipulating the police the same way she manipulated her former boyfriend? “This true-crime tale has all the elements of a novel . . . A satisfying read.” —Library Journal The Vatican Connection: Matteo de Lorenzo was one of the New York mob’s top earners when he and his ruthless business partner, Vincent Rizzo, traveled to Europe to discuss a plan to launder millions of dollars worth of phony securities. Their partner in crime? Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, the scandal-plagued president of the Vatican Bank. What they didn’t know was that Det. Joseph Coffey was already on their trail. The legendary New York policeman worked tirelessly to trace the fraudulent stocks and bonds around the world and deep into the corridors of power in Washington, DC, and Rome. This “explosive” Edgar Award winner has “all the ingredients of a thriller” (San Francisco Chronicle).
The invention of mass marketing led to cigarettes being emblazoned in advertising and film, deeply tied to modern notions of glamour and sex appeal. It is hard to find a photo of Humphrey Bogart or Lauren Bacall without a cigarette. No product has been so heavily promoted or has become so deeply entrenched in American consciousness. And no product has received such sustained scientific scrutiny. The development of new medical knowledge demonstrating the dire harms of smoking ultimately shaped the evolution of evidence-based medicine. In response, the tobacco industry engineered a campaign of scientific disinformation seeking to delay, disrupt, and suppress these studies. Using a massive archive of previously secret documents, historian Allan Brandt shows how the industry pioneered these campaigns, particularly using special interest lobbying and largesse to elude regulation. But even as the cultural dominance of the cigarette has waned and consumption has fallen dramatically in the U.S., Big Tobacco remains securely positioned to expand into new global markets. The implications for the future are vast: 100 million people died of smoking-related diseases in the 20th century; in the next 100 years, we expect 1 billion deaths worldwide.
Spanning a century, Pushing Cool reveals how the twin deceptions of health and Black affinity for menthol were crafted—and how the industry’s disturbingly powerful narrative has endured to this day. Police put Eric Garner in a fatal chokehold for selling cigarettes on a New York City street corner. George Floyd was killed by police outside a store in Minneapolis known as “the best place to buy menthols.” Black smokers overwhelmingly prefer menthol brands such as Kool, Salem, and Newport. All of this is no coincidence. The disproportionate Black deaths and cries of “I can’t breathe” that ring out in our era—because of police violence, COVID-19, or menthol smoking—are intimately connected to a post-1960s history of race and exploitation. In Pushing Cool, Keith Wailoo tells the intricate and poignant story of menthol cigarettes for the first time. He pulls back the curtain to reveal the hidden persuaders who shaped menthol buying habits and racial markets across America: the world of tobacco marketers, consultants, psychologists, and social scientists, as well as Black lawmakers and civic groups including the NAACP. Today most Black smokers buy menthols, and calls to prohibit their circulation hinge on a history of the industry’s targeted racial marketing. In 2009, when Congress banned flavored cigarettes as criminal enticements to encourage youth smoking, menthol cigarettes were also slated to be banned. Through a detailed study of internal tobacco industry documents, Wailoo exposes why they weren’t and how they remain so popular with Black smokers.