Tag Archives: True Crime

In My Hands Today…

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Four Shots in the Night: A True Story of Spies, Murder, and Justice in Northern Ireland – Henry Hemming

The search for justice for Hegarty’s death—his body found in broad daylight, with tape over his eyes, an undisguised hit—would deliver more than the truth. It exposed Hegarty’s status as an informant and led to protests, campaigns, far-reaching changes to British law, a historic ruling from a senior judicial body, a groundbreaking police investigation, and bitter condemnation from a US Congressional commission. And there have been persistent rumors that one of the country’s most senior politicians, the Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness, might have been personally involved in this particular murder.

Relying on archival research, interviews, and the findings of a new complete police investigation, Four Shots in the Night tells a riveting story not just of Hegarty’s death but of his role in the decades-long conflict that defined him–the Troubles. How did the Troubles really come to an end? Was it a feat of diplomatic negotiation, as we’ve been told–or did spies play the decisive role? And how far can, or should, a spy go, for the good of his country?

In My Hands Today…

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The Patient Assassin: A True Tale of Massacre, Revenge, and India’s Quest for Independence – Anita Anand

The dramatic true story of a celebrated young survivor of a 1919 British massacre in India, and his ferocious twenty-year campaign of revenge that made him a hero to hundreds of millions—and spawned a classic legend.

When Sir Michael O’Dwyer, the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, ordered Brigadier General Reginald Dyer to Amritsar, he wanted Dyer to bring the troublesome city to heel. Sir Michael had become increasingly alarmed at the effect Gandhi was having on his province, as well as recent demonstrations, strikes, and shows of Hindu-Muslim unity. All these things, to Sir Michael, were a precursor to a second Indian revolt. What happened next shocked the world. An unauthorized gathering in the Jallianwallah Bagh in Amritsar in April 1919 became the focal point for Sir Michael’s law enforcers. Dyer marched his soldiers into the walled garden, blocking the only exit. Then, without issuing any order to disperse, he instructed his men to open fire, turning their guns on the thickest parts of the crowd, filled with over a thousand unarmed men, women, and children. For ten minutes, the soldiers continued firing, stopping only when they ran out of ammunition.

According to legend, eighteen-year-old Sikh orphan Udham Singh was injured in the attack, and remained surrounded by the dead and dying until he was able to move the next morning. Then, he supposedly picked up a handful of blood-soaked earth, smeared it across his forehead, and vowed to kill the men responsible.

The truth, as the author has discovered, is more complex—but no less dramatic. Award-winning journalist Anita Anand traced Singh’s journey through Africa, the United States, and across Europe until, in March 1940, he finally arrived in front of O’Dwyer himself in a London hall ready to shoot him down. The Patient Assassin shines a devastating light on one of history’s most horrific events, but it reads like a taut thriller and reveals the incredible but true story behind a legend that still endures today.

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Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World – Tom Wright, Bradley Hope

An epic true-tale of hubris and greed from two Pulitzer-finalist Wall Street Journal reporters, Billion Dollar Whale reveals how a young social climber pulled off one of the biggest financial heists in history–right under the nose of the global financial industry–exposing the shocking secret nexus of elite wealth, banking, Hollywood, and politics.

The dust had yet to settle on the global financial crisis in 2009 when an unlikely Wharton grad was setting in motion a fraud of unprecedented gall and magnitude–one that would come to symbolize the next great threat to the global financial system.

Billion Dollar Whale will become a classic, harrowing parable about the financial world in the twenty-first century.

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Story of a Murder: The Wives, the Mistress, and Dr. Crippen – Hallie Rubenhold

This is the story of a murder, not a murderer . . .

In Story of a Murder, bestselling author of The Five and celebrated historian Hallie Rubenhold reexamines the events leading up to the infamous Crippen murder from the perspectives of the three women at the center of it all.

When Belle Elmore’s remains were discovered in the basement of London’s 39 Hilldrop Crescent in July 1910, the larger-than-life vaudevillian performer was launched into stardom she never achieved on the stage.

Story of a Murder provides an intricately plotted, intimate look into the lives of three multifaceted women living during a time of electric progress and stifling Crippen’s first wife, Charlotte, who died under mysterious circumstances; his mistress, Ethel, who claimed ignorance of his crime even as she escaped with Crippen disguised as his son; and Belle, the woman whose life Crippen took.

Throughout the twentieth century, the infamous Crippen murder was told in such a way as to cast doubt on Crippen’s guilt and to victim-blame his wife Cora for her own murder. It also astonishingly depicted Crippen’s younger mistress, Ethel, as innocent of any involvement in the killing of her love rival.

But new evidence unearthed by Rubenhold completely subverts this famous history, unravelling assumptions about the crime and deconstructing Edwardian beliefs about women, class aspiration, and the transatlantic world, ultimately proving that Charlotte, Belle, and Ethel were so much more than the passive victims history has portrayed them as.

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Blood in the Water: The Untold Story of a Family Tragedy – Casey Sherman

When Nathan Carman, a young man with a complicated past, is miraculously rescued from a lifeboat bobbing in the unforgiving North Atlantic, questions swirl about the fate of his mother, who is presumed to have drowned when their fishing boat sank. Nathan is in remarkably good shape for being lost at sea for a week, and his account of what exactly happened out there on the waves raises questions from family members and law enforcement.

Nathan’s story of a fishing trip gone awry doesn’t quite add up, and suspicion mounts. The mysterious murder of Nathan’s multi-millionaire grandfather a few years before had made Nathan’s mother an extremely wealthy woman. With a seven-million-dollar fortune at stake, did Nathan commit the ultimate betrayal? Or is there more to this tragic tale than meets the eye?

From New York Times bestselling author Casey Sherman comes a gripping contemporary true crime narrative for everyone who was fascinated by the Murdaugh murders, and for anyone compelled by the intersection between money, power, and family.