Best Organized Crime True Accounts

From a small town in Mexico to the boardrooms of Big Pharma, an explosive and shocking account of addiction and black tar heroin in the heartland of America. Now, addiction has devastated Portsmouth, as it has hundreds of small rural towns and suburbs across America--addiction like no other the country has ever faced. “Over the last 15 years, he has filed the best dispatches about Mexican migration and its effects on the United States and Mexico, bar none.” ― Los Angeles Times Book Review. “Journalist Quinones weaves an extraordinary story, including the personal journeys of the addicted, the drug traffickers, law enforcement, and scores of families affected by the scourge, as he details the social, economic, and political forces that eventually destroyed communities in the American heartland and continues to have a resounding impact.” ―starred review, Booklist. “In Dreamland , former Los Angeles Times reporter Sam Quinones deftly recounts how a flood of prescription pain meds, along with black tar heroin from Nayarit, Mexico, transformed the once-vital blue-collar city of Portsmouth, Ohio, and other American communities into heartlands of addiction. With prose direct yet empathic, he interweaves the stories of Mexican entrepreneurs, narcotics agents, and small-town folks whose lives were upended by the deluge of drugs, leaving them shaking their heads, wondering how they could possibly have resisted.” ― Mother Jones. “Smack is back in the news as heroin use spikes and busts pile up at the border, making Dreamland a timely book. But he also goes way deeper; he tells the social and human stories at the heart of the opiate trade and how it tortures the souls of America and Mexico.” ―Ioan Grillo, author of EL NARCO. “ Dreamland spreads out like a transnational episode of The Wire , alternately maddening, thrilling, depressing, and with writing as sharp and insightful as a razor blade. Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic is an intricate jigsaw puzzle piecing together his findings from intensive investigation of the unprecedented spread of heroin addiction throughout the United States over the past two decades . Dreamland stands as a model of meticulous investigative reporting providing important insights not only the current opiate epidemic but also into the sometimes negative symbiosis between our country and our neighbors to the south.” ― New York Journal of Books. "The path of heroin from America’s urban slums to its trim suburban subdivisions is traced by a Los Angeles Times reporter. Quinones’ deeply researched and readable book says well-heeled addicts got hooked first on pain-killing medications like OxyContin--but then switched to much cheaper Mexican heroin, feeding a problem across the nation." Using expert storytelling and exhaustive detail, Quinones chronicles the perfect storm of circumstances that cleared the way for the Mexican narcotic to infiltrate our small and midsize communities over the last two decades.” ― Kansas City Star. "You won’t find this story told better anywhere else, from the economic hollowing-out of the middle class to the greedy and reckless marketing of pharmaceutical opiates to the remarkable entrepreneurial industry of the residents of the obscure Mexican state of Nayarit . Quinones combines thorough research with superlative narrative skills to produce a horrifying but compulsively readable book about opiate addiction . Spanning the central U.S. and crossing the Mexican border, Dreamland adroitly unsnarls the tangled business that feeds a growing lust for chemical euphoria and relief.” ― Shelf Awareness. "[A] powerful investigation into the explosion of heroin abuse in suburban America that combines skillful reporting and strong research with a superb narrative."

Soon to be a NETFLIX film directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel, and written by Steven Zaillian. Updated with a 57-page Conclusion by the author that features new, independent corroboration of Frank Sheeran's revelations about the killing of Jimmy Hoffa, the killing of Joey Gallo and the murder of JFK, along with stories that could not be told before. “One of Sheeran’s virtues was his gift as a storyteller; one of his flaws was his tendency to murder, in mobster jargon, ‘to paint houses.’ . Although he professed his loyalty to Hoffa – he said on one occasion, ‘I’ll be a Hoffa man ‘til they pat my face with a shovel and steal my cufflinks’ − Sheeran acknowledged that he was the one who killed the Teamsters boss. Sheeran explains how he did it, in prose reminiscent of the best gangster films.” — Associated Press “Sheeran’s confession that he killed Hoffa in the manner described in the book is supported by the forensic evidence, is entirely credible, and solves the Hoffa mystery.” — Michael Baden M.D., former Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York I Heard You Paint Houses “gives new meaning to the term ‘guilty pleasure.’ It promises to clear up the mystery of Hoffa’s demise, and appears to do so. he did it with little muss, fuss or introspection.’’ — Bryan Burrough, author of Public Enemies , in The New York Times Book Review. “A page-turning account of one man’s descent into the mob.” — Delaware News Journal. And I’m impressed, too, by the book’s readability and by its factual accuracy in all areas on which I’m qualified to pass judgment. “One of Sheeran’s virtues was his gift as a storyteller; one of his flaws was his tendency to murder, in mobster jargon, ‘to paint houses.’ . “Told with such economy and chilling force as to make The Sopranos suddenly seem overwrought and theatrical.” — New York Daily News.

Winner of the NBCC Award for General Nonfiction. Named on Amazon's Best Books of the Year 2015--Michael Botticelli, U.S. Drug Czar ( Politico ) Favorite Book of the Year--Angus Deaton, Nobel Prize Economics ( Bloomberg / WSJ ) Best Books of 2015--Matt Bevin, Governor of Kentucky ( WSJ ) Books of the Year--Slate.com's 10 Best Books of 2015-- Entertainment Weekly 's 10 Best Books of 2015 --Buzzfeed's 19 Best Nonfiction Books of 2015--The Daily Beast's Best Big Idea Books of 2015-- Seattle Times ' Best Books of 2015-- Boston Globe 's Best Books of 2015-- St. Louis Post-Dispatch 's Best Books of 2015-- The Guardian 's The Best Book We Read All Year--Audible's Best Books of 2015-- Texas Observer 's Five Books We Loved in 2015--Chicago Public Library's Best Nonfiction Books of 2015. From a small town in Mexico to the boardrooms of Big Pharma to main streets nationwide, an explosive and shocking account of addiction in the heartland of America. Now, addiction has devastated Portsmouth, as it has hundreds of small rural towns and suburbs across America--addiction like no other the country has ever faced. An Amazon Best Book of April 2015: The rise of OxyContin addiction and subsequent heroin use has been much in the news lately as we try to make sense of what is happening in suburban and small town America.

Living in a tent even through brutal winters, he had survived by his wits and courage, developing ingenious ways to store edibles and water, and to avoid freezing to death. It is a gripping story of survival that asks fundamental questions about solitude, community, and what makes a good life, and a deeply moving portrait of a man who was determined to live his own way, and succeeded. MICHAEL FINKEL is the author of True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa , which was adapted into a 2015 major motion picture.

The story of how a criminal Shangri-La almost happened. In 1981, a small but heavily armed force of misfits from the United States and Canada set off on an unlikely mission: to invade the impoverished Caribbean island of Dominica, overthrow its government in a coup d'etat, and install a new bought-off prime minister. In 1981, a small but heavily armed force of misfits from the United States and Canada set off on a preposterous mission: invade an impoverished Caribbean country, overthrow its government in a coup d'? Set in the Caribbean, Canada and the American South at the beginning of the end of the Cold War, and based on hundreds of pages of declassified US government documents, as well as exclusive interviews with those involved, Bayou of Pigs tells a remarkable tale of foreign military intervention, revolutionary politics, greed, treachery, stupidity, deceit and one of the most outlandish criminal stunts ever conceived: the theft of a nation.

The first definitive account of this legendary fighting force and its extraordinary leader, Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Lee Gardner’s Rough Riders is narrative nonfiction at its most invigorating and compulsively readable. Now, Mark Lee Gardner synthesizes previously unknown primary accounts as well as period newspaper articles, letters, and diaries from public and private archives in Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Boston, and Washington, DC, to produce this authoritative chronicle. Congress authorized President McKinley to recruit a volunteer force to help drive the Spaniards out of Cuba, and from these men emerged the legendary Rough Riders, a mounted regiment drawn from America’s western territories and led by the irrepressible Theodore Roosevelt. Now Mark Lee Gardner synthesizes previously unknown primary accounts—private letters, diaries, and period newspaper reports from public and private archives in Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Massachusetts, New York, and Washington, D.C.—to breathe fresh life into the Rough Riders and pays tribute to their daring feats and indomitable leader. In his deft reappraisal, we can see anew how these almost mythic events continue to flow, like deep wellsprings, through our national life.”—Hampton Sides, New York Times bestselling author of In the Kingdom of Ice and Blood and Thunder.

A tragic suicide, a likely murder, wrongful imprisonment, and gripping courtroom scenes draw readers into this compelling story giving them a frightening perspective on justice corrupted and who should be accountable when evidence is withheld. The takeaway is that both Bushies and Obamaites should be very afraid: over the last few years, a coterie of vicious and unethical prosecutors who are unfit to practice law has been harbored within and enabled by the now ironically named Department of Justice.''. ''When you ve finished reading this fast-paced thriller, you will want to stand up and applaud Powell's courage in daring to shine light into the darkest recesses of America's justice system. ''I have covered hundreds of court cases over the years and have witnessed far too often the kind of duplicity and governmental heavy-handedness Ms. Powell describes in her well-written book, Licensed to Lie.''.

Drawing on previously classified CIA documents and on interviews with firsthand participants, The Billion Dollar Spy is a brilliant feat of reporting and a riveting true story of intrigue in the final years of the Cold War. What [Hoffman]’s accomplished here isn’t just a remarkable example of journalistic talent but also an ability to weave an absolutely gripping nonfiction narrative.” — The Dallas Morning News “This riveting drama. packs valuable insights into the final decade of the cloak-and-dagger rivalry between the United States and the former Soviet Union. Human tension hangs over every page of The Billion Dollar Spy like the smell of leaded gasoline. [Hoffman] knows the intelligence world well and has expertly used recently declassified documents to tell this unsettling and suspenseful story. Hoffman is a scrupulous, meticulous writer whose pages of footnotes and references attest to how carefully he sticks to his sources. “Hoffman viscerally evokes the secret, ruthless Cold War battle between the American Central Intelligence Agency and the Soviet KGB in his true-life espionage thriller. An exciting, revealing tale with a courageous, sympathetic protagonist.” — Tampa Bay Times “The fine first sentence of The Billion Dollar Spy could almost have been written with an icicle. A work of painstaking historical research that’s paced like a thriller.” — Departures “Hoffman [proves] that nonfiction can read like a John le Carré thriller. Hoffman’s revealing of [Adolf Tolkachev] as a person and a spy is brilliantly done, making this mesmerizing true story scary and thrilling.” — Booklist (starred review). “Hoffman ably navigates the many strands of this complex espionage story. “A fabulous read that also provides chilling insights into the Cold War spy game between Washington and Moscow that has erupted anew under Vladimir Putin. It is also an evocative portrait of everyday life in the crumbling Soviet Union and a meticulously researched guide to CIA sources and methods. I devoured every word, including the footnotes.” —Michael Dobbs, author of One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War. This is a breakthrough book in intelligence writing, drawing on CIA operational cables—the holy grail of the spy world—to narrate each astonishing move. Hoffman reveals CIA tradecraft tricks that are more delicious than anything in a spy novel, and his command of the Soviet landscape is masterful. Full of twists so amazing you couldn’t make them up, this is spy fact that really is better than fiction.” —David Ignatius, author of The Director. It is a gripping story of courage, professionalism, and betrayal in the secret world.” —Rodric Braithwaite, British Ambassador in Moscow, 1988-1992. “A scrupulously researched work of history that is also a gripping thriller, The Billion Dollar Spy by David E. Hoffman is an unforgettable journey into Cold War espionage. This spellbinding story pulses with the dramatic tension of running an agent in Soviet-era Moscow—where the KGB is ubiquitous and CIA officers and Russian assets are prey.

Erik Larson—author of #1 bestseller In the Garden of Beasts —intertwines the true tale of the 1893 World's Fair and the cunning serial killer who used the fair to lure his victims to their death. Relentlessly fuses history and entertainment to give this nonfiction book the dramatic effect of a novel. It doesn’t hurt that this truth is stranger than fiction.” — The New York Times. “Another successful exploration of American history. Larson skillfully balances the grisly details with the far-reaching implications of the World’s Fair.” — USA Today. “As absorbing a piece of popular history as one will ever hope to find.” — San Francisco Chronicle. “Paints a dazzling picture of the Gilded Age and prefigure the American century to come.” — Entertainment Weekly.

From New Yorker staff writer David Grann, #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Lost City of Z, a twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history. In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. In this last remnant of the Wild West—where oilmen like J. P. Getty made their fortunes and where desperadoes like Al Spencer, the “Phantom Terror,” roamed—many of those who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. In Killers of the Flower Moon, David Grann revisits a shocking series of crimes in which dozens of people were murdered in cold blood. Based on years of research and startling new evidence, the book is a masterpiece of narrative nonfiction, as each step in the investigation reveals a series of sinister secrets and reversals. The Amazon Editors' Pick for the Best Book of 2017: In the 1920s, the Osage found themselves in a unique position among Native Americans tribes. As other tribal lands were parceled out in an effort by the government to encourage dissolution and assimilation of both lands and culture, the Osage negotiated to maintain the mineral rights for their corner of Oklahoma, creating a kind of “underground reservation.” It proved a savvy move; soon countless oil rigs punctured the dusty landscape, making the Osage very rich.

Despite the fact that Australia harbors more things that can kill you in extremely nasty ways than anywhere else, including sharks, crocodiles, snakes, even riptides and deserts, Bill Bryson adores the place, and he takes his readers on a rollicking ride far beyond that beaten tourist path.