Art Crime

"Creepy crawling" was the Manson Family's practice of secretly entering someone's home and, without harming anyone, leaving only a trace of evidence that they had been there, some reminder that the sanctity of the private home had been breached. Now, author Jeffrey Melnick reveals just how much the Family creepy crawled their way through Los Angeles in the sixties and then on through American social, political, and cultural life for close to fifty years, firmly lodging themselves in our minds.

Bobby Gunn has been fighting for his existence since a childhood spent living under the hand of his volatile father, and would do anything to give his seven-year-old daughter a better life—including betting on himself in the underground world of bare-knuckle boxing. In 1984, Gunn was an eleven-year-old boxer in Ontario when his father woke him in the middle of the night to fight grown men in motel parking lots for money, his old man pocketing the cash.

When Carmen De Luca's good friend Rhonda Rhodes decides to tape an episode of Antiques Time in the Netherlands, she doesn’t anticipate discovering a treasure lost during World War II— live on television. Nor does the killer, who will do anything to recover what they see as theirs… Join Carmen and her friends for her last European adventure in this exhilarating conclusion of the Carmen De Luca Art Sleuth Mystery series! NOTE TO READERS: These mysteries contain no graphic violence, sex, or strong language. Carmen De Luca Art Sleuth Mysteries: Collecting Can Be Murder A Statue To Die For...

Brainstorm is an amazing five-year probe into the mysterious death of beloved movie star Natalie Wood by a real-life criminal law authority who determinedly pursued the truth in the face of Los Angeles County officials hell-bent on keeping it buried forever. Brainstorm: An Investigation of the Mysterious Death of Film Star Natalie Wood is the first-person account of Sam Perroni’s probing investigation of the actress’s death.

Max Allan Collins became Spillane's friend and collaborator, continuing the Mike Hammer series for years after the author's death, building upon unfinished manuscripts the writer left behind. Now, with coauthor James Traylor, Collins has produced the first comprehensive and authoritative profile of the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master. It is a must-listen for any fan of the author—or of the generations of crime writers that were influenced by his work.

Sam Ross is a psychotherapist - she spends her days helping people, but she can barely help herself. She’s still grieving over the recent death of her sister, her mother Barbara offers little support and she’s professionally challenged. One of her clients is Keith, a man whose life story changes with every session. And Keith has a secret - one that will rock Sam’s world to the core and place her in the most terrible danger.

For twenty years, the Taliban was the number one enemy of Western forces in Afghanistan. But it was an enemy that they knew little about, and about whose founder and leader, Mullah Omar, they knew even less.

Claude Monet, basking in the glow of his first success as a private eye (Claude Monet, Private Eye: The Pilfered Paintings), celebrates by taking a two-day cruise down the Seine to Le Havre with wife Alice and dog Toulouse. All goes well until another passenger’s dog, a Maltese named Chloe, goes missing. Everyone assumes the dog simply wandered off somewhere to take a nap. But then a ransom note appears, and the boat becomes a crime scene. That’s when the captain asks Claude to look into the matter. Claude begins questioning the passengers and crew, and to his dismay finds more than a ...

This 21st Century thriller may be just up your street if you are already a fan of Patterson, Clancy or Larsson and like a storyline with more twists and turns than a sun bathing rattlesnake. For example, did greed ridden Atlanta billionaire Levi Goldman really understand that once he made a contract with the ‘Yegg’ man … he was committed? A secret vault nearly 200 feet below London’s Bryanston Street, built by the controversial wartime British Special Operations Executive to protect the names of its spies, is now the resting place for other priceless WWII memorabilia … billions of...

“Midnight Requisition 2” is a STAND ALONE sequel. “Midnight Requisition” - Book One “Midnight Requisition 2: Amateur Night”- Book Two “Midnight Requisition 3: Circular Run” - Book Three “Midnight Requisition 4: Charlie Foxtrot” – Book Four A brother and sister duo team up to catch a potential kidnapper. After finally reuniting with her not-so-dead brother, Scorpio and her friends are taunted into helping him with his new case. A wealthy cattle rancher believes someone wants to abduct his daughter, but the team suspects her ex-boyfriend is pulling off an elaborate ...

The Professor and the Madman is an extraordinary tale of madness, genius, and the incredible obsessions of two remarkable men that led to the making of the Oxford English Dictionary - and literary history. The making of the OED was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, was stunned to discover that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than 10,000.

There are four cousins in the Morse family: perfect Kenny, the preppy West Coast lawyer; James, the shy but brilliant medical student; his seductive, hard-drinking sister Audrey; and Teresa, youngest and most fragile, haunted by the fear that she has inherited the madness that possessed her father. Their grandfather summons them to his mansion at Owl's Point. None of them have visited the family estate since they were children, when a prized painting disappeared: a self-portrait by Goya, rumored to cause madness or death upon viewing.

In Girls of Tender Age, Mary-Ann Tirone Smith fully articulates with great humor and tenderness the wild jubilance of an extended French-Italian family struggling to survive in a post-World War II housing project in Hartford, Connecticut.

Bishop Juan Gerardi, Guatemala's leading human rights activist, was bludgeoned to death in his garage on a Sunday night in 1998, two days after the presentation of a groundbreaking church-sponsored report implicating the military in the murders and disappearances of some 200,000 civilians.

Literary sherry parties were not Alan Grant's cup of tea. But when the Scotland Yard Inspector arrived to pick up actress Marta Hallard for dinner, he was struck by the handsome young American photographer, Leslie Searle. Author Lavinia Fitch was sure her guest "must have been something very wicked in ancient Greece," and the art colony at Salcott St. Mary would have agreed. Yet Grant heard nothing more of Searle until the news of his disappearance. Had Searle drowned by accident or could he have been murdered by one of his young women admirers?

Although Erik Patko is still coming to terms with a heartbreaking tragedy, he begins his sophomore year of college with high hopes. He earns a headlining role in the drama club production of Curtain Drop, but while the musical is a comedy, the drama backstage is no joke. Scenery is tampered with, students are blackmailed, and four influential families are accused of bribing the dean. While his confidence is shattered and he struggles with his conflicting feelings for his roommate’s sister Priscilla, Erik must discover who’s behind the scandal before his Broadway dreams are derailed ...

In Who Stole Mona Lisa?, author Ruthie Knapp crafts a fascinating look at the disappearance of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911—retold from the point of view of the painting. Mona Lisa gets millions of visitors from all over the world. But one night, she hears footsteps, and before she knows it, she’s ripped right off the wall of the Louvre! Who would do such a thing?

In Brushstrokes of Betrayal, art conservator Mia Santos uncovers a web of forgery and secrets after a museum break-in, drawing her into a tense alliance with Nicholas Crawford, a guarded historian tied to a powerful legacy. As hidden messages in a wartime painting spark danger and desire, Mia and Nicholas must navigate betrayal, romantic tension, and high-stakes revelations. Can their growing love survive the fallout of buried secrets—or will the truth destroy everything they’ve begun to build?

For centuries, works of art have been stolen in countless ways from all over the world, but no one has been quite as successful at it as the master thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Carrying out more than 200 heists over nearly ten years - in museums and cathedrals all over Europe - Breitwieser, along with his girlfriend who worked as his lookout, stole more than 300 objects, until it all fell apart in spectacular fashion. In The Art Thief, Michael Finkel brings us into Breitwieser’s strange and fascinating world.

Killing is banal but artfully snuffing out a life can become sublime, extraordinarily pleasurable. The most imaginative serial killer of our time gleefully experiences joy while performing magnificently brutal murders. The FBI task force is on to him, but primary suspect Andrew Hill’s enchanting charm captures the heart and passionate desire of the team’s youngest agent. Ferociously dramatic situations ensue, and what follows is a titanic battle between the intense pull of homicide and the vividly powerful spell of love. Original italian edition: Arte perversa, © 2019 Vincenzo ...