Crime Culture

Florence Maybrick was the first American woman to be sentenced to death in England - for murdering her husband, a crime she almost certainly didn't commit. Her 1889 trial was presided over by an openly misogynist judge who was later declared incompetent and died in an asylum. Hours before she was to be hanged, Queen Victoria reluctantly commuted her sentence to life in prison. In her opinion, a woman who would commit adultery, as Maybrick had admitted, would also kill her husband. Her children were taken from her; she never saw them again. Her mother worked for years to clear her name.

Steadfast in fighting crime, but operating outside the police force - and sometimes even the law - is the private detective. Driven by his own moral code, he is a shadowy figure in a trench coat standing on a street corner, his face most likely obscured by a tilted fedora, a lit cigarette dangling from his hand. The hard-boiled detective is known by his dark past, private pain, and powers of deduction. He only asks questions - never answers them. In his stories he is both the main character and the narrator.

Poetic Injustice shines light on the lack of fairness or justice shown to the missing children of The Atlanta Child Murders, Children of The Snow, The Holocaust children, and their forever grieving families. This poetry book illustrates very complex cases of children who go missing, involving crime, and/or death, thus leaving our world a painful reminder of an innocent void with lasting effects. Lest we forget those innocent precious children who’ll forever leave their blameless mark in the world.

This audiobook examines the media and cultural responses to the awful crimes of Brady and Hindley, whose murders provided a template for future media reporting on serial killers. It discusses the nature of evil and psychopaths and how they are represented in film, drama, novels and art. It also questions the ethics of the 'serial killing industry' and how the modern cultural fixation on celebrity has extended to serial killers and it explores the impact on the journalists and police officers from being involved in such cases including some interviews with them.

We live in an age where scams are the new normal. Unsettling stories of today’s viral grifters have risen to fame and hit the front-page headlines, yet the curious conundrum remains: why do these scams happen? Drawing from scientific research, marketing campaigns and exclusive documents and interviews, Vice reporter Gabrielle Bluestone delves into the irresistible hype that fuels our social media ecosystem.

Synopsis - A foreigner wanders into a remote village just before a convicted criminal is about to be punished and is asked to throw the first stone. After Dinner Conversation is a growing series of short stories across genres to draw out deeper discussions with friends and family. Each story is an accessible example of an abstract ethical or philosophical idea and is accompanied by suggested discussion questions. Podcast discussions of this short story, and others, is available on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and Youtube. ★★★ If you enjoy this story, subscribe via our website to "After ...

Loyal subjects, watch out! Some of history's royal leaders were just as vicious as they were powerful. These kings and queens stole, tortured, and murdered. Listen to this audiobook to discover the gruesome ways these rulers terrorized their enemies, their own people, and even their own blood.

The true story of the men - Joseph Bell and Henry Littlejohn - who inspired the creation of Sherlock Holmes. The Ardlamont murder trial, which took place in Edinburgh's High Court in December 1893, was the culmination of one of the most intriguing criminal cases in British legal history. But perhaps more remarkable than that was that it brought together the two principal real-life inspirations behind the creation of the world's favourite fictional consulting detective: Sherlock Holmes.

Qandeel first captured the nation’s attention on Pakistan Idol with a failed audition and tearful outburst. But it was in February 2016, when she uploaded a Facebook video mocking a presidential ‘warning’ not to celebrate Valentine’s Day, that she went ‘viral’. In the video, which racked up nearly a million views, she lies in bed, in a low-cut red dress, and says in broken English, ‘They can stop to people go out...but they can’t stop to people love.’ The video shows us everything that Pakistanis loved - and loved to hate - about Qandeel, ‘Pakistan’s Kim Kardashian’.