Al Cimino: 15 books

When the news broke in May 2013 that three women had been held captive for over ten years in Cleveland, Ohio, the world was stunned. Not only had the women been imprisoned in an ordinary house a few blocks from where they had disappeared, but their captor, Ariel Castro, had never been a suspect in...

On first impressions, Ted Bundy seemed like the perfect all-American boy. He was good-looking, fun and very charming; many women found him irresistible... But deep inside he was an evil monster who terrorised large areas of America, assaulting and murdering numerous women and adolescent girls....

'Part of the beauty of me is that I'm very rich' But that's just part of it. His fingers, too, are 'long and beautiful'. Improbably coiffed, perma-tanned and bronze-tongued, the Donald has increasingly impinged on the world's consciousness through a string of startling pronouncements. From...

A huge column of blood red smoke rose a thousand feet as the battleship USS Arizona blew up. The USS Oklahoma capsized. The California, Nevada and West Virginia were all sunk at their moorings. 181 Japanese warplanes had attacked the US Pacific Fleet as it lay at anchor in Pearl Harbor. There had...

It was easy for the German machine-gunners to concentrate their fire on the ramp of a landing craft as it hit the shore. Inside the landing craft, the assault troops would hear the bullets bouncing like flung pebbles off the metal ramp, knowing that the moment they hit the beach that protection...

Three days later a Japanese force landed at night. They ambushed a 26-man patrol, cutting the Marines down with hidden machine guns. The three survivors who made it back told their fellow Marines that the wounded had been hacked to death with sabres. From then on, the Marines decided they would...

One bomb hit the Japanese carrier Akagi amidships, ripping through the hangar deck and exploding amidst the stored torpedoes, carelessly stowed bombs and refuelling tanks, setting off secondary explosions. A second set the planes on the flight deck ablaze. The stern was shattered, the rudder useless...

Since the late 19th century, the Mafia has been a presence in North America using intimidation and worse to exert its control over organized crime in the major cities and beyond - anything from loansharking to bootlegging during Prohibition to extortion, kidnapping and racketeering. For the Mob (as they...

The ramifications of the Manhattan Project are with us to this day. The atomic bombs that came out of it brought an end to the war in the Pacific, but at a heavy loss of life in Japan and the opening of a Pandora's box that has tested international relations. This book traces the history of the Manhattan...

Throughout history, secret services have been employed by repressive regimes to keep the populace in check at home, while hiring agents to collect intelligence abroad. Britain's first secret service was established by Sir Francis Walsingham, secretary of state to Elizabeth I; meanwhile the US Secret...

With the suppression of the Colombian cartels, the Mexican crime syndicates took over the Latin American drug trade, controlling ninety per cent of the cocaine entering the US. This is their story.

Organized crime is still the source of endless fascination for book-buyers and Mafia Files presents the rap sheets of key figures in the underworld, along with the story of their lives.

The Mafia began on the small Mediterranean island of Sicily. It grew to become a major political force in Italy, while its tentacles penetrated every aspect of life in the United States. Through drugs, it spread its influence around the world. This is its story.

Charles Manson was the illegitimate child of a teenage prostitute; in 1969, on his orders, eight people were hacked to death in an orgy of violence. Ted Bundy had the power to charm women. With his arm in a fake sling, he used to ask them to help him get his sailboat down off his car, but first...