Thailand books

[Daveo]

Scottish Hard Bastards

BY JIMMY HOLLAND & STEPHEN RICHARDS

Meet the hardest men from a country where the streets are the most dangerous and the gangsters and criminals are the scariest in Britain.

This book will take you deep inside the rough, drug-infested, cut-throat, back-stabbing world of the Scottish prison system, bringing to light the last 50 years of infamous incidents that have taken place behind bars in some of the highest security prisons.

With a frightening in-depth look at the most notorious prisons and institutions and the most daunting and fearsome of inmates, this compulsive guide covers them all from murderers to armed-robbers, a female crime clan with a family feel to it, and some of the most notorious cases in Scottish criminal history.

[Daveo]

Nothing but the truth: The life and times of Jack 'Ace' Ayling by Jack Ayling..

[Daveo]

Mafia: Inside the Dark Heart

BY A.G.D. MARAN

The pre-dawn arrests of the last remaining mafiosi in December 2008 signalled the end of the Sicilian Mafia as we know it. In Mafia: Inside the Dark Heart, A.G.D. Maran charts the complete history of the world's most infamous criminal organisation, from its first incarnation as an alternative form of local government in the Sicilian countryside and arguable force for 'good' to the more familiar form that has been immortalised in films such as The Godfather, and its final defeat after a long-awaited change of attitude by the Italian government. The author has used his many Italian contacts and a decade of exhaustive research to bring to life the story of the Sicilian Mafia while also exploring the links to the Cosa Nostra in America. Along the way, he asks many provocative questions, including: • Why was Lucky Luciano, the father of modern organised crime, freed from a life sentence in America and deported to Italy, allowing him to organise the international drug trade? • Was the Mafia involved in the death of Pope John Paul I? • Why did the Mafia murder Roberto Calvi, known as God's Banker? • What is the relationship between the Mafia and Freemasonry? • Why did successive Italian governments fail to tackle the Mafia? • Why did it take 40 years to find the Last Godfathers? These and many other riveting issues are covered in Maran's refreshing new take on a perennially enthralling subject.

[Daveo]

The Killer Book of True Crime: Incredible Stories, Facts and Trivia from the World of Murder and Mayhem

BY TOM & MICHAEL PHILBIN

You've read all the stories...but can you match the mobster with the way he met his end? Do you know how they caught the Boston Strangler? Can you define chickens, a Shotaro complex or Colombian neckties? The Killer Book of True Crime is the ultimate collection of in-depth stories, trivia, quizzes, quotes and photos gruesome and interesting enough to make any crime buff shudder in horrified delight. Discover all the odd and intriguing facts and tidbits you've never heard

[Daveo]

Fat Freddie: A gangster’s life – the bloody career of Freddie Thompson

BY STEPHEN BREEN

'Fat' Freddie Thompson first appeared in court in 1997. He was sixteen and already aspiring to be a major crime boss. Over the next twenty years his criminal career would be marked by mayhem, brutality and murder.

In 2000 a row over a failed drugs deal ignited a murderous feud in Dublin's south inner city. The Crumlin-Drimnagh feud's first victim was a friend of Thompson's and he led his Crumlin crew in a series of tit-for-tat killings. Sixteen young men would lose their lives over the next fifteen years.

Meanwhile, childhood friend, Daniel Kinahan, had become a senior figure in his father Christy Kinahan's international crime cartel. Working with the Kinahan Cartel Thompson launched himself as a drugs dealer in Dublin.

When another deadly feud broke out in 2016 - between the powerful Kinahans and veteran Dublin criminal, Gerry 'The Monk ' Hutch - Thompson was ready to get his hands dirty. But Thompson's loyalty would be his undoing. In August 2018 he was convicted of murder and jailed.

Fat Freddie is a gripping account of the rise and fall of Freddie Thompson. Award-winning crime journalist, Stephen Breen, co-author of the No 1 bestselling The Cartel, has written the definitive portrait of a notorious Dublin gangster, a shocking story of double-crossing, vengeance and murder.

[Daveo]

The Weaker Vessel

BY ANTONIA FRASER

Just how weak were the women of the Civil War era?

What could they expect beyond marriage and childbirth in an age where infant and maternal mortality was frequent and contraception unknown?

Did anyone marry for love? Could a woman divorce? What rights had the unmarried? What expectations the widows? An expert on the period, Antonia Fraser brings to life the many and various women she has encountered in her considerable research: governesses, milkmaids, fishwives, nuns, defenders of castles, courtesans, countesses, witches and widows.

[Daveo]

X-files Confidential (X FILES) by Ted Edwards..

A behind-the-scences look at the popular TV series includes coverage of every episode of all four seasons as well as information about the cast and creators.....

[Daveo]

Suburban Souls: The Erotic Psychology of a Man and a Maid (Wordsworth Classic Erotica) by ANON..

The narrator of this tale is Jacky, a stockbroker of 43.

He describes his five-year affair with the 19-year-old Lillian Arvel who, at first, willingly reciprocates his passion.

However, she refuses to sacrifice her maidenhead and signs of her infidelity become unmistakable.

[Daveo]

The Journey to the East

BY HERMANN HESSE,

In simple, mesmerizing prose, Hermann Hesse's Journey to the East tells of a journey both geographic and spiritual. H.H., a German choirmaster, is invited on an expedition with the League, a secret society whose members include Paul Klee, Mozart, and Albertus Magnus.

The participants traverse both space and time, encountering Noah's Ark in Zurich and Don Quixote at Bremgarten. The pilgrims' ultimate destination is the East, the "Home of the Light," where they expect to find spiritual renewal.

Yet the harmony that ruled at the outset of the trip soon degenerates into an opening conflict. Each traveler finds the rest of the group intolerable and heads off in his own direction, with H.H. bitterly blaming the others for the failure of the journey.

It is only long after the trip, while poring over records in the League archives, that H.H. discovers his own role in the dissolution of the group, and the ominous significance of the journey itself.

[Daveo]

The Reader

by Bernhard Schlink

Hailed for its coiled eroticism and the moral claims it makes upon the reader, this mesmerizing novel is a story of love and Secrets, horror and compassion, unfolding against the haunted landscape of postwar Germany.

When he falls ill on his way home from school, fifteen-year-old Michael Berg is rescued by Hanna, a woman twice his age. In time she becomes his lover - then she inexplicably disappears.

When Michael next sees her, he is a young law student, and she is on trial for a hideous crime. As he watches her refuse to defend her innocence, Michael gradually realizes that Hanna may be guarding a secret she considers more shameful than murder.

[Daveo]

Intel: Inside Indonesia's Intelligence Service by Ken Conboy..

IN A COUNTRY where talk of conspiracies is often a national pastime, the deepest, sometimes darkest, Secrets have long been held by Indonesia's State Intelligence Agency (Badan Intelijen Negara, or BIN).

Whether targeting communist diplomats, foreign terrorists, or domestic dissidents, BIN and its precursor organizations have been the covert spearhead of the nation's security policy.

Here, for the first time, this secretive agency is exposed in INTEL: Inside Indonesia's Intelligence Service by noted author Ken Conboy. Drawing from exclusive access to BIN's personnel and operational archives, Conboy examines the agents and their operations since BIN's founding fifty years ago, and sheds new light on Indonesia's role in the Cold War with case studies of North Korean, Soviet, and Vietnamese operations across the archipelago and BIN's current position at the forefront on the war against terrorism.

From the activities and subsequent captures of both Faruq and Hambali to the Indonesian operations of al-Qaeda, this book provides far more detail and insight than previously available. Understanding BIN is an integral part of understanding the politics and security of Indonesia, and INTEL is essential reading for anyone interested in intelligence operations, contemporary Indonesian history, and international terrorism.

KEN CONBOY is country manager for Risk Management Advisory, a private security consultancy in Jakarta. Prior to that, he served as deputy director at the Asian Studies Center, an influential Washington-based think tank, where his duties including writing policy papers for the U.S. Congress and Executive on economic and strategic relations with the nations of South and Southeast Asia. The author of a dozen books about Asian military history and intelligence operations, Conboy's most recent title, Spies in the Himalayas, has earned praise as an intriguing account of high-altitude mountaineering and covert missions.

A graduate of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and of Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies, Conboy was also a visiting fellow at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok and has lived in Indonesia since 1992.

[Daveo]

Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies by Ben Macintyre..

On June 6, 1944, 150,000 Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy and suffered an astonishingly low rate of casualties. D-Day was a stunning military accomplishment, but it was also a masterpiece of trickery.

Operation Fortitude, which protected and enabled the invasion, and the Double Cross system, which specialized in turning German spies into double agents, deceived the Nazis into believing that the Allies would attack at Calais and Norway rather than Normandy. It was the most sophisticated and successful deception operation ever carried out, ensuring Allied victory at the most pivotal point in the war. This epic event has never before been told from the perspective of the key individuals in the Double Cross system, until now. These include its director (a brilliant, urbane intelligence officer), a colorful assortment of MI5 handlers (as well as their counterparts in Nazi intelligence), and the five spies who formed Double Cross’s nucleus: a dashing Serbian playboy, a Polish fighter-pilot, a bisexual Peruvian party girl, a deeply eccentric Spaniard, and a volatile Frenchwoman.

The D-Day spies were, without question, one of the oddest military units ever assembled, and their success depended on the delicate, dubious relationship between spy and spymaster, both German and British. Their enterprise was saved from catastrophe by a shadowy sixth spy whose heroic sacrifice is revealed here for the first time. With the same depth of research, eye for the absurd and masterful storytelling that have made Ben Macintyre an international bestseller, Double Cross is a captivating narrative of the spies who wove a web so intricate it ensnared Hitler’s army and carried thousands of D-Day troops across the Channel in safety.

[Daveo]

Raw Spirit: In Search of the Perfect Dram

BY IAIN BANKS

A tour of Scottish distilleries explores the history, personality and mystery of the water of life. As a native of Scotland, bestselling author Ian Banks has decided to undertake a tour of the distilleries of his homeland in a bid to uncover the unique spirit of the single malt. Visiting world-famous distilleries and also the small and obscure ones, Iain Banks embarks on a journey of discovery which educates him about the places, people and products surrounding the centuries-old tradition of whisky production. Using various modes of transport - island ferries, cars across the highlands and even bicycles - Banks’ tour of Scotland combines history, literature and landscape in an entertaining and informative account of an exploration in which the arrival is by no means the most important part of the journey.

[Daveo]

Homesickness: Text Classics

BY MURRAY BAIL & PETER CONRAD

Winner of the National Book Council Award for Australian Literature and the Age Book of the Year Award. Introduction by Peter Conrad.

It could almost have been their own country: these sections with the gums briefly framed like a traditional oil painting by the slowly passing window. The colours were as brown and parched; that chaff-coloured grass, Ah, this dun-coloured realism. Any minute now the cry of the crow or a cockatoo; but no.

Thirteen men and women travel the world on a package tour but wherever they go nothing is as it seems.

Challenged by the unexpected, by differences and subtleties, Bail's tourists are in turn repelled and attracted, and all are altered.

Murray Bail was born in Adelaide in 1941. Homesickness was his first novel. Eucalyptus, published in 1998, was the winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 1999. Murray Bail lives in Sydney.

Peter Conrad was born in Hobart, taught English literature at Christ Church Oxford from 1973 to 2011, and now lives in London and New York. His books include At Home in Australia and, most recently, Verdi and/or Wagner.

textclassics.com.au

'A visual writer with great understanding of sensual man.' Patrick White

'Homesickness is most remarkable for its exhilarating breadth, its effervescent inventiveness and its polymathic connoisseurship of culture, as well as for the harder-headed comedy that tethers its aeronautical fancies to the ground.

In 1980 it was an astonishing debut - a comic epic about a bashful country that was then beginning to emerge from its seclusion at the bottom of the world and on the margins of the world's literature.' Peter Conrad.....

[Daveo]

The Grapes of Wrath

by John Steinbeck

Shocking and controversial when it was first published in 1939, Steinbeck's Pulitzer prize-winning epic remains his undisputed masterpiece.

Set against the background of dust bowl Oklahoma and Californian migrant life, it tells of the Joad family, who, like thousands of others, are forced to travel West in search of the promised land. Their story is one of false hopes, thwarted desires and broken dreams, yet out of their suffering Steinbeck created a drama that is intensely human, yet majestic in its scale and moral vision; an eloquent tribute to the endurance and dignity of the human spirit.

[Daveo]

Inca Kola - by Matthew Parris..

A modern classic of travel and adventure..

Inca-Kola is the funny, absorbing account of Matthew Parris s fourth trip to Peru, on a bizarre holiday which takes him among bandits, prostitutes, peasants and riots.

He and his three companions seem to head into trouble, not away from it, and he describes the troubles, curiosities and wonders they meet with the spell-binding fascination of a traveller relating adventures over the campfire.

'A backpacker's classic: atmospheric, touching, instructive and compulsively readable..

[Daveo]

Jimmy Boyle Omnibus: A Sense of Freedom AND The Pain of Confinement...

NOT THE COVERS BELOW BUT IN OMNIBUS FORM..

'My life sentence had actually started the day I left my mother's womb...' Jimmy Boyle grew up in Glasgow’s Gorbals. All around him the world was drinking, fighting and thieving. To survive, he too had to fight and steal… Kids’ gangs led to trouble with the police. Approved schools led to Borstal, and Jimmy was on his way to a career in crime. By his twenties he was a hardened villain, sleeping with prostitutes, running shebeens and money-lending rackets. Then they nailed him for murder. The sentence was life - the brutal, degrading eternity of a broken spirit in the prisons of Peterhead and Inverness. Thankfully, Jimmy was able to turn his life around inside the prison walls and eventually released on parole. A Sense of Freedom is a searing indictment of a society that uses prison bars and brutality to destroy a man's humanity and at the same time an outstanding testament to one man's ability to survive, to find a new life, a new creativity, and a new alternative.

The Pain Of Confinement Prison Diaries

ASTOUNDING AND JUSTIFIABLY FAMOUS DIARY OF ONE MAN'S INCARCERATION AT THE HANDS OF THE BRUTAL SCOTTISH PENAL SYSTEM.

[Daveo]

Hoolifan: 30 Years of Hurt

BY MARTIN KING & MARTIN KNIGHT

This is the story of Martin King and his 30 years of involvement with football hooliganism, particularly as a member of the notorious Chelsea Headhunters. He describes the leading characters, famous fights, and planned ambushes, and sets hooliganism in its social context. Hoolifan is the story of one man, Martin King, and his experiences spanning three decades with the country's foremost soccer gang. Chelsea have always been at the cutting edge of football violence, and King himself has been at the heart of the evolving Chelsea mob for most of those 30 years.

From his first visit to a football ground in the early-1960's, he charts his development from a rattle-waving child, through to a fully fledged member of the notorious Chelsea Shed in the 1970's, and finally to his exploits as a key player in the most feared football gang of the 1980s and 1990's - the so-called Chelsea Headhunters. King describes the leading characters of the various eras, not just from Chelsea but from across the country. He also records every clash, ambush and act of revenge in vivid detail, as well as the camaraderie and style of this most infamous soccer gang. This is not just another book on the well-trodden subject of football hooliganism as, unlike previous authors, Martin King makes no attempt to distance himself from the violence and leaves the reader to draw his own conclusions. At times provocative, often humorous and always honest, Hoolifon is destined to do more to place the phenomenon of football hooliganism in its true social context than any previous work.

[Daveo]

A Captain's Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea

BY RICHARD PHILLIPS,

"I share the country's admiration for the bravery of Captain Phillips and his selfless concern for his crew. His courage is a model for all Americans." - President Barack Obama It was just another day on the job for fifty-three-year-old Richard Phillips, captain of the Maersk Alabama, the United States-flagged cargo ship which was carrying, among other things, food and agricultural materials for the World Food Program.

That all changed when armed Somali Pirates boarded the ship. The Pirates didn't expect the crew to fight back, nor did they expect Captain Phillips to offer himself as hostage in exchange for the safety of his crew.

Thus began the tense five-day stand-off, which ended in a daring high-seas rescue when U.S. Navy SEALs opened fire and picked off three of the captors.

"It never ends like this," Captain Phillips said. And he's right. A Captain's Duty tells the life-and-death drama of the Vermont native who was held captive on a tiny lifeboat off Somalia's anarchic, gun-plagued shores. A story of adventure and courage, it provides the intimate details of this high-seas hostage-taking - the unbearable heat, the death threats, the mock executions, and the escape attempt.

When the Pirates boarded his ship, Captain Phillips put his experience into action, doing everything he could to safeguard his crew. And when he was held captive by the Pirates, he marshaled all his resources to ensure his own survival, withstanding intense physical hardship and an escalating battle of wills with the Pirates. This was it: the moment where training meets instinct and where character is everything. Richard Phillips was ready.

[Daveo]

The Bureau and the Mole: The Unmasking of Robert Philip Hanssen, the Most Dangerous Double Agent in FBI History

BY DAVID A. VISE

Called "a first-rate spy story" The Bureau and the Mole is the sensational book that tells the inside story of FBI counterintelligence agent Robert Philip Hanssen, a seemingly all-American boy who would become the perfect traitor, jeopardizing America's national security for over twenty years by selling top-secret information to the Russians.

Drawing from a wide variety of sources in the FBI, the Justice Department, the White House, and the intelligence community, Pulitzer Prize-winning author David A. Vise tells the story of how Hanssen employed the very sources and methods his own nation had entrusted to him in a devious game of deceit - simply because he had something to prove.

Vise also interweaves the narrative of how FBI director Louis B. Freeh led the government's desperate search for its betrayer among its own ranks, from the false leads, to the near misses, to its ultimate, shocking conclusion.

Fascinating, gripping, and provocative, The Bureau and the Mole is a harrowing tale of how one man's treachery rocked a fraternity built on fidelity, bravery, and integrity - and how the dedicated perseverance of another brought him to justice. "Absorbing ... Vise's account of Mr. Hanssen's road to becoming a double agent is fascinating." - "Brisk, well documented ... a penetrating study of the villain and a gripping summary of the appalling evidence against him."

[Daveo]

Brannan's Run

BY STEPHEN CORD

“TWO-FISTED ADVENTURE IS BACK” Joe Brannan, owner and Captain of a dive boat working out of Thailand’s sin city Pattaya, is desperate to keep his business afloat, so when an old acquaintance comes to him with a tale of sunken riches he simply can’t resist taking a look.

But nobody warned him he would risk losing everything, caught up in a maelstrom of twists and turns, malevolent villains, close calls and Cambodian Pirates. And he certainly didn’t count on falling in love. “BRANNAN’S RUN- THE ULTIMATE BEACH READ.”

Brannan’s Chase

As Captain of a dive boat operating out of Thailand’s sin city Pattaya Joe Brannan is living the dream. His only problem is paying the bills. So when he lands a lucrative charter he thinks his luck has changed……it has, for the worse. Plunged into a shadowy war of staggering proportions he must survive a bloody life-or-death struggle if he’s to intervene in a series of events that will bring the whole world to the brink of conflict. Caught between mobsters and government agencies, deadly females and military madmen time is running out as the clock ticks towards zero hour. Amid the storm, the heat, the slaughter and the courage, Brannans chase is on…

Brannan: The Movie..

Joe Brannan is living the good life; as skipper and owner of a charter dive-boat operating out of Thailand’s sin city Pattaya he has everything. Everything that is, except the cash flow it takes to keep his beloved boat operating. Then, due to an unexpected twist of fate, he is approached by a beautiful movie starlet with a lucrative proposition that could change his fortunes forever. All he has to do is rescue a superstar hostage from the clutches of a gang of international terrorists. TROPIC HEAT. IMPOSSIBLE RESCUE. INSANE ODDS. Is Joe Brannan finally out of his depth?

[Daveo]

Hitman: The Untold Story of Johnny Martorano: Whitey Bulger's Enforcer and the Most Feared Gangster in the Underworld

BY HOWIE CARR

Martin Scorsese's The Departed barely touched on his story. Now radio talk show sensation, crime reporter, and Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr takes us into the heart of the life of gangster Johnny Martorano in Hitman. For two decades Martorano struck fear into anyone even remotely connected to his world. His partnership with Whitey Bulger and the infamous Winter Hill Gang led to twenty mob murders - for which Johnny would serve twelve years in prison.

Carr also looks at the politicians and FBI agents who aided Johnny and Whitey, and at the flamboyant city of Boston which Martorano so ruthlessly ruled. A plethora of paradoxes, Johnny Martorano was Mr. Mom by day and man-about-town by night. Surrounded by fast-living politicians, sports celebrities, and show biz entertainers, Johnny was charismatically colorful - as charming as he was frightening. After all, he was, in the end…a hitman. The paperback edition of Howie Carr's riveting true-crime story includes a new epilogue detailing Whitey Bulger's dramatic June 2011 capture..

[Daveo]

The World's Greatest Crooks, Crime, and Corruption by Various

Like it or not, the crooks of this world are always more intriguing characters than the law abiding citizens. It is their names and deeds that are remembered through the ages. In Crooks, Crime and Corruption , the reader will find a fascinating line up of notorious crooks, villains, thieves and swindlers from the Moors murderers and Charles mason to Al Capone and the man who sold the Eiffel Tower - twice!

[Daveo]

Dark Side of the River by Brian Formby.

Dark Side of the River is an edgy crime thriller, full of strong characters and set in 1930s Liverpool Detective Sergeant John Bridle thought the dockland bare-knuckle fight would be hard training for his police club boxers, but it's a case of wrong place wrong time as he is caught up in the murder of the son of a local shipping magnate.

Bridle and his acerbic partner Detective Constable Tommy Lodge are seconded into a hostile squad of detectives investigating the murder, led by the toxic Inspector Radford. Bridle's investigation moves through the slums and street gangs of Liverpool in the 1930's and into the palatial country houses of the Wirral peninsular. His path crosses with a maverick Irish rebel called Riley who is driven by vengeance and is set on a course of political disruption and indiscriminate violence.

Bridle has to deal with personal issues as the investigation becomes entwined with his wife's middle-class family and their hostility to his working class status.

Bridle and Radford have a bitter personal conflict as they clash over the investigation and Bridle is almost brought to breaking point but is helped through by the loyal but cynical Tommy Lodge.

Bridle and Riley have a violent and fatal confrontation during a major street riot which leaves Bridle scarred. This incident and the lack of evidence to arrest his main murder suspect forces Bridle to question his future.

[Daveo]

Guernica by Dave Boling..

An extraordinary epic of love, family, and war set in the Basque town of Guernica before, during, and after its destruction by the German Luftwaffe during the Spanish Civil War.

In 1935, Miguel Navarro finds himself in conflict with the Spanish Civil Guard and flees the Basque fishing village of Lekeitio to make a new start in Guernica, the centre of Basque culture and tradition. Once there, he finds more than just a new life he finds someone to live for. Miren Ansotegui is the charismatic and graceful dancer he meets and the two discover a love they believe nothing can destroy . . .

Rich in the history of the region, the Red Baron, the Luftwaffe and even Picasso make appearances in Guernica as the fate of the Navarro family is traced through the early decades of the twentieth century.