True Crime Junkies to Feast On New Series Of Ripped-From-The-Headlines Books
Oct. 21 2019, Updated 7:41 p.m. ET
Shocking new secrets uncovered. Forbidden truths. Startling new facts. Evidence that will blow decades-unsolved cases wide open.
A new series of books has true crime fans waiting with bated breath for their release, exploring cases such as Princess Diana, Aaron Hernandez, Charles Manson, Natalie Wood, Michael Jackson and JonBenét Ramsey in new and unprecedented circumstances.
The imprint from Skyhorse Publishing and Start Publishing — titled Front Page Detectives — commences with the release of Diana: Case Solved by investigative journalist Dylan Howard and ex-homicide cop Colin McLaren on September 17.
Skyhorse Chief Executive Office Tony Lyons has called the deal “unprecedented in scope.”
He said, “We look forward to bringing Dylan’s work to readers worldwide. Investigations, crime, and historical moments are part of the original DNA of Skyhorse, and Dylan’s unique storytelling in these categories is a perfect complement to our existing lists.”
In one of the first moves in the deal, Howard has teamed with acclaimed homicide detective Colin McLaren (JFK: The Smoking Gun, Southern Justice and Infiltration: The True Story of the Man Who Cracked the Mafia) for Diana: Case Solved to re-examine all of the evidence surrounding Princess Diana’s death—official documents, eyewitness testimony and Diana’s own private journals — as well as amassing dozens of new interviews with investigators, witnesses, and those closest to the princess to ask one very simple question: Was the death of Princess Diana a tragedy… or treason?
In a dramatic return to the Parisian streets where she met her fate, Howard and McLaren answer the question that has plagued investigators for over twenty years: Who was really behind the wheel of the mysterious white Fiat at the scene of the crash?
Paul Burrell, Diana’s former butler and friend, has high praise for the book.
He said: “I first met Diana at Balmoral Castle, Scotland in August 1980 during my service with Her Majesty The Queen. In 1987, I became Diana's butler and for the next ten years was considered to be her closest confidante. She famously called me her 'rock' and 'the only man she ever trusted'. I was delighted to participate in this book and its companion podcast as I believe that history should be told by those who witnessed it.”
Howard will also release a print sequel to the hit podcast, Fatal Voyage: The Mysterious Death Of Natalie Wood, which garnered over 10 million unique downloads to date and was featured on Dr. Phil, The Today Show, Inside Edition, Extra and Daily Mail TV.
Here's the full rundown. Click the title for special discounted offers prior to their release.
“This particular phase in my life is the most dangerous. My husband is planning ‘an accident’ in my car, brake failure and serious head injury in order to make the path clear for him to marry.” —Letter written by Princess Diana, late 1996
It is a moment that remains frozen in history. When the Mercedes carrying Diana, Princess of Wales, spun fatally out of control in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris in August 1997, the world was shocked by what appeared to be a terrible accident.
Diana: Case Solved has uncovered in unprecedented detail just how much of a threat Diana became to the establishment. In these pages you will learn of the covert diaries and recordings she made, logging the Windsors’ most intimate secrets and hidden scandals as a desperate kind of insurance policy. You will learn how the royals were not the only powerful enemies she made, as her ground-breaking campaigns against AIDS and landmines drew admiration from the public, but also enmity from powerful establishment figures including international arms dealers, the British and American governments, and the MI6 and the CIA.
And, in a dramatic return to the Parisian streets where she met her fate, the questions that have plagued investigators for over twenty years will finally be answered: Who was really behind the wheel of the mysterious white Fiat at the scene of the crash?
From teenage gang member to $40 million star of the New England Patriots, from All-American college player to drug addict, murderer, dead by suicide in his jail cell at age twenty-seven…you think you know the Aaron Hernandez story? You don’t.
For the first time, Aaron Hernandez’s Killing Fields will reveal the real, hitherto unknown motive for the killing of Odin Lloyd — the only crime for which Hernandez was ever convicted and a revelation so shocking it will shake the foundations of the NFL itself. It will also unpick a pattern of violence and brutality stretching back to his time as a teenager at the University of Florida, revealing further shooting victims, evidence of his involvement in the double murder of Daniel Abreu and Safiro Furtado in 2012, and, in a world exclusive, a compelling case for a fourth murder victim, shot just eleven days before the slaying of Odin Lloyd.
Featuring new interviews with serving police investigators, prosecutors, psychologists, attorneys — as well as key witnesses including Hernandez’s drug dealer, a male stripper he hired days before the killing of Lloyd — plus extensive testimony from relatives of Hernandez’s victims, Killing Fields is the exhaustive, definitive account of the rise and fall of a man undone by his own appetite for violence, gangsterism, power, drugs and self-destruction.
This is the real Aaron Hernandez story—and perhaps just the beginning of a whole new murder investigation.
• The Last Charles Manson Tapes: 'Evil Lives Beyond the Grave'
Fifty Years After the Sharon Tate/Labianca Murders, a New and Terrifying Investigation into the Modern Rebirth of Charles Manson’s Killer Family
Perhaps the most notorious American murderer of the twentieth century, Charles Manson’s legacy extends far beyond his horrific crimes. As the wild-eyed, swastika-tattooed, nightmarishly charismatic leader of the Manson Family, he was convicted of the brutal killings of nine people in 1971, including the Tate-LaBianca murders of seven in Los Angeles over two hot August nights in 1969.
He spent the rest of his life in prison, and for the next fifty years, preached his twisted philosophies from jail, attracting a whole new batch of freaks to his way of thinking.
In The Last Charles Manson Tapes, authors Dylan Howard and Andy Tillett examine the Manson legacy. With brand new interviews with those closest to him, including Manson’s heirs, friends and followers, experts and historians, and hours of exclusive transcripts of Manson’s own manic preachings from his prison cell, you’ll get to view a side of this serial killer few have ever seen.
Manson’s passing in 2017 has sparked into action a new generation of killer disciples, obsessed with the evil slaying spree he ordered and determined to carry on his “Helter Skelter” vision of an apocalyptic war. With the author’s on-the-ground investigation, learn how the man once described as “the most dangerous man in America” may yet live up to that name.
A Hard-Nosed Investigation Into Hollywood's Most Enduring Mystery
For thirty-five years, it has been a riddle which has gripped the world. Part love story, part tragedy, it has all the elements of a Hollywood blockbuster: a beautiful actress, a handsome leading man, a brooding sidekick . . . and a moment of sickening terror with the most horrific consequences.
When Natalie Wood — one-time America’s sweethearts and star of West Side Story, Rebel Without a Cause and Miracle on 34th Street — was found washed up in her nightdress in the cold waters off Catalina Island, California, on Thanksgiving weekend 1981, it initially looked like a freak accident.
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She had been holidaying with husband Robert Wagner and film co-star Christopher Walken on board Wagner’s yacht The Splendour when somehow, in the dead of night, she lost her footing and fell into the water.
The coroner’s initial verdict: accidental drowning.
The coroner was wrong.
For the first time, the real story of Natalie’s final moments can be told — and it’s every bit as monstrous as anything Hollywood scriptwriters could dream up. Forbidden affairs, twisted lies, sex, betrayal, murder, pay-offs and a cover-up that continues to this day.
Internationally renowned journalist Dylan Howard has spent six years investigating Natalie’s fateful final hours — and the immediate aftermath. After sifting through hundreds of pages of testimony, coroners reports, police statements and private journals, as well as amassing dozens of exclusive new interviews and witnesses, he’s ready to reveal the shocking truth about the death of Hollywood’s golden girl . . . and finally demand justice for Natalie Wood.
"Right out of the gate, the entire game was designed to empty the pockets of those rich, celeb-loving LA suckers.”—Houston Curtis
Leonardo DiCaprio. Alex Rodriguez. Tobey Maguire. Affleck. Damon. Cassavetes.
What do these people have in common? Not just fame and fortune; all these men are also alumni of the ultra-exclusive, high-stakes poker ring that inspired Aaron Sorkin’s Oscar-nominated film, Molly’s Game.
But Houston Curtis, the card shark who cofounded the game with Tobey Maguire, knows that Sorkin’s is the whitewashed version. In Billion Dollar Hollywood Heist, Curtis goes all-in, revealing the true story behind the game. From its origins with Maguire to staking DiCaprio’s first game, installing Molly Bloom, avoiding the hookers and blow down the hall and weathering the FBI investigation that left Curtis with a lien on his house, this is the no-holds-barred account of the world’s most exclusive Texas hold ’em game from the man who started it — with all the names and salacious details that Molly’s Game left out.
With the insider appeal of Rounders, more A-listers than Ocean’s 11 and the excitement of The Sting, Billion Dollar Hollywood Heist is the untold, insider’s story that makes Molly’s Game look tame.
• Bad: An Unprecedented Investigation into the Michael Jackson Cover-Up
An Inside View into the Dark Side of a Music Icon
He was the King of Pop, a superstar without equal, the idol of millions of young people around the world. But was Michael Jackson also a sexual predator without equal, someone who preyed on the very fans who adored him?
Bad is the revelatory untold true story of the strange and larger-than-life career of Michael Jackson, the King of Pop. In the wake of the controversial two-part documentary Leaving Neverland, which told the stories of two young boys who were befriended by the singer and have claimed they suffered years of agonizing abuse, Dylan Howard set out to investigate Jackson’s life and death in unprecedented depth, to determine — as one lawyer suggested — that the pop star ran “the most sophisticated child sexual abuse procurement and facilitation operation the world has known.”
After all the highly publicized trials and unfounded accusations, stunning new information has finally come to light: irrefutable evidence that one of the best-known, best-loved figures in the world was a monster behind closed doors — a foul-mouthed, abusive, drug-sodden freak whose deeds and the reasons for those deeds are revealed now for the first time.
A dramatic narrative account based on dozens of interviews, Howard shares Jackson’s own riveting personal journal — obtained exclusively for this book — interviews with family members, multiple first-person sources — some of whom have asked to remain anonymous — as well as thousands of pages of court documents. What he uncovers is a man who was both naive and Machiavellian, unorthodox, a devoted father, shrewd businessman and drug addict whose life was cut short but whose sound and style have influenced artists of various genres and generations.
Remarkably though, in death, there remains two portraits of Michael Jackson: the reigning King of Pop, and a pedophile whose pattern of abuse ruined his reputation. Fans and individuals alike will forever be asking if the insidious claims being made about MJ are true. This is the new narrative and the sad legacy of one of the best-selling music artists of all time.
Here is his life story, told for the first time with stories and testimony that will leave you shaken.
Resolving for the Murder of a Child Beauty Queen and a Botched Investigation
The killing of six-year-old beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey — found in the basement of her family home in Boulder, Colorado, with a smashed skull and a garrote placed around her neck — remains one of America’s most shameful unsolved crimes. A flawed investigation, fraught with police and prosecutorial misconduct and widespread evidence tampering, means that the little girl’s killer remains at large after more than two decades.
Now, as told in Killing JonBenét Ramsey, an unflinching new investigation into the crime will seek to finally secure justice for JonBenét. Investigative journalist Dylan Howard has assembled a crack team of internationally renowned criminal investigators, experts and lawyers with the express aim of finding her killer.
They have sifted through scores of new tips and leads, pored over never-before-seen crime scene evidence, searched through hundreds of pages of coroners’ reports, police statements and private journals, and conducted many exclusive new interviews. They have petitioned courts and law enforcement agencies, gathered archival material and utilized new scientific advances.
This is not a retelling of JonBenét’s story; it is an active investigation of her murder. Combining the compulsive draw of a Hollywood movie blockbuster, the addictive thrill of the police procedural, and the heartwrenching tragedy of the real-life murder of a beautiful toddler and the consequences for her family, Killing JonBenét Ramsey seeks to put right one of the modern age’s most monstrous wrongs.
Further titles are to be announced.
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