Showing results by narrator "Simon de Deney" in All Categories

Their names echo through true crime history like dark legends: John Wayne Gacy, the Zodiac Killer, Richard Ramirez, Aileen Wuornos, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and the Golden State Killer. Their infamous deeds have been exhaustively chronicled across every medium imaginable. But beyond these household names lies a shadow world of equally chilling cases that rarely make headlines or streaming television documentaries.

The twelve cases in this volume span half a century and four countries, and they turn on a single unsettling truth: the evidence was usually there long before anyone was willing to read it. These weren't crimes of a single hot second. They were choices, made and remade by people who had every chance to stop and chose instead to keep going.

We tell ourselves we would know. That a killer would carry some visible mark, and that the people we trust could never be capable of the unthinkable. But the most chilling crimes are committed by the husband across the breakfast table, the coworker closing the shop, the polished stranger who remembers your children's names. This collection moves through quiet suburbs, small towns, and faraway cities to reconstruct thirty-six cases where evil wore an ordinary face.

When first published in 1989, The Story of Wine won every wine award in the UK, and the USA. It is widely regarded as Hugh Johnson’s most ambitious and enthralling book. It is not just one story but a collection of many, scanning the wine world from Noah to Napa, from Pompeii to Pomerol, as illuminating to our understanding of civilization as it is to our appreciation of wine. Chronicling the making, merchandising, and drinking of wine through millennia, this new edition is fully updated to include Johnson’s view of the evolution of wine over the past 30 years.

Three books. Thirty-six cases. The killers here held down jobs, coached little league, and paid their taxes on time—until the ordinary turned lethal.

The people in these twelve cases didn't see it coming. A husband walking the dog at dawn. A boy sent away to be saved. A man opening a package addressed to him by name. Each trusted something ordinary, and each was destroyed by it.

Journey into the darkest corners of the human psyche with thirty-six meticulously researched accounts of unspeakable crimes that shocked communities and challenged our understanding of evil. From sprawling estates to quiet small towns, these cases reveal how murderous intent can hide behind the most ordinary facades—sometimes in places we least expect. You'll hear about The Butcher of Aberdeen, where a troubled woman's violence escalates to an act so grotesque that even veteran police officers are left traumatized.

Most of the killers in this book looked completely normal. That's what the people who knew them always said afterward. These weren't strangers who emerged from the shadows—they were con men and caregivers, fathers and lovers, people with reputations carefully maintained right up until the moment everything came apart.

Trust is the deadliest weapon. The killers in this book weren't strangers. They were husbands and wives, neighbors with friendly dogs, family members who sat across the dinner table. They spent years building the relationships they would eventually destroy. From suburban homes to isolated citrus groves, these twelve cases reveal what happens when ordinary people decide that the lives around them are simply obstacles to be removed.

Some of them hid behind a name that wasn't theirs. Others hid behind a uniform, a reputation, a famous last name, or a job so ordinary no one thought to look twice. The twelve cases in this volume share one unsettling thread: the distance between who these people appeared to be and what they did when they were certain no one was watching. A few held that distance open for years. Some held it for decades. One died before anyone ever closed it.

In the waning years of the eighteenth century, young William Culpepper leaves behind his quiet family home and steps into the ruthless world of the British Army. Appointed an ensign in the King’s 33rd Regiment of Foot, he soon learns that courage, intellect, and moral conviction are tested in the forge of the battlefield.

In the heat and dust of 18th-century India, the young British officer William Culpepper faces his first true test of command. When a Company supply convoy vanishes into the thorn-choked hills beyond Madras, it sparks a chain of events that will plunge Culpepper into the brutal heart of the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War. In this conflict, courage, discipline, and fate collide beneath an unforgiving sun. As Mysorean cavalry prowl the jungles, William must lead his men through ambush, intrigue, and betrayal.

You are about to hear several more stories in this volume that are shocking and disturbing, but they’re also true. These things really do happen in the world. The stories paint a picture of human depravity that many would prefer to remain hidden. However, it is only by dragging evil into the light that we can begin to understand its terrible allure.

Jeanette Claybone, newcomer to society thanks to her father’s recent baronetcy, struggles to navigate the waters of the ton during her first season. When an evening walk with the wrong hungry suitor ruins her reputation, she calls a duel for her honor but is left injured. Disowned by all, she finds an unlikely savior in renowned rake Henry Drayton.

Journey into the darkest corners of the human psyche with twelve meticulously researched accounts of unspeakable crimes that shocked communities and challenged our understanding of evil. From sprawling estates to quiet small towns, these cases reveal how murderous intent can hide behind the most ordinary facades—sometimes in places we least expect.

Breakthroughs aren’t random. They’re designed. In Serendipity: It Doesn’t Happen by Accident, David Cleevely — telecoms pioneer, deep tech investor, and architect of the Cambridge tech cluster — explains how the world’s most successful ideas emerge not from rigid plans, but from well-designed networks, environments, and a willingness to embrace the unexpected.

The six true-crime stories included in this collection are dark and chilling, and will leave you with a new understanding of just how fragile the human mind can be.

This compilation of 36 stories across three True Crime books contains deeply disturbing content. Unlike typical news reports or TV shows that often sanitize the details of heinous acts, these accounts present an unflinching look at the darkest corners of human behavior. In this collection, you'll find 36 True Crime stories from the last several decades. Many of which you may never have heard of.

Making a place for yourself in a world where you don’t belong takes courage. So does moving in with a warlock. Especially one who is a cauldron of seething anger on his worst days…half-mad on his best…who is thinking, perhaps, of killing you. Waterspell tells the story of the lost traveler, Carin, who is drawn into the schemes of a hot-tempered, emotionally damaged wizard. Does he view her as nothing more than an expendable weapon in his fight to save his world from lethal alien plagues? Or will Lord Verek find himself wavering when it comes time to dispose of his water-sylph?

If you love Arthur Conan Doyle’s original, do not miss this collection of artfully-constructed new tales.