Kidnapping History

Returning to his days as a reporter for El Espectador, Gabriel García Márquez chronicles, with consummate skill, the period in late 1990 when Colombian security forces mounted a nationwide manhunt for Pablo Escobar, the ruthless and elusive head of the Medellin cartel. Ten men and women were abducted by Escobar’s henchmen and used as bargaining chips against extradition to the United States. From the testimonies and diaries of the survivors, García Márquez reconstructs their bizarre ordeal with cinematic intensity, breathtaking language, and rigor.

Amelia Earhart once noted, "In my life I had come to realize that when things were going very well indeed it was just the time to anticipate trouble." And so it would be with America's other famous aviator. Charles Lindbergh had spent the first 30 years of his life escaping multiple plane crashes, becoming a hero across the world, and starting a family, but his luck ran out in an awful way in March of 1932.

We often think of slavery as a southern phenomenon, far removed from the booming cities of the North. But even though slavery had been outlawed in Gotham by the 1830s, Black New Yorkers were not safe. Not only was the city built on the backs of slaves; it was essential in keeping slavery and the slave trade alive.

Caught between Camorra gunrunners selling to ISIS and Nigerian drug gangs along Italy's picturesque coast, each year thousands of refugees and migrants are lured into their underworld, forced to become sex slaves, drug mules, or weapon smugglers. In this powerful expose, investigative journalist Barbie Latza Nadeau follows the weapons trail, meets the trafficked women trapped by black magic, the brave nuns who try to save them, and the Italian police who turn a blind eye as the most urgent issues facing Europe play out in broad daylight.

Revolution's End fully explains the most famous kidnapping in US history, detailing Patty Hearst's relationship with Donald DeFreeze, known as Cinque, the head of the Symbionese Liberation Army. Not only did the heiress have a sexual relationship with DeFreeze while he was imprisoned, she didn't know he was an informant and a victim of prison behavior modification.

Soon after the first maritime trade routes became operational, seafaring bandits appeared to prey upon the cargo, crews, and ships of others. Crimson Waters traces the history of piracy around the globe, stretching back from its roots in 2500 BCE, through the Golden Age of Piracy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and up to the modern-day pirates who still threaten boats along coastlines and on the open seas.

In 1986 Margaret Humphreys, a Nottingham social worker, investigated a woman's claim that, aged four, she had been put on a boat to Australia by the British government. At first incredulous, Margaret discovered that this was just the tip of an enormous iceberg. Up to 150,000 children, some as young as three years old, had been deported from children's homes in Britain and shipped off to a 'new life' in distant parts of the Empire, right up until as recently as 1970. Many were told that their parents were dead, and parents were told that their children had been adopted.

For most of the 20th century, the name Hearst was most closely associated with one of America's most famous (and infamous) newspaper magnates, William Garrison Hearst, whose life was the inspiration for Citizen Kane. But in the 1970s, his granddaughter Patricia made headlines thanks to a series of events that would wind up being one of the most bizarre chapters of the 20th century.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of A Kim Jong-Il Production by Paul Fischer, read by Stephen Park. Before becoming the world's most notorious dictator, Kim Jong-Il ran North Korea's film industry. He directed every film made in the country but knew they were nothing compared to Hollywood.

If you’re a fan of true crime, you’re undoubtedly familiar with the big-name cases: Ted Bundy, BTK, David Berkowitz, Christopher Watts, Diane Downs, Casey Anthony. The list of well-known, notorious cases throughout history is seemingly endless. Books, websites, podcasts, streaming television series, and magazines are filled with their abhorrent tales of mayhem. They’re some of the most foul killers the world has ever known. In this volume, you’ll find 12 assorted true crime stories ranging in date from the 1950s to 2020.

It was a cold and foggy February night in 1983 when a group of armed thieves crept onto Ballymany Stud, near The Curragh in County Kildare, Ireland, to steal Shergar, one of the thoroughbred industry's most renowned stallions. The thieves demanded a hefty ransom for the safe return of one of the most valuable Thoroughbreds in the world, but the ransom was never paid and Shergar's remains have never been found.

When her brother is kidnapped, Cassie Goodlight is determined to save him - even if it means learning the magic that nearly destroyed her mother. But how can she beat a shape-shifting sea goblin that taunts her at every turn? Cassie must find a way before a year is up, or her brother will be lost forever. And who, or what, is the handsome stranger who keeps turning up in her life?

Chris Thomas is not yet 30 years old when he finds himself managing the immense pressure, eccentric personalities, and extenuating circumstances of an international story, where one small misstep could adversely impact the search for a missing teenager and the reputation of her family. Now, 20 years later, Thomas takes listeners behind the scenes, providing new details, perspectives, and commentary on finding Elizabeth Smart.

He pulled off what some deem the crime of the century: skyjacking a commercial jetliner, collecting a ransom of $200,000, parachuting off the aft stairs of the Boeing 727 into the night, and simply disappearing. Since November 1971, “D. B. Cooper”—no one knows his real name or identity—has become a figure of enduring fascination and obsession. The FBI pursued him for over forty years, before closing the case and leaving it unsolved. Unsolved, perhaps, but much admired. D. B. Cooper’s exploit over the skies of the American Northwest has inspired books, films, and endless speculation.

The Great Depression was a time of desperation in America - parents struggled to feed their children and unemployment was at a record high. Adding to the lawlessness of the decade, thugs with guns and corrupt law-enforcement officers ran rampant. But amidst this panic, there was one surefire way to make money, one used by criminals and resourceful civilians alike: kidnapping. The Kidnap Years is a thoughtfully reported pause-resister that chronicles the sweep of abductions that afflicted all corners of the country as desperate people were pushed to do the unthinkable.

True crime is not for everyone. However, there is a small subset of us that, for some reason or another, finds themselves drawn to true crime stories. Perhaps it’s a desire for truth and justice, an obsession with understanding the criminal mind, or just curiosity about how the cases were solved.

For twenty years, the Taliban was the number one enemy of Western forces in Afghanistan. But it was an enemy that they knew little about, and about whose founder and leader, Mullah Omar, they knew even less. Armed with only a fuzzy black-and-white photo of the man, investigative journalist Bette Dam decided to track down the reclusive Taliban chief a decade back.

Una apasionante historia donde se pretende describir la difícil vida en esclavitud en medio de la selva. Trabajando la tierra bajo el ardiente sol, sin zapatos, calcinando prácticamente pies y manos al roce de la terrible temperatura de la tierra, sufriendo pobreza extrema y los maltratos y prepotencia de los capataces, haciendo patente la lucha de quienes anteponen el amor y la amistad a su propio bienestar y felicidad. Dejando a su paso una gran enseñanza de superación y solidaridad.

Launched in the 1880s by the first baron, the Empain industrial empire spread from Belgium and France to span more than a dozen countries. When Baron Édouard-Jean “Wado” Empain took over, he further expanded the company, became a key player in France’s nuclear sector, and, by the mid-1970s, was one of the country’s most powerful business leaders - a self-described “master of the universe”. Wado’s vertiginous rise caught the eye of Alain Cailloll, a small-time gangster who had grown up in a wealthy family before embracing a life of crime. 

Die Geschichte liest sich wie ein Hollywood-Thriller, ist aber wahr: Am 7. April 2018 verschwindet der deutsch-amerikanische Milliardär Karl-Erivan Haub im Gletschergebiet am Matterhorn. Der bestens trainierte Extremsportler hinterlässt keine einzige Spur, keinen Hilferuf, kein Zeichen eines Überlebenskampfes. Im Oktober 2018 wird die Suche nach ihm offiziell eingestellt, seine Leiche wird nie gefunden. Ein Bruder Haubs lässt den Unternehmer für tot erklären, was seine Macht in einem Firmenimperium sichert, zu dem unter anderem OBI, KiK und Teile von Zalando gehören.