crime law

Softcover. Dekalb IL, Northern Illinois University Press, reprint, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 342 pages, b&w illustrations. Prostitutes, shoplifters, vagrants, murderesses -- Dodge tracks the history of such "improper" women as she explores the history of female incarceration in Illinois from 1835 to the present. In court and in prison, these women - some who are considered beyond all hope of reformation - have received vastly different treatment than their male counterparts. A woman's fate in court often hung on officials' estimates of her moral and sexual reputation. Alleged promiscuity, illegitimate births, venereal disease, interracial relationships, or use of alcohol could condemn her in the eyes of judge and jury. Ethnic and social prejudice played a role, too, as most incarcerated women poor, working-class, immigrants, or members of a racial minority. Highly readable yet theoretically sophisticated, Whores and Thieves of the Worst Kind provides a striking collective portrait of incarcerated women. Drawn from extensive primary sources, the voices of female prisoners emerge powerfully and poignantly as individuals tell their stories. Clean copy.

Hardcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st , 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, colorful dust jacket with a retro-style illustration by the author. In 1919, the National Prohibition Act was passed, making it illegal across America to produce, distribute, or sell liquor. With this act, the U.S. Congress also created organized crime as we know it. Italian, Jewish, and Irish mobs sprang up to supply the suddenly illegal commodity to the millions of people still eager to drink it. Men like Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky, Dutch Schultz and Bugsy Siegel, Al Capone in Chicago and Nucky Johnson in Atlantic City, waged a brutal war for power in the streets and on the waterfronts. But if you think you already know this story...think again, since you've never seen it through the eyes of one the mobsters who lived it. Called "one of the most significant organized crime figures in the United States" by the U.S. District Attorney, Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo was just 15 years old when Prohibition became law. Over the next decade, Alo would work side by side with Lansky and Luciano as they navigated the brutal underworld of bootlegging, thievery and murder. Alo's later career included prison time and the ultimate Mob tribute: being immortalized as "Johnny Ola" in The Godfather, Part II. Introduced to the 91-year-old Alo living in retirement in Florida, Dylan Struzan based this book on more than 50 hours of recorded testimony--stories Alo had never shared, and that he forbid her to publish until "after I'm gone." Alo died, peacefully, two months short of his 97th birthday. And now his stories--bracing and violent, full of intrigue and betrayal, hunger and hubris--can finally be told. With cover art and 24 interior illustrations by Drew Struzan, one of the most acclaimed movie poster painters of all time. Small remainder dot bottom edge, otherwise like new.

Softcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, colorful wraps with a retro-style illustration by Chuck Pyle. Anita Carbone was a good girl--and it bored her.That's why she took the long subway ride down to Greenwich Village, home of the Beats and the stoners, home to every kind of misfit and dropout and free spirit you could imagine. It was where she met Joe Milani, the troubled young war veteran with the gentle touch. But it was also where she met his drug-dealing roommate--a man whose unnatural appetites led to murder. Like new.

Hardcover. NY, William Morrow, 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcopver in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The eighth novel in Block's award-winning and critically-praised crime-thriller series featuring New York private detective and recovering alcoholic, Matt Scudder, this time searching for the psychopath who has vowed to kill him -- after he has murdered any woman with any connection, no matter how small, to the detective. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Metropolitan Museum of Art , 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 304 pages. Roger Fenton (1819-1869) was England's most celebrated and influential photographer during the 1850s, the "golden age" of this radically new medium. Fenton's majestic pictures of cathedrals, country houses, and varied countryside were without peer in England--as were his views of the royal castles and Houses of Parliament that embodied Britain's power. But Fenton's choice of subjects ranged more widely still: he was among the first to photograph the Kremlin and other landmarks of Moscow and Kiev; he was commissioned in 1855 to document the Crimean War, producing early war photographs; and he created theatrical Orientalist costume pictures and a startling series of lush still lifes. Fenton had first studied law and painting, but soon after he took up the camera he was making photographs that were technically superb and highly original in their handling of composition, perspective, atmosphere, and light. Always he strove to demonstrate that photography could equal the art of painting and even surpass it. He was the force behind the founding of the Photographic Society (later the Royal Photographic Society), which worked to advance the profession and encouraged the exhibition of members' works throughout Britain. In a career of a single decade, Fenton did much to transform photography into a medium of powerful expression and visual delight. This exquisitely produced book--the first comprehensive publication on Fenton in almost twenty years--presents eighty-five of the artist's finest photographs and discusses every aspect of his work and his remarkable career.

Hardcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket featuring a retro-style illustration by Michael Koelsch. On the border between El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico, five lives are about to collide--with fatal results. You'll meet MARTY--the professional gambler who rolls the dice on a night with...MEG--the bored divorcee who seeks excitement and finds...LILY--the beautiful hitchhiker lured into a live sex show by...CASSIE--the redhead with her own private agenda...and WEAVER--the madman, the killer with a straight razor in his pocket, on the run from the police and determined to go down swinging! This is MWA Grand Master Lawrence Block at his rawest and most visceral, a bloody, bawdy, brutal story of passion and punishment--and of lines that were never meant to be crossed. Small remainder dot on bottom edge otherwise like new.

Hardcover. Chicago IL, University of Chicago Press, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 263 pages. When the Chicago Daily News closed its doors in March 1978 after over a century of publication, the city mourned the loss of an American original. The Daily News boasted the inventive, aggressive writing of such luminaries as Carl Sandburg and Ben Hecht. It was also one of the first newspapers in the country to feature black-and-white photography. In 1900, staffers from the paper's art department began lugging bulky cameras, heavy glass plates, and explosive flash powder throughout the city. A labor strike, a boxing match, or a crime scene--it was all in a day's work for the Daily News photographer. These cameramen helped sell papers, but, as Mark Jacob and Richard Cahan reveal, they also made art. Chicago under Glass: Early Photographs from the Chicago Daily News is the first collection of images from the photo staff's early years, 1901 to 1930. Jacob and Cahan, seasoned journalists themselves, have selected more than 250 images--many of which have never before been published--from the nearly 57,000 glass negatives housed at the Chicago History Museum. They include rare photographs of a young Buster Keaton with his wife and child, waiting to board a train and the notorious Al Capone outside a courtroom, smoking a cigar and consulting with his lawyer. Each thematic section begins with a fascinating introduction by the authors, and each image is accompanied by insightful historical commentary.

Hardcover. NY, W. W. Norton & Company, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 402 pages. Remarkable study of smuggling, which illustrates how Americans related to the world from the Founding to World War I. From the beginning, the United States sought to build nationalism by limiting their own ability to trade with foreigners. But at the same time, Americans like Charles L. Lawrence defied customs authorities, insisting that trade be free. The government responded by building a potent army of customs inspectors and treasury agents, who profiled Jews, Asians, and women in the pursuit of tariff revenues.Beautifully written, the author uses the stories of smugglers like Jean Lafitte, Charles L. Lawrence, and Rose Eytinge to illustrate not only the history of Protectionism, but also the rise of American empire and the development of the modern social safety net. He shows that the tariff was far from an unpopular relic, but rather the foundation of the nineteenth century state. Clean copy.

Softcover. Beverly Hills, CA, Lawrence Bassoff Collection, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Large softcover, 159 pages, illustrated throughout in color. Light wear to pictorial covers, else a very nice, tight. clean copy. Foreword by Robert Wise. 100 beautiful reproductions of classic crime film posters.

New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1st, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 196 pages. Black & white photography. Reveals the war with Russia, the first war to be extensively recorded by photography. Here are 85 photos and commentary. Many of the photos were taken by two Englishmen, Roger Fenton and William Robertson.

Hardcover. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1st, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. America has had a love affair with the hard-boiled detective since the 1920s, when Prohibition called into question who really stood on the right and wrong side of the law. And nowhere did this hero shine more than in crime fiction. In Detectives in the Shadows, literary and cultural critic Susanna Lee tracks the evolution of this truly American character type from Race Williams to Philip Marlowe and from Mike Hammer to Jessica Jones. Lee explores how this character type morphs to fit an increasingly troubled world, offering compelling interpretations of The Wire, True Detective, and Jessica Jones. 216 pages, clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, HarperCollins, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 518 pages with index. B&w illustrations. The allied bombing of Dresden created a massive fire that swept the city center, killing thousands of people and destroying its medieval heart. Debate began almost immediately: Was the destruction of this seemingly civilian city necessary militarily, or was it, some asked, equivalent to a war crime? Not just another in an endless parade of books on Dresden, Taylor's account may go a long way toward putting such questions to rest. It opens with the start, by British bombers, of the nighttime attack, and immediately turns to the past, meandering through several centuries of Dresden history, from its founding in the Middle Ages to the 20th century and the rise of the Nazis. Taylor, translator of The Goebbels Diaries, also covers the history of aerial bombardment and its international laws; gives glimpses of life under the Nazi regime; details the Allied bombing campaign against Germany; and, most excitingly, puts forth new information concerning Dresden's part in the German war effort, which turns out to be much greater than postwar information generally portrays. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, WW Norton & Co, 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 580 pages, 16 pages of illustrations. Eternity Street tells the story of a violent place in a violent time: the rise of Los Angeles from its origins as a small Mexican pueblo. In a masterful narrative, John Mack Faragher relates a dramatic history of conquest and ethnic suppression, of collective disorder and interpersonal conflict. Eternity Street recounts the struggle to achieve justice amid the turmoil of a loosely governed frontier, and it delivers a piercing look at the birth of this quintessentially American city. In the 1850s, the City of Angels was infamous as one of the most murderous societies in America. Saloons teemed with rowdy crowds of Indians and Californios, Mexicans and Americans. Men ambled down dusty streets, armed with Colt revolvers and Bowie knives. A closer look reveals characters acting in unexpected ways: a newspaper editor advocating lynch law in the name of racial justice; hundreds of Latinos massing to attack the county jail, determined to lynch a hooligan from Texas. Murder and mayhem in Edenic southern California. "There is no brighter sun...no country where nature is more lavish of her exuberant fullness," an Angeleno wrote in 1853. "And yet, with all our natural beauties and advantages, there is no country where human life is of so little account. Men hack one another to pieces with pistols and other cutlery as if God's image were of no more worth than the life of one of the two or three thousand ownerless dogs that prowl about our streets and make night hideous." Like-new.

Hardcover. NY, Weybright and Talley, 1st US, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, lavender cloth with gilt tile on spine, 338 pages. Previous owner's name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean. No dust jacket but flaps laid-in.

Hardcover. NY, William Morrow , 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. INSCRIBED BY LEVINE on the half-title page. Pro football player turned lawyer Jake Lassiter is savoring a drink at a South Beach bar when a beautiful young woman shoots the man on the next bar stool and faints in Lassiter's arms. It's one way to get clients, he figures. The woman, Chrissy Bernhardt, is charged with the first-degree murder of her father, whom Chrissy believes abused her as a child. Lassiter takes the case, which is complicated by the fact that Chrissy's repressed memories of her father's abuse have been "unlocked" with the help of a therapist who turns out to be her late mother's former lover. The seventh Lassiter novel continues the series' steady improvement. Lassiter is smart, tough, funny, and very human. He's coming on fast as one of the most entertaining series characters in contemporary crime fiction. Clean copy.

Softcover. A. J. Cornell Publications , 1st thus, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 189 pages. Cornell Woolrich, best known as the author of "Rear Window," is unsurpassed in his ability to create and sustain sheer suspense. In his tales of terror, ordinary people find themselves in the most extraordinary circumstances--and, as readers, we share their spine-tingling tension every step of the way. Collected here are four of his most nail-biting novellas: EYES THAT WATCH YOU: Greedy Vera Miller plots her husband's murder right under the nose of her mute, paralyzed mother-in-law. After all, the old lady won't be able to tell anyone about the crime. Or will she? THE NIGHT I DIED: Nice guy Ben Cook, goaded by his scheming common-law wife, fakes his own suicide and moves to another town--all to trick his life insurance company into making a large payout. No one en route or at the new address will recognize him, will they? YOU'LL NEVER SEE ME AGAI": Ed Bliss's new bride, miffed by her husband's insults about her biscuits, promises that Ed will never have to see her again--and storms out! When she doesn't return within a few days, Ed begins to suspect foul play--but when he reports the crime to the police, he's the first one they suspect! MURDER ALWAYS GATHERS MOMENTUM: For his wife's sake, Dick Paine approaches a former employer for back wages he is owed--but things go terribly wrong and the old boss ends up dead. Now the guilt-ridden Paine, who'd never before committed a crime, is convinced that people will figure out what happened. As his paranoia gathers momentum, anyone he meets is at risk of becoming his next victim.

Hardcover. NY, Simon & Schuster, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, When Bill Browder's young Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was beaten to death in a Moscow jail, Browder made it his life's mission to go after his killers and make sure they faced justice. The first step of that mission was to uncover who was behind the $230 million tax refund scheme that Magnitsky was killed over. As Browder and his team tracked the money as it flowed out of Russia through the Baltics and Cyprus and on to Western Europe and the Americas, they were shocked to discover that Vladimir Putin himself was a beneficiary of the crime. As law enforcement agencies began freezing the money, Putin retaliated. He and his cronies set up honey traps, hired process servers to chase Browder through cities, murdered more of his Russian allies, and enlisted some of the top lawyers and politicians in America to bring him down. Putin will stop at nothing to protect his money. As Freezing Order reveals, it was Browder's campaign to expose Putin's corruption that prompted Russia's intervention in the 2016 US presidential election. Clean copy.

Softcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, colorful wraps with a retro-style illustration by Gregory Manchess. So this girl walks into a bar...and when she walks out there's a man with her. She goes to bed with him, and she likes that part. Then she kills him, and she likes that even better. On her way out, she cleans out his wallet. She keeps moving, and has a new name for each change of address. She's been doing this for a while, and she's good at it. And then a chance remark gets her thinking of the men who got away, the lucky ones who survived a night with her.She starts writing down names. And now she's a girl with a mission. Picking up their trails. Hunting them down. Crossing them off her list... Like new.

Hardcover. San Marino CA, The Huntington Library, 1st, 2015, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 326 pages, b&w illustrations. Early modern European governments and their subjects had difficulty agreeing to laws governing behavior on the sea - an environment that featured watery borders, rampant piracy, the threat of free trade, and the large-scale transportation of human cargo. The essays in this volume explore how the exploitation of the oceans changed the institution of slavery, long-distance trade, property crime, the environment, literature, and memory from medieval times to the nineteenth century. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Heidelberg, Germany, Kehrer Verlag, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 112 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Very clean, unmarked copy still in shrink wrap. Many color photographs of secret marijuana growing communities. Published under the pseudonym "H. Lee" to protect those whom she photographed.

Softcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, colorful wraps with a retro-style illustration by Chuck Pyle. Con man Joe Marlin was used to scoring easy cash off beautiful women. But that was before he met Mona Brassard and found himself facing the most dangerous con of his career, one that will leave him either a killer -- or a corpse.Lawrence Block has won more awards for mystery writing than almost any other living author: 4 Edgar Awards, 4 Shamus Awards, 2 Maltese Falcon Awards, the Nero Wolfe Award, and more. Like new.

Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1st, 1943, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Fair, Hardcover, 192 pages. Illustrated with black & white photos. Foreword by J. Edgar Hoover. Dust jacket with chunks gone from top and bottom front cover, closed tears, spine wear, fade.

Softcover. London, Hard Case Crime, 1st thus, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, colorful wraps with a retro-style illustration by Sharif Tarabay. Life isn't always cheap south of the border--some lives are worth a million dollars. That's what the Mexican kidnapping cartel was demanding for Carl Ledbetter's wife. So Carl reached out to the one person he knew with a chance in hell of saving her, a deadly man whose own life he'd saved in the sands of Iraq. It was time to call in some favors. Because some situations call for negotiation, but some...call for gun work. Like new.

Hardcover. Spokane, WA, Arthur H. Clark Company, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 343 pages. Hardcover. B/w illustrations throughout. Covers bound in red, gilt title on spine. Binding tight. Dust jacket unclipped. Dust jacket has a touch of fading, otherwise no rips, in very good condition. Very clean inside and out.