Bryan Seymour

the co-author of The Lady Vanishes. When Marion Barter disappeared in 1997, police initially dismissed it as the actions of a divorced mother abandoning her family. In this book, the creators of the addictive global hit podcast The Lady Vanishes detail the winding investigation into Marion's disappearance, from tentative early police efforts to her daughter's 27-year search for answers. The Lady Vanishes is an engrossing story of how a small team of seasoned investigative journalists and storytellers, a daughter's intuition and a team of listener super-sleuths uncovered a web of intrigue spanning nine decades and three continents, and how - after 57 episodes, 20 million downloads and sparking a coronial inquiry - they discovered at the heart of the mystery a stranger-than-fiction international man of mystery who could hold the key to what really happened to Marion.

April 17, 2025 Show

Ron and Chris Washburn

talk about their book, Out of Bounds: From Broken NBA dreams to Redemption: The Chris Washburn Story. Chris Washburn's story is one of extraordinary talent, devastating loss, and ultimate triumph. Highly promising basketball player Chris Washburn was selected third overall in the 1986 NBA Draft by the Golden State Warriors. But a chance encounter with famed basketball player Len Bias introduced him to crack cocaine. Soon, the overwhelming temptations of fame, fortune, and drugs derailed his promising career. And by 1989, after failing his third drug test, Chris was banned from the NBA.  His life then spiraled into addiction, homelessness, incarceration, and near-death experiences. Yet, in 2000, a turning point came when he lost his father. This loss fueled Chris's resolve to change. With incredible strength and determination, he fought back from the depths of addiction. Today, Chris is a beacon of hope and resilience. He is a motivational speaker, entrepreneur, and advocate, inspiring others with his journey of recovery from addiction and redemption. Chris 's remarkable journey, which included finding his birth mother, proves that it's never too late to rise again.

John Lee Bishop

talks about his book, The Church of Living Dangerously: Tales of a Drug-Running Mega-church Pastor. We will talk about the unbelievable true story of a former mega-church pastor who ended up running drugs for the Sinaloa Cartel. We'll talk about Bishop's harrowing ride from the rough small town in Washington where he was born all the way to the dirty villages in Mexico where he fell in with some of the most dangerous criminals on the planet. There are backyard fight clubs where John learned to take a punch, the abandoned K-Mart where he used to preach every Sunday (sometimes with the help of wild animals), and the drug dens where he almost lost his life ten times over. It's a story that seems too wild to be true, but is.

Michael Cannell

Blood and the Badge: The Mafia, Two Killer Cops, and a Scandal That Shocked the Nation. No episode in NYPD history surpasses the depravities of Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, two decorated detectives who covertly acted as mafia informants and paid assassins in the Scorsese world of 1980s Brooklyn. For more than ten years, Eppolito and Caracappa moonlighted as the mob's early warning alert system, leaking names of mobsters secretly cooperating with the government and crippling investigations by sharing details of surveillance, phone taps and impending arrests. The Lucchese boss called the two detectives his crystal ball: Whatever detectives knew, the mafia soon learned. Most grievously, Eppolito and Caracappa earned bonuses by staging eight mob hits, pulling the trigger themselves at least once. Incredibly, when evidence of their wrongdoing arose in 1994, FBI officials failed to muster an indictment. The allegations lay dormant for a decade and were only revisited due to relentless follow up by Tommy Dades, a cop determined to break the cold case before his retirement. Eppolito and Caracappa were finally tried and then sentenced to life in prison in 2009, nearly thirty years after their crimes took place. For the first time in forty years, former New York Times editor Michael Cannell unearths the full story behind two ruthless New York cops who acted as double agents for the Mafia.

Andy Thibault

discusses his book, You Thought It was More: New Adventures of the World's Greatest Counterfeiter. The book, done in collaboration with Louis Colavecchio, tells the story of Louis Colavecchio, the man considered the world's greatest counterfeiter. Colavecchio's prowess as a jeweler, manufacturer, and charmer has earned him a place in history, having been featured on prestigious platforms such as The History Channel and The BBC. His profound impact on the casino gaming industry has left a lasting legacy, forever changing it.

March 20, 2025 Show

Carla Conti

discusses her book, Chained Birds: A True Crime Memoir. After three years in Europe, former journalist Carla Conti* just wanted to settle her family into the suburbs of Philadelphia. But her high school friend Scott Powell, a lawyer handling a brutal prison stabbing case, needed a favor. Before she knew it, Carla became part of the defense team and mired in the terrifying world of federal prison gangs, penal abuse, and corruption. Then, when she agreed to write a tell-all book on the violent machinations behind the court case — with Scott's client as an inside source — the stakes turned deadly. Two different prison gangs issued "hit orders" against the prisoner she and Scott now considered a friend, and the journalist and defense attorney were imperiled by association. Carla Conti is a pseudonym to protect the author's identity.

Casey Sherman

New York Times bestselling author Casey Sherman pulls back Tinseltown's velvet curtain to reveal the dark underbelly of celebrity, rife with toxic masculinity and casual violence against women, and tells the story of Lana Turner and her daughter, who finally stood up to the abuse that plagued their family for years. A Murder in Hollywood transports us back to the golden age of film and illuminates one of the 20th century's most notorious true crime tales. 695

March 6, 2025 Show

Emilio Corseitti

discusses his book,  I Will Ruin You: The Truth Behind the Kit Martin Murder Trial.  Moments before boarding a passenger flight on 11 May 2019 as the first officer, pilot Christian "Kit" Martin, a former army ranger, was arrested by a swarm of heavily armed officers for the murders of three of his neighbors. The arrest captured global attention as Martin's mugshot, clad in a pilot's uniform, spread across the internet, sparking a media firestorm with headlines such as "Monster in the Cockpit." A combat helicopter pilot, Kit Martin had seen his life unravel after seeking a divorce. His wife's threatening words, "If you leave me, I will ruin your life ...," overheard by his daughter, seemed to have become a grim reality, escalating to a court-martial and culminating in a high-stakes murder trial at which he was convicted. Did the State of Kentucky convict an innocent man?

February 27, 2025 Show

Dr. Joane Intrator

discusses her book: Summons to Berlin: Nazi Theft and A Daughter's Quest for Justice. On his deathbed, the father of New York psychiatrist Dr. Joanne Intrator poses two unsettling questions: "Are you tough enough? Do they know who you are?" Joanne Intrator soon realizes that these haunting questions relate to a center-city Berlin building at 16 Wallstrasse that the Nazis ripped away from her family in 1938. But a decade will pass before she fully grasps why her father threw down the gauntlet as he did. Repeatedly, Intrator's restitution quest forces her to confront her profound fears surrounding Germany and the Holocaust. 693

February 20, 2025 Show

Kate Winkler Dawson

Michael Vecchione

discusses his book, Fallen Angel III: Anarchy, Chaos....Peace?. In a world where heinous crimes go unpunished, a priest from the Vatican's Office of Exorcisms in New York makes a chilling discovery: each acquittal preceded a satanic exorcism. His unsettling conclusion? The Devil himself is orchestrating this chaos, plunging America into lawlessness and despair. This is the third book in Vecchione's Fallen Angel series, where Brooklyn becomes the battleground against the Evil One. Chief Michael Gioca of the Brooklyn District Attorney's Rackets Division is chosen by a secret government agency to confront this malevolent force. 691

TJ English

discusses his book, The Last Kilo: Willy Falcon and the Cocaine Empire That Seduced America: An Epic Narco Story with Unmatched Intrigue and Corruption, Experience the Rise and Fall of a Drug Empire. TJ English recounts the epic tale of Los Muchachos, the syndicate founded by Falcon that thrived as a major cocaine distribution network in the U.S. from the late 1970's into the early 1990's. At their height, Los Muchachos made more than a hundred million dollars a year The Last Kilo traces the rise and fall of a true cocaine empire—and the lives left in its wake.

January 30, 2025 Show

David McGrath

talks about his book OBSESSED: A Survivor's Quest To Find Justice For The Lost Boys Of New England. In the tranquil towns of New England during the 1970s, a sinister mystery unfolded when several boys vanished without a trace and the community's peace was shattered. With law enforcement stymied in its search for answers, whispers of a possible serial killer surfaced, especially after one boy's body was found years after his disappearance. But what happened to the others remained a heart-wrenching puzzle.  In 2013, author David McGrath, a former host on the Law Enforcement Today Network and an investigator with a relentless drive for justice, watched a documentary about the cold case investigation regarding the missing boys. Himself a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and active in his local community with a sex abuse therapy group, McGrath was struck by the number of unanswered questions in the documentary.. What followed, beginning in January 2014, was a five-year quest to find the answers to this child abduction and murder mystery. Traveling all over the United States, he uncovered a labyrinth of dark secrets just beneath the surface and unknown to most residents of the bucolic communities from which the boys disappeared. Haunted by his own past, he had to navigate these dark waters if he wanted to bring truth and justice to the victims and their families. 689

Phillip Crawford

discusses his book, Railroaded: The Homophobic Prosecution of Brandon Woodruff for His Parents' Murders. Was a Texas youth convicted for a horrific crime because he's gay? Author Phillip Crawford Jr. details how anti-gay bias rather than relevant evidence drove the case against a young defendant.  In October 2005 nineteen-year-old Brandon Dale Woodruff was charged with murdering his parents in a rural northeast Texas town in the heart of the Bible belt. Both were shot and stabbed multiple times in their faces. It was a bloodbath. There was no direct evidence tying the couple's son to the gruesome crime to warrant his arrest — no eyewitnesses, no murder weapons, no bloody prints — but investigators were convinced the teen boy was living a double life who killed when his two worlds supposedly collided. Brandon was a horse wrangler and attending Abilene Christian University, and he also was a porn actor and dancing at Dallas gay clubs. There was no double life; just a boy coming out.

Eric Dezenhall 

discusses his book, Wiseguys and the White House: Gangsters, Presidents, and the Deals They Made. Gangsters and presidents have long captured the American imagination, but how much does the underworld actually affect presidential power? How deep are their "connections"? Eric Dezenhall's book is eye-opening history, in some instances, one couldn't have functioned without the other. From Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Richard Nixon to Joseph R. Biden, the mob has done presidential dirty work, including attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, harass America's enemies, and put our chief executives in office Tonight Wisegwe will talk about how mobsters and presidents have traded favors—and double-crossed each other.

David Adler

discusses his book, BAKER, LIAR, CON MAN, THIEF: Escaping the Law One Identity at a Time.  It all starts when Adler secures a bank loan to buy a booming local bakery. With no funds to his name, Adler unlocks his talent for forgery and the art of the scam. Alongside his mother and Italian tough-guy stepfather, he navigates a perilous path of crime, crafting false identities to dupe banks, casinos, and even the World's Fair, accumulating vast sums and dodging law enforcement.  Enter Dianne Symmons, a witty, sarcastic FBI agent obsessed with their capture. After she solves an unrelated airline hijacking case, she is assigned to find the trio and make a case against them. Much easier said than done since each uses hundreds of names and disposes of identities like tissue. 686

Deborah Bonello

author of Narcas: The Secret Rise of Women in Latin America Cartels. Bonello, a former editor and investigator for InSight Crime, explores how women participate in the region's criminal landscape, the common misconceptions about their involvement with criminal groups, how women in crime are represented by the media

www.vice.com/en/contributor/deborah-bonello 

Nic Edwards

discusses his co-authored book, The Delphi Murders: The Quest to find the Man on the Bridge. The co-author is Brian Whitney. On February 13, 2017, two Indiana teenagers, Abigail Williams, 13, and Liberty German, 14, went for a walk in the woods near the abandoned Monon High Bridge. They never returned home. Their bodies were discovered on Valentine's Day morning, sparking a torrent of news coverage and social media speculation that engrossed the attention of people around the world. A grainy photo of the suspected killer walking across the bridge and a chilling cell phone recording of his voice saying "down the hill" captured the public's attention. Numerous possible suspects were brought to the attention of the authorities but dismissed, leaving everyone wondering who could have committed such a heinous crime. We investigate this story with Nic Edwards.

Paul Hodos

discusses his book Steel City Mafia: Blood, Betrayal and Pittsburgh's Last Don. Pittsburgh's small but lucrative Cosa Nostra mafia family was on the rise in 1985 with a newly crowned Don.The men who came to dominate the rackets in western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio, and West Virginia opened the family to massive profits from drug trafficking and a street tax on other criminal activities. At the same time, the Youngstown, OH faction of the family launched a brutal mob war against the weakening Cleveland mafia and the Altoona, PA crew violently clamped down on their city. Tonight we will discover gritty stories of a made member who controlled who a local police department hired, an informant who betrayed his own mafia grandfather and father, numerous unsolved murders and a mob mole in the Pittsburgh office of the FBI. This book is the tale of a mafia family at the pinnacle of its power, willing to do anything to hold on to that power and its downfall in the criminal underworld.

B.R. Bates and Gerald Cliff

discuss their book, The 'Baby Doll' Serial Killer: The John Henry Armstrong Homicide. He was unassuming, sweet, and friendly. "Saved" in church as a teen, he never caused trouble. In the Navy, they called him Opie. Though he . was a big guy, he had a soft, boyish demeanor. "The boy next door," said those who worked with and knew him. But John Eric Armstrong had a dark secret—hidden even from those closest to him. Prowling Detroit's well-known pocket of prostitution on historic Michigan Ave, this young husband and father picked up unsuspecting women who thought they were simply meeting a john. He seemed innocent, even driving a Jeep with a front plate reading "Baby Doll." But they soon discovered, he could turn on a dime -- fly into a rage. Sometimes he would leave his victims alive, but sometimes he didn't. 684

Anthony Arillotta

discusses his book, South End Syndicate: How I Took over the Genovese Springfield Crew The book tells the untold story of a young man infatuated with Springfield wiseguys who rose from being a street criminal to becoming his city's Mafia boss. How did a young Italian-American kid from Springfield work his way up the chain to become a Made wiseguy in charge of Western New England? You will listen to Arillotta, now a free man, tell a timeless tale of power, money, and murder.  683

David Larson

is back to discuss his book, The Last Jewish Gangster, The Middle Years, The book is the second installment in a three-part chronicle of Michael Hardy, one of organized crime’s least known but most fascinating gangsters. The book starts in 1968 with gangster Michael Hardy sentenced to twelve years in the world’s most dangerous prison in Mexico after taking the rap for his mother’s counterfeiting scheme, hoping to have finally earned her love and respect. It then follows Hardy, further down his twisted criminal path. Throughout his career as a criminal, Hardy robbed banks and drug dealers alike, ran a finger of an international stolen car ring, kidnapped drug lords, and even became a hired gun.

November 21, 2024 Show

John Madinger

discusses his book, LETHAL DOSES: The Story Behind 'The Godfather of Fentanyl. Madinger, an award-winning author and former undercover agent for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, tells the remarkable story of DEA's three-year pursuit, the genesis of our fentanyl ,problem today, and the uniquely dangerous evil genius he spent hundreds of hours interviewing. On a cold afternoon in February 1991, a frightening new drug hit the streets of New York City, a synthetic narcotic marketed in packets labeled "Tango & Cash." As police scrambled to warn heroin users of the danger, the overdose victims began piling up in hospital emergency rooms and county morgues across three states. As a Drug Enforcement Administration agent said at the time, "We don't know yet who's putting this stuff out there, but whoever he is, he's an ice-cold son of a bitch." Fentanyl had come to America. This book is the basis for the hit docu-series, The Godfather of Fentanyl

Mike Rothmiller

discusses his book, True Stories of the Paranormal and Unexplained: Volume One.: Ufos, Bigfoot, Ghosts, Ghouls and Other Strange Phenomena. Mike Rothmiller promises that These True Stories will amaze and shock you. Most of the stories were written during the 1800s and early 1900s. Mike Rothmiller explains "I intentionally chose stories from before the invention of the radio and TV, when the only methods of receiving NEWS were from newspapers and word of mouth. Unlike today, the public was not pre-conditioned by television, radio, magazines, and books on these subjects. At the time, a flying object was considered ridiculous. Yet, there were thousands of credible witnesses.  680

November 7, 2024 Show

James T. Bartlett

discusses his book, The Alaskan Blonde: Sex, Secrets, and the Hollywood Story that Shocked America. Nicknamed "the most beautiful woman in Alaska," 31-year-old Diane Wells was bruised and bloodied when she screamed for help in the early hours of October 17, 1953. Her husband Cecil, a wealthy Fairbanks businessman, had been shot dead, and she claimed they were the victims of a brutal home invasion. Blonde, glamorous and 20 years younger than Cecil, police were immediately suspicious of Diane's account, and the investigation soon turned toward her alleged lover, musician Johnny Warren, who had left town the night of the murder. Journalist James T. Bartlett re-examines the FBI files, uncovers new evidence including an unpublished memoir and unseen photographs, and tracks down and interviews the people close to Cecil, Diane, Johnny, and the mysterious "Third Suspect", dance instructor William Colombany, to finally reveal what happened on that fateful night nearly 70 years ago. 679

Colin Dickey

a command appearance of Cultural historian Colin Dickey to discuss his book, Under the Eye of Power: How Fear of Secret Societies Shapes American Democracy. Colin Dickey has built a career studying how our most irrational beliefs reach the mainstream, why, and what they tell us about ourselves.

Alex Hortis

talks about his book, The Witch of New York: The Trials of Polly Bodine and the Cursed Birth of Tabloid Justice. Before the sensational cases of Amanda Knox and Casey Anthony—before even Lizzie Borden—there was Polly Bodine, the first American woman put on trial for capital murder in our nation's debut media circus. Christmas night, December 25, 1843, in a serene village on Staten Island, shocked neighbors discovered the burnt remains of twenty-four-year-old mother Emeline Houseman and her infant daughter, Ann Eliza. In a perverse nativity, someone bludgeoned to death a mother and child in their home—and then covered up the crime with hellfire. When an ambitious district attorney charges Polly Bodine (Emelin's sister-in-law) with a double homicide, the new "penny press" explodes. Polly is a perfect media villain: she's a separated wife who drinks gin, commits adultery, and has had multiple abortions. Between June 1844 and April 1846, the nation was enthralled by her three trials—in Staten Island, Manhattan, and Newburgh—for the "Christmas murders." 678
 

Phillip Crawford, Jr.

discusses his book The Mafia and the Gays. Phillip Crawford illustrates how the gay bars historically were integrated into the Mafia rackets. For example, the establishments often were financed through mob-tied coin-op vendors and their related loan companies. Jukebox king Alfred Miniaci funded dozens of gay bars and other joints controlled by the Mafia in the 1950s and 1960s including the Peppermint Lounge. Miniaci supplied slot machines in the 1930s to Frank Costello, and had dined with the mob boss on the May 2, 1957 night he was shot. Gay bars sometimes served as drug drops. Forget about the pizza connection; this was the pansy connection. Club 82 in New York's East Village was a popular club with drag revues, and in the 1950s also was part of the distribution network in the Genovese family's heroin trade for which boss Vito was convicted in 1959. 

Stanley Milford, Jr.

talks about his book, The Paranormal Ranger: A Navajo investigator's Search for the Unexplained. Milford's chilling and clear-eyed memoir investigates bizarre cases of the paranormal and unexplained in Navajo land. As a Native American with parents of both Navajo and Cherokee descent, Stanley Milford Jr. grew up in a world where the supernatural was both expected and taboo, where shape-shifters roamed, witchcraft was a thing to be feared, and children were taught not to whistle at night. In his youth, Milford never went looking for the paranormal, but it always seemed to find him. When he joined the fabled Navajo Rangers—a law enforcement branch of the Navajo Nation who are equal parts police officers, archeological conservationists, and historians—the paranormal became part of his job. Alongside addressing the mundane duties of overseeing the massive 27,000-square-mile reservation, Milford was assigned to utterly bizarre and shockingly frequent cases involving mysterious livestock mutilations, Bigfoot sightings, UFOs, and malicious hauntings. In The Paranormal Ranger, Milford recounts the stories of these cases from the clinical and deductive perspective of a law enforcement officer. 675

Joan Renner

discusses her book, OF MOBSTERS AND MOVIE STARS: The Bloody "Golden Age" of Hollywood. We will explore the shadowy world of fame and crime during Hollywood's most glamorous era. As Los Angeles transformed into the epicenter of film, it also became a haven for notorious criminals and mobsters, weaving an intriguing  complex tapestry of allure and danger.  We will delve into infamous episodes, such as the shocking case of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, accused of "accidentally" crushing to death a young actress beneath his enormous weight as he raped her, and other lesser-known, but equally hair-raising stories of actors brought down by scandal and corruption.

Robert Conlin

discusses his book The Lewiston Murders.  An All-American Tragedy.  Author and award-winning journalist Robert Conlin traces the shootings that deeply scarred a community that thought it was the last place on earth where a mass shooting would take place. https://wildbluepress.com/lewiston-shootings-robert-conlin-true-crime/  673

Command Appearance

December 8, 2022 Show

Paul Drexler

author of Notorious San Fransico: True Tales of Crime, Passion and Murder.

Susan Goldenberg

talks about her book, Deadly Triangle: The Famous Architect, His Wife, Their Chauffer and a Murder Most Foul. Glamorous young wife Alma Rattenbury takes her chauffeur as a lover and their scandalous relationship leads to a murder most foul. The 1935 murder of architect Francis Mawson Rattenbury, famous for his design of the iconic Parliament Buildings and Empress Hotel in Victoria, British Columbia, and the arrest and lurid trial of his 30-years-younger second wife, Alma, and the family chauffeur, George Percy Stoner, her lover, riveted people. The lovers were tried together for Francis's murder at the Old Bailey Criminal Court in London, resulting in intense public interest and massive, frenzied media coverage. The trial became one of the 20th century's most sensational cases, sparking widespread debate over sexual mores and social strata distinctions.

August 22, 2024 Show

Michel Paradis

Michel Paradis, a human rights lawyer discusses his book, The Light of Battle: Eisenhower, D-Day, and the Birth of the American Superpower. The book is a biography of Dwight Eisenhower set in the months leading up to D-Day, when he grew from a well-liked general into one of the singular figures of American history. In a world of giants—Churchill, Roosevelt, De Gaulle, Marshall, MacArthur—it was a barefoot boy from Abilene, Kansas, who would master the art of power and become a modern-day George Washington.

author of Lou and JonBenet: A Legendary Law Man’s Quest to Solve the Child Beauty Queen’s Murder

https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/7111699.John_Wesley_Anderson 

Rick Jervis

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Rick Jervis to discuss his shocking true-crime book, The Devil Behind the Badge: The Horrifying Twelve Days of the Border Patrol Serial Killer. It's the story of a U.S. Border Patrol agent turned serial killer, the four sex workers whom he mercilessly killed, and the upended border town of Laredo where his heinous crimes occurred. The cold-blooded killer was hiding in plain sight. 669

Peter Houlahan

to talk about his book, Reap the Whirlwind: Violence, Race, Justice, and the Story of Sagon Penn. The bestselling author of Norco '80 recounts the riveting story of mid-1980s San Diego that placed one young Black man at the center of a whirlwind of crime and punishment that profoundly altered Southern California. It was March 31, 1985. Two white patrol officers in search of a gang member followed a pickup truck carrying seven young . Black men up a dirt driveway in the Encanto neighborhood of Southeastern San Diego. Minutes later, gunshots rang out, and the truck's driver, Sagon Penn, fled the scene in an officer's patrol car. The incident stunned the city. What followed would change it forever.

Anthony Destefano

Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award-winning journalist Anthony Destefano to discuss his book, Broadway Butterfly: Vivian Gordon: The Lady Gangster of Jazz Age New York. Indiana-born Vivian Gordon fluttered to New York in 1920 looking for fame and fortune. Before long, the flame-haired chorus girl parlayed her youth, beauty, and ambition into more profitable means as a tough and glamorous symbol of Prohibition-era excess. She was a speakeasy owner, blackmailer, high-end escort, extortionist, racketeer, and con woman. But given her dangerously intimate associations, Vivian was also a woman who knew too much and who rightfully feared for her life. On February 26, 1931, Vivian's bludgeoned and garroted body was found dumped in Van Cortland Park in the Bronx. We will discuss with Anthony DeStefano Vivian Gordon's tumultuous life and the headline-making murder that became an obsession for many. 667

July 18, 2024 Show

Special FBI agent Jeffrey Iverson

discusses his book, In the Belly of the Bear: An FBI journey behind the New Iron Curtain. The collapse of the Soviet Union was a historic turning point when many, especially those who grew up during the Cold War, began to let go of their long-held fears and embrace feelings of hope for the future. That included agents of the FBI, who were, by necessity, busy building bridges with their former adversaries in response to a flood of Russian criminals pouring into the United States. In The Belly of the Bear chronicles this collaboration through the eyes of a key FBI agent who was on the frontlines in Russia. Jeff Iverson explores obstacles he and his colleagues faced on our former rivals' home turf, including counterintelligence challenges that have traditionally posed a danger to American government officials and/or businesspeople traveling to Russia.

Arthur Kane

discusses his book, THE LAST STORY: The Murder of an Investigative Journalist in Las Vegas. Jeff German, a veteran Las Vegas Review-Journal investigative reporter, was no stranger to controversy or the danger of his work. For more than four decades, he wrote stories relentlessly confronting the mob, corrupt politicians, and greedy bureaucrats, Then, in the spring of 2022, German received a tip about abuses at a little-known county office. His subsequent investigation unearthed a scandalous, sexually incriminating video of a rising politician. The resulting stories in the Review-Journal ended the man's political aspirations. Less than six months later, on September 3, German's lifeless body was discovered outside his home with multiple stab wounds. His dedicated newsroom colleagues, including Kane, vowed to find the killer. In doing so, they exposed the true depths of corruption and malice in Sin City

Rod Sadler

author of Killing Women: The True Story of Serial Killer Don Miller's Reign of Terror www.rodsadler.com 

Morgen Wetzel aka R.L. Graham

England this week and welcomes Morgen Wetzel to discuss his book Death on the Lusitania. The book is written under the pseudonym, of R.L. Graham. The Lusitania was doomed before it ever left port. But what if the mortal danger to passengers was not only from outside enemy forces but also from sinister characters onboard? Wetzel explores this chilling scenario. Drawing on meticulous research, Wetzel presents an atmospheric murder mystery set on a luxurious trans-Atlantic liner headed for certain disaster. What's more, this historical crime thriller introduces an amateur detective with wits to rival Hercule Poirot.

June 20, 2024 Show

Karen Conti

discusses her book, Killing Time with John Wayne Gacy: Defending America's Most Evil Serial Killer on Death Row. John Wayne Gacy raped, tortured, and murdered 33 boys and young men, burying most of them in the crawlspace under his Chicago home. Karen Conti was in high school at the time watching the bodies being removed on the television news. Fourteen years pass. Through a twist of fate, Conti, now a young and inexperienced attorney, is called upon to handle Gacy's final death row appeals. The serial killer soon becomes her most famous, difficult, and haunting client. Thirty years after Gacy's execution, Conti looks back through the eyes of a seasoned professional on the legal and media circus that ensued—and her countless hours of detailed conversation with the killer clown. We hear for the first time about Gacy's gruesome "Body Book." Were there more victims? Conspirators involved in the murders? What secrets were buried with him?   #663

Frank Figliuzzi

Former FBI assistant director Frank Figliuzzi discusses his book, Long Haul: Hunting the Highway Serial Killers. Figliuzzi presents a shocking journey to the dark side of America's highways, revealing the FBI Highway Serial Killings Initiative's hunt for the long-haul truckers behind an astonishing 850 murders–and counting. In 2004, the FBI was tipped off to a gruesome pattern of unsolved murders along American roadways. Today at least 850 homicides have been linked to a solitary breed of predators: long-haul truck drivers. They have been given names like the "Truck Stop Killer," who rigged a traveling torture chamber in the rear of his truck and is suspected to have killed fifty women, and "The Interstate Strangler," who once answered a phone call from his mother while killing one of his dozen victims. The crisis was such that the FBI opened a special unit, the Highway Serial Killings Initiative

Lance Williams

talks about his book King David and Boss Daley: The Black Disciples, Mayor Daley, and Chicago on the Edge. In Chicago in mid-twentieth century amid the haze and smoke of urban renewal and the sounds of the wrecking balls and bulldozers, there lived two men, both street-savvy, one Black, one Irish, one young, one old and both leaders of their clans. Each ruled with an iron fist. Each embodied the fighting spirit of the turbulent 1960s. One was David Barksdale, the Black Disciples leader, a Black youth club that would give birth to America's largest street gang; the other was Richard J. Daley, the legendary Mayor of the City of Chicago. He was one of the longest-serving, most prominent mayors in American history and the last of the big-city "bosses." Although the two never met, at least not face-to-face, their fates were linked by a time of change, an era of protest, which was a decisive moment of transformational power that was on the verge of a violent uprising in America's second-largest city.

Bruce LeMaster

talks about his book The Wolf and the Killer: Volume 1. LeMaster interviewed a serial killer to produce this fascinating book. He talked with the serial killer about his life, his crimes, what made him become a killer and prison life. LeMaster explains: "As I have told you before and as you know I admire a true serial killer. They are the ultimate predator. They think, act, learn from their mistakes, hide in plain sight, and have no remorse for what they do. They are like a shark always hunting and killing."

Maureen Boyle

discusses her book Shallow Graves: The Hunt for the New Bedford Serial Killer. In Shallow Graves, investigative reporter Maureen Boyle tells the story of a case that has haunted New England for 30 years. Eleven women went missing over the spring and summer of 1988 in New Bedford, Massachusetts, an old fishing port known as the Whaling City, where Moby Dick, Frederick Douglass, textile mills, and heroin-dealing represent just a few of the many threads in the community's diverse fabric The book spins a riveting narrative about the crimes, the victims, the hunt for the killers, and the search for justice, all played out against the backdrop of an increasingly impoverished community beset by drugs and crime.. Boyle first broke the story in 1988 and stayed with it for decades.

January 12, 2023 Show

Matthew Gentile

In a command appearance, we welcome Matthew Gentile, screenwriter and director to discuss his movie, American Murderer. The thriller is based on the true story of Jason Derek Brown, elusive con man wanted by the FBI after hatching his most elaborate scheme yet. Brown has been on the run for 15 years. The movie stars Ryan Phillippe, Tom Phelphrey and Idina Menzel. We will be discussing movie making, as well as Brown's story brought to the big screen.

Marla Bernard

talks about her book, Precious Few Clues: The True Crime Investigation of Kansas City's "Precious Doe" Murder. On an unseasonably warm April evening in 2001, the headless body of a tiny girl was found discarded in a makeshift dump site in the woods on the southeast side of Kansas City, Missouri. In Precious Few Clues, Marla Bernard provides a candid and touching account of the painful impact that this brutal murder had on Sgt. Bernard, his family, and the KCPD's 1020 squad. It chronicles the all too frequent story of child abuse, failed social services, a flawed court system, and battered women who sacrificed their own children to shield their abusive lovers, echoing the same preposterous explanations of "...but I love him"

Jo Thomas

discusses her memoir: Striving: Adventures of a Female Journalist, a True Story. New York Times journalist Jo Thomas' career is amazing. It begins with a plane crash and continues in ruined neighborhoods in Ohio. She undertakes a terrifying investigation of the underworld and the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa on the docks of Detroit. She visits the office of a scientist in New Orleans who did covert experiments for the CIA. She walks the streets of Havana as thousands depart for Miami during the Mariel boatlift. She is in Northern Ireland to investigate undercover police and army shootings during the Troubles. And she is at white right-wing enclaves in the American heartland after the Oklahoma City bombing. Jo Thomas' story speaks to the importance of journalism and the struggles of women in the workplace.

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Jerry Hester

talks about his book, Mafia Miami: FBI Politics and How an Investigation Was Nearly Sabotaged. We will talk about the challenges, twists and turns, and inevitable administrative roadblocks one encounters while running a high-profile and complex FBI investigation. Interwoven throughout Hester's story are highlights of key bureaucratic changes driven by culture and policy that took place within the FBI at the time. We will also talk about how those changes had a negative impact on not only the Paesan Blues investigation, the heart of the book, but also the entire future of the FBI's effectiveness and reputation.

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Maureen Boyle

discusses her book Child Last Seen: The Search for Patty Desmond. The year was 1965. In an unseasonably warm winter evening in Pennsylvania, 15-year-old Patty Desmond sneaked out through the basement of her house. She had a history of running away, and that, combined with an argument with her mother, gave police reason to suspect she'd come home in a week or two. That night was the last time her family ever saw her. Conrad Eugene Miller was well-known to local law enforcement. An older married man with a child, Miller's association with Patty was questionable at best. Yet he was the last person known to have seen her alive—and the suspect police continued to circle back toward. After nothing but false sightings and rumors, the case was moved to the backburner—where it stayed. As decades crept by, reality sunk in: Patty Desmond was never coming back. Then, a tiny crack unleashed a flood of information, and a mystery long kept unraveled.

Nick Parisi

to discusses his book, Mafia Confession: King of the Bootleggers. Mafia Confession is a rare inside account of the rise of the "Springfield Crew" in Massachusetts, its ties with the Genovese Crime Family of New York, and its evolution into the present-day Mob. The crime story is from the personal diary of a man sitting in his jail cell awaiting trial. The electrifying trial itself had over 2,000 people huddled around the courthouse, awaiting every word uttered from within by Parisi's defense attorney, the future Governor of Massachusetts.

Command Appearance

December 8, 2022 Show

Bob Batchelor

discusses his book, Road house Blues: Morrison, The Doors and the Death Days of the Sixties. In Roadhouse Blues.

Burl Barer