In 1919, a Canadian teenager with a sixth-grade education arrived by train to the wilds of Los Angeles. Within a decade he had transformed himself into a world-renowned luminary and occult scholar. His name was Manly Palmer Hall, author of the landmark encyclopedia The Secret Teachings of All Ages and the 20th century's most prolific writer and speaker on ancient philosophies, mysticism, and magic. Hall revealed to thousands how universal wisdom could be found in the myths and symbols of the ancient Western mystery teachings. He amassed the largest occult library west of the Mississippi and founded The Philosophical Research Society in 1934 for the purpose of providing seekers rare access to the world's wisdom literature. He became a confidante and friend to celebrities and politicians. In 1990, he died - some say he was killed - in what remains an open-ended Hollywood murder mystery. This dramatic story of Hall's life and death provides a panorama of twentieth century mysticism and an insider's view into a subculture that continues to have a profound influence on movies, television, music, books, art, and thought.

"The tragedy of Tupac is that his untimely passing is representative of too many young black men in this country....If we had lost Oprah Winfrey at 25, we would have lost a relatively unknown, local market TV anchorwoman. If we had lost Malcolm X at 25, we would have lost a hustler nicknamed Detroit Red. And if I had left the world at 25, we would have lost a big-band trumpet player and aspiring composer--just a sliver of my eventual life potential." From the Foreword by Quincy Jones The real story of Tupac's murder may not ever emerge. This may be the only lasting testament to the many faces of Tupac Shakur--of a life lived fast and hard, of a man cloaked in contradictions. A young man who was just starting to come into his own. "I believe that everything you do bad comes back to you. So everything that I do that's bad, I'm going to suffer for it. But in my heart, I believe what I'm doing is right. So I feel like I'm going to heaven." Tupac Shakur, June 1996

The infamous Suge Knight, former Death Row Records CEO, and Keffe D are the only living eyewitnesses to the deadly confrontation on the Las Vegas strip between the occupants of our two vehicles. A violent confrontation that led to the deaths of two of Hip-Hop's biggest stars (Tupac Shakur & Christopher 'Notorious B.I.G.' Wallace) and changed Hip-Hop history forever. There's a strict code on the streets. One that real street players live, kill, and die by. Compton Street Legend reveals the street-level code violations and the explosive consequences when the powerful worlds of the streets, entertainment, and corrupt law enforcement collide. More than twenty years after the premature deaths of Tupac and Biggie there have been numerous TV specials, documentaries, books, magazine and newspaper, and social media dedicated to the subject. But at the end of the day, none of the private investigators, retired police officers, informants, Hip-Hop heads, actors, or academics that have weighed in on the topic truly know what happened and the reasons behind it, because none of them were there. Duane 'Keffe D' Davis, a native of Compton, California, admittedly lived most of his life as a gangster; a real gangster that did the shit that real gangsters do. He rose up the gang-banging ranks to become a shot-caller for the notorious Southside Compton Crips, while running a multi-million dollar, multi-state drug empire. Keffe D has been a central figure in both the Tupac Shakur and Biggie murders for the past 20 years. COMPTON STREET LEGEND will add valuable information about two of the biggest "unsolved" crimes in American history. It will serve as the missing piece of the puzzle that Hip-Hop Fans have been waiting for. On the surface, COMPTON STREET LEGEND will look like a story based on violence and hate, it is actually a story about Love, Family, Brotherhood, Loyalty, Trust, and Honor. It's time to set the story straight. Fasten your seatbelts.

Bestselling author David Dalton goes in seach of the real Bob Dylan in an electrifying biography that puts all the others in the shade. As an artist Bob Dylan has been a major force for half a century. As a musical influence he is without equal. Yet as a man he has always acted like an outlaw on the run, constantly seeking to cover his tracks by confounding investigators with a dizzying array of aliases, impersonations, tall tales and downright lies. David Dalton presents Dylan's extraordinary life in such a way that his subject's techniques for hiding in full sight are gradually exposed for what they are, Despite the changing images, the spiritual body swerves, the manipulative nature and the occasionally baffling lurches between making sublime music and self-indulgent whimsy, the real Bob Dylan has never been more visible. Among the eyewitnesses cited are Marianne Faithful, Allen Ginsberg, Andy Warhol, Larry 'Ratso' Sloman, Nat Hentoff, Suze Rotolo and many more. Yet in the end it is Dalton's impressive ability to find revealing patterns in Dylan's multiple disguises that reveals more than we ever expected to learn about the real man behind the Dylan legend.

THE BLACK HAND is the true story of Rene Enriquez, aka "Boxer," and his rise in a secret criminal organization, a new Mafia, that already has a grip on all organized crime in California and soon all of the United States. This Mafia is using a base army of an estimated 60,000 heavily armed, loyal Latino gang members, called Surenos, driven by fear and illicit profits. They are the most dangerous gang in American history and they wave the flag of the Black Hand. Mafioso Enriquez gives an insider′s view of how he devoted his life to the cause--the Mexican Mafia, La Familia Mexicana, also known as La Eme--only to find betrayal and disillusionment at the end of a bloody trail of violence that he followed for two decades. And now, award-winning investigative journalist Chris Blatchford, with the unprecedented cooperation of Rene Enriquez, reveals the inner workings, secret meetings, and elaborate murder plots that make up the daily routine of the Mafia brothers. It is an intense, never-before-told story of a man who devoted his life to a bloody cause only to find betrayal and disillusionment. Based on years of research and investigation, Chris Blatchford has delivered a historic narrative of a nefarious organization that will go down as a classic in mob literature.

By turns harrowing, moving, and ultimately redemptive, this is a war story -- a war that rages out of control on the streets of the United States, claiming the lives of our loved ones and neighbors. In this memoir, complete with child soldiers, unspeakable violence, and eventual salvation, we witness the journey of an East Coast member of the notorious Bloods gang coming to terms with the lost boy he was and the transformation into the man he wants to become. Unlike the child warriors of Mozambique and Sierra Leone, gang members and the wars they wage are the United States' homegrown nightmare. Lacking protection, support, or any alternatives, Dashaun Morris is forced into battle for the first time at age eleven, in the streets of Phoenix, when a friend's older brothers put him in a car filled with 40s and weed smoke, put a gun in his hands, then make him point it at the men on the corner and squeeze the trigger. The targets are Crips, of course, and, as Morris writes, "In the darkness of the streets, my childhood is murdered.... I am reborn -- a gangster." In this haunting, violent memoir, Morris takes us through an American childhood turned grotesquely inside out. In the fourth grade, he loses his first friend in a drive-by shooting. By high school he is the man, a champion on the football field by day and a reputable banger on his 'hood turf by night. Living the life of a gang banger, Morris does it all -- drug dealing, jacking, and continuing the aimless war with rival gang members -- almost opening fire one night on a close friend, a cheerleader, as she hangs out with young men he mistakes for Crips. He eventually makes it to college on a football scholarship, but on the verge of being drafted by the NFL, Morris can't escape his gang-banging mentality and gets caught up in crimes that snatch away all future hopes. Sitting in a prison cell, he anticipates the birth of his first child while counting the friends he's buried. War of the Bloods in My Veins is part of Morris's redemption, a cry to his brothers that gang life is mental illness. It is a rare and brutally honest look into the relentless storm of abandonment, violence, crime, death, and the endless rush toward the complete and utter self-annihilation that plagues the lives of the young "soldiers" who die every day in our streets.