Hitmen for Hire takes the reader on a journey like no other, navigating a world of paid hitmen, informers, rogue policemen, criminal taxi bosses, gang leaders, and crooked politicians and businessmen. Criminologist Mark Shaw examines a society in which contract killings have become commonplace, looking at who arranges hits, where to find a hitman, and even what it is like to operate as a hitman – or woman. Since 1994, South Africa has seen a worrying increase in the commercialisation of murder – and has been rocked by several high-profile contract killings. Drawing on his research of over a thousand incidents of hired assassinations, from 2000 to 2016, Shaw reveals how these murders are used to exert a mafia-type control over the country's legal and illegal economic activity. Contracted assassinations, and the organised criminal activity behind them, contain sinister linkages with the upperworld, most visibly in relation to disputes over tenders and access to government resources. State security actors increasingly mediate relations between the under and upper worlds, with serious implications for the long-term success of the post-apartheid democratic project.

The No 1 Bestseller! 'A triumph' Nicola Tallant, Sunday World Crime World podcast 'An incredible catalogue of mayhem ... amazing' Pat Kenny, Newstalk 'Riveting' Irish Times Meet the Wilsons - the deadliest family in crime Brothers Eric, Keith and John Wilson, their cousin Alan, and nephew Luke shared a trade - assassination. Working for Ireland's criminal gangs they brought bloodshed and chaos to the streets. The Wilsons were not choosy about their targets. Hutches, Real IRA chiefs or random opponents from pub rows - they were all the same to them. Nor were they picky about motives - as long as the price was right, they asked no questions. The Hitmen is the shocking story of how a family cornered the market in intimidation and vengeance. It details the terrible cost in human suffering, particularly the death of an innocent teenage girl, Mariaora Rostas, when she randomly crossed their path. And it reveals how, one by one, each of the Wilsons was put out of business. The Hitmen draws on exclusive access to wire taps, case files and interviews with sources close to the gang who have never spoken before. No 1 bestselling authors Stephen Breen and Owen Conlon have written an extraordinary account of a family business like no other.

Perkins, a former chief economist at a Boston strategic-consulting firm, confesses he was an "economic hit man" for 10 years, helping U.S. intelligence agencies and multinationals cajole and blackmail foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and awarding lucrative contracts to American business.

The unbelievable account of life as a hitman from a man who has been doing it for decades Hitmen commit heinous crimes virtually every day of the week and, in most instances, we don’t even realize. He’s been a killer for hire for more than twenty years now, but life as a fulltime professional assassin has never been easy. There have been close calls, failed attempts and a lot of looking over his shoulder. And now, he has decided to come clean and seek atonement for his life as a murderer and one of the most covertly dangerous men alive. An account of a life lived between our world and a shadowy underworld of criminals, a life lived under the radar of the law, a life lived in death. This is the true story of a hitman.

Rex Feral kills for hire. Some consider him a criminal. Others think him a hero. In truth, he is a lethal weapon aimed at those he hunts. He is a last recourse in these times when laws are so twisted that justice goes unserved. He is a man who feels no twinge of guilt at doing his job. He is a professional killer. Learn how a pro gets assignments, creates a false identity, maizes a disposable silencer, leaves the scene without a trace, watches his mark unobserved and more. Feral reveals how to get in, do the job and get out without getting caught.

The powerful true-life story of a Brazilian boy who could have been a fisherman but instead became the biggest professional killer known to the world--soon to be a major motion picture. Julio Santana as seen through the eyes of acclaimed investigative reporter Klester Cavalcanti is not a monster--he is a loyal son, a family man, a devout Christian who is tormented by his conscience with every shot. But in a cruel and lawless area of Brazil, where every life has its price, respect for life is a luxury that he can't afford. Trained by his uncle, an assassin, and initiated in murder at 17 years of age, Santana proved to be a natural. Without moralizing about mass murderer, The Name of Death attempts to show how such a career can be not so very different from other ordinary working lives. The portrait that emerges in this riveting narrative, based on seven years of phone conversations between Cavalcanti and Santana, is not only that of a man but also that of a country. Describing in detail only a handful of the almost 500 murders Santana carried out, Cavalcanti reveals just how lawless much of the interior of Brazil has been for the past 50 years. The state, the police, and the security forces play almost no part in establishing the rule of law--except when they are suppressing the guerrilla threat of the early 1970s. Cavalcanti shows just how easy it is for a boy like Julio to take the law into his own hands, and what a wild place Brazil has been and in many ways continues to be. The Name of Death is being adapted into a major motion picture produced by Fernando Meirelles (director of City of God, Blindness, and The Constant Gardener) and Globo Filmes, for release in Brazil in July 2017 and distribution in the U.S. the following year.

Ten years in the works, a masterpiece of reportage, this is the definitive account of the Columbine massacre, its aftermath, and its significance, from the acclaimed journalist who followed the story from the outset. "The tragedies keep coming. As we reel from the latest horror . . ." So begins a new epilogue, illustrating how Columbine became the template for nearly two decades of "spectacle murders." It is a false script, seized upon by a generation of new killers. In the wake of Newtown, Aurora, and Virginia Tech, the imperative to understand the crime that sparked this plague grows more urgent every year. What really happened April 20, 1999? The horror left an indelible stamp on the American psyche, but most of what we "know" is wrong. It wasn't about jocks, Goths, or the Trench Coat Mafia. Dave Cullen was one of the first reporters on scene, and spent ten years on this book-widely recognized as the definitive account. With a keen investigative eye and psychological acumen, he draws on mountains of evidence, insight from the world's leading forensic psychologists, and the killers' own words and drawings-several reproduced in a new appendix. Cullen paints raw portraits of two polar opposite killers. They contrast starkly with the flashes of resilience and redemption among the survivors. Expanded with a New Epilogue