Long before his finest hour as Britain's wartime leader, Winston Churchill emerged on the world stage as a brazen foreign correspondent, covering wars of empire in Cuba, India, the Sudan, and South Africa. In those far-flung corners of the world, reporting from the front lines between 1895 and 1900, Churchill mastered his celebrated command of language and formed strong opinions about war. He thought little of his own personal safety, so convinced was he of his destiny, jumping at any chance to be where bullets flew and canons roared. "I have faith in my star that I am intended to do something in the world," he wrote to his mother at the age of twenty-three before heading into battle. Based on his private letters and war reportage, Winston Churchill Reporting intertwines young Winston's daring exploits in combat, adventures in distant corners of the globe, and rise as a major literary talent experiences that shaped the world leader he was to become.

Winston Churchill Reporting: Adventures of a Young War Correspondent

Biographies & Memoirs

Read, Simon

Historical

Da Capo

The sea had become a mass grave by 1941 as Hitler's four capital warships--Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Tirpitz, and Bismarck, the largest warship on the ocean--roamed the wind-swept waves, threatening the Allied war effort and sending thousands of men to the icy depths of the North Atlantic. Bristling with guns and steeled in heavy armor, these reapers of the sea could outrun and outgun any battleship in the Allied arsenal. The deadly menace kept Winston Churchill awake at night; he deemed them "targets of supreme consequence." The campaign against Hitler's surface fleet would continue into the dying days of World War II and involve everything from massive warships engaged in bloody, fire-drenched battle to daring commando raids in German occupied harbors. This is the fast-paced story of the Allied bomber crews, brave sailors, and bold commandoes who "sunk the Bismarck" and won a hard-fought victory over Hitler's iron sea. Using official war diaries, combat reports, eyewitness accounts and personal letters, Simon Read brings the action and adventure to vivid life. The result is an enthralling and gripping story of the Allied heroes who fought on a watery battlefield.

The Iron Sea: How the Allies Hunted and Destroyed Hitler's Warships

History

Military

Grand Central Publishing

Describes the brutal 1933 killing of Michael Malloy, a New York City drunk, who was poisoned, run over, and left for dead in the winter weather by a murderous group of conspirators--including a psychotic cabbie, a syphilitic speakeasy owner, and a crooked undertaker--who had taken out an insurance policy on his life. Original.

On the House: The Bizare Killing of Michael Malloy

True Crime

BERKLEY

This terrifying true account takes readers back to the year 1942 where a man, known as the "Blackout Ripper," embarked on a five-day killing spree during the night air raids in London that baffled investigators until a slip-up revealed his true identity, shocking the world. Original.

In the Dark: The True Story of the Blackout Ripper

In March and April of 1944, Gestapo gunmen killed fifty POWs—a brutal act in defiance of international law and the Geneva Convention.This is the true story of the men who hunted them down.
The mass breakout of seventy-six Allied airmen from the infamous Stalag Luft III became one of the greatest tales of World War II, immortalized in the film The Great Escape. But where Hollywood’s depiction fades to black, another incredible story begins . . .
Not long after the escape, fifty of the recaptured airmen were taken to desolate killing fields throughout Germany and shot on the direct orders of Hitler. When the nature of these killings came to light, Churchill’s government swore to pursue justice at any cost. A revolving team of military police, led by squadron leader Francis P. McKenna, was dispatched to Germany seventeen months after the killings to pick up a trail long gone cold.
Amid the chaos of postwar Germany, divided between American, British, French, and Russian occupiers, McKenna and his men brought twenty-one Gestapo killers to justice in a hunt that spanned three years and took them into the darkest realms of Nazi fanaticism.
In Human Game, Simon Read tells this harrowing story as never before. Beginning inside Stalag Luft III and the Nazi High Command, through the grueling three-year manhunt, and into the final close of the case more than two decades later, Read delivers a clear-eyed and meticulously researched account of this often-overlooked saga of hard-won justice.

Human Game: The True Story of the 'Great Escape' Murders and the Hunt for the Gestapo Gunmen

In March and April of 1944, Gestapo gunmen killed fifty POWs—a brutal act in defiance of international law and the Geneva Conventions. This is the true story of the men who hunted them down. The mass breakout of seventy-six Allied airmen from the infamous Stalag Luft III became one of the greatest tales of World War II, immortalized in the film The Great Escape. But where Hollywood’s depiction fades to black, another incredible story begins . . . Not long after the escape, fifty of the recaptured airmen were taken to killing fields throughout Germany and shot on the direct orders of Hitler. When the nature of these killings came to light, Churchill’s government swore to pursue justice at any cost. A revolving team of military police, led by squadron leader Francis P. McKenna, was dispatched to pick up a trail long gone cold. Amid the chaos of postwar Germany, divided between American, British, French, and Russian occupiers, McKenna led a three-year manhunt that brought twenty-one Gestapo killers to justice. In Human Game, Simon Read delivers a clear-eyed and meticulously researched account of this often overlooked saga of hard-won justice. INCLUDES PHOTOS

Europe

Dutton Caliber

Amidst the chaos of wartime London, criminals hunted their prey without fear of reprisal. Many operated under the cover of darkness, emerging when the city sank into the oblivion of its nightly blackout; others simply struck whenever opportunity presented itself. At a time when Londoners were pulling together in the face of terrible adversity, there were an increasing number of looters, racketeers, terrorists, criminal gangs, prostitutes, rapists, and murderers stalking the bomb-ravaged, panic-ridden streets, and this book chronicles the rapid rise of crime throughout this turbulent period. The deprivations of war forced many onto the wrong side of the law, stretching the resources of London’s Metropolitan Police Department to the limit. Air raids and the dangers of patrolling London in the dark cost the police more than one hundred men during World War 2. Petrol rationing and mandatory radio silence placed limits on the department’s mobility and communications.

Dark City: Crime in Wartime London

Ian Allen Pub

There was more to wartime London than stiff upper lips and rousing choruses of 'Roll Out the Barrel'. Criminals hunted their prey without fear of reprisal. Many operated under the cover of darkness, emerging when the city sank into the oblivion of its nightly blackout. Others simply struck whenever opportunity presented itself. At a time when Londoners were pulling together in the face of terrible adversity, there were an increasing number of looters, racketeers, terrorists, criminal gangs, prostitutes, rapists and murderers stalking the bomb-ravaged, panic-ridden streets, and Dark City chronicles the rapid rise of crime throughout this turbulent period. Indeed, wartime London was a criminal's paradise. The number of bodies being retrieved during the Blitz made it virtually impossible for authorities to perform autopsies on all of them. The question soon arose: who were the victims of bombings, and who had simply been murdered? Award-winning crime writer Simon Read paints a vivid picture of what life was really like in 1940s London, and profiles the crimes of its most notorious perpetrators, including the Blackout Ripper, Chicago Joe, the Elephant Boys, and the infamous Rillington Place Murderer, John Reginald Christie.

Dark City

The History Press

The first book to examine the last ritual witchcraft murder in Britain On Wednesday, February 14, 1945, the body of Charles Walton was discovered beneath a willow tree in the sleepy village of Lower Quinton, his torso pinned to the ground by a pitchfork that had been viciously driven through him. Walton, a life-long resident of the town and a retired laborer, was believed by many to be a clairvoyant who could talk to birds and exercise control over animals. Indeed, with the vast majority of villagers believing that Walton's death was carried out according to ritual witchcraft, such was his unusual past, the most famous police officer in Britain, Robert Fabian (Fabian of the Yard), was promptly dispatched by Scotland Yard to help solve this increasingly peculiar and foreboding mystery. Fabian was not a man prone to superstition and he had dealt with some of the most notorious killers of his time. However, there was something in the Walton murder that proved to be unnerving. Moreover, with all the clues continuing to point towards ritual witchcraft as the modus operandi and faced by a wall of silence from the villagers, Fabian faced, for the first time in his glittering career, the daunting prospect of failure.

The Case that Foiled Fabian: Murder and Witchcraft in Rural England

When the news business was literally a matter of life and death
A real-life Barbary Coast, War of Words details the bloody birth of the San Francisco Chronicle, when verbal blows traded between two of the town’s most powerful men escalated into violence on the streets of 1880s San Francisco. 
Gun-toting newspaper publisher Charles de Young won circulation wars by spilling ink that destroyed political candidates he didn’t likeand Isaac Kalloch, a hellfire preacher whose lust for the ladies equaled his craving to be mayor, was an obvious target. First angry words flew, then bullets, when de Young ambushed Kalloch and shot him. Miraculously, Kalloch survived and won the election, only to see his son enact revenge on his behalf five months later by walking into the newsroom and fatally shooting de Young. The trial lasted 28 days, featured over 200 witnesses and made headlines coast to coast. The verdict? Not guilty, by reason of justifiable homicide.”
This sensational tale of sex, murder, and muckraking enthralled San Franciscans and is sure to captivate modern readers as well.

War of Words: A True Tale of Newsprint and Murder

Union Square Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Read, Simon. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Read, Simon

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Read, Simon. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Winston Churchill Reporting: Adventures of a Young War Correspondent

The Iron Sea: How the Allies Hunted and Destroyed Hitler's Warships

On the House: The Bizare Killing of Michael Malloy

In the Dark: The True Story of the Blackout Ripper

Human Game: The True Story of the 'Great Escape' Murders and the Hunt for the Gestapo Gunmen

Human Game: The True Story of the 'Great Escape' Murders and the Hunt for the Gestapo Gunmen

Dark City: Crime in Wartime London

Dark City

The Case that Foiled Fabian: Murder and Witchcraft in Rural England

War of Words: A True Tale of Newsprint and Murder