Download or read book The Man They Could Not Hang written by Mike Holgate and published by . This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Lee is the most infamous Victorian criminal after Jack the Ripper. Found guilty of the murder of his employer, he was sent for execution but three times the trap failed to open. Released from gaol after 23 years, he married, then abandoned his family and disappeared. This text pieces together his story, reviewing and presenting new evidence.

Download or read book John Lee the man they could not hang written by Clifford Lee and Derek Lee and published by www.lulu.com. This book was released on 2015-11-08 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using contemporary newspaper reports, letters and other documents, this book reveals the story of an horrific murder and the infamous attempts to hang John Lee for the crime. The book has a special focus on the letters of Stephen Bryan, who campaigned not only for the benefit of John Lee, but many others. Tragically, most of his activities have been forgotten, although his reputation lasted a long time after his death at the local level.

Download or read book Ugly Prey written by Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2017-05-01 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ugly Prey tells the riveting story of poor Italian immigrant Sabella Nitti, the first woman ever sentenced to hang in Chicago, in 1923, for the alleged murder of her husband. Journalist Emilie Le Beau Lucchesi leads readers through the case, showing how, with no evidence and no witnesses, Nitti was the target of an obsessed deputy sheriff and the victim of a faulty legal system. She was also—to the men who convicted her and reporters fixated on her—ugly. For that unforgiveable crime, the media painted her as a hideous, dirty, and unpredictable immigrant, almost an animal. Featuring two other fascinating women—the ambitious and ruthless journalist who helped demonize Sabella through her reports and the brilliant, beautiful, 23-year-old lawyer who helped humanize her with a jailhouse makeover—Ugly Prey is not just a page-turning courtroom drama but also a thought-provoking look at the intersection of gender, ethnicity, and class within the American justice system.

Download or read book A Hanging written by George Orwell and published by . This book was released on 2023-09-17 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: George Orwell set out 'to make political writing into an art', and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels of all time, this new series of his essays seeks to bring his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. A Hanging, the ninth in the Orwell's Essays series, tells the story of the execution of an unnamed convict in Burma. With the veracity of the story unknown, but thought to be loosely based on Orwell's own experiences in Burma, the haunting tale leaves the reader contemplating the heavy topic of colonialism, and the right of one to take the life of another.

Download or read book Before They Are Hanged written by Joe Abercrombie and published by Orbit. This book was released on 2015-09-08 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second novel in the wildly popular First Law Trilogy from New York Times bestseller Joe Abercrombie. Superior Glokta has a problem. How do you defend a city surrounded by enemies and riddled with traitors, when your allies can by no means be trusted, and your predecessor vanished without a trace? It's enough to make a torturer want to run -- if he could even walk without a stick. Northmen have spilled over the border of Angland and are spreading fire and death across the frozen country. Crown Prince Ladisla is poised to drive them back and win undying glory. There is only one problem -- he commands the worst-armed, worst-trained, worst-led army in the world. And Bayaz, the First of the Magi, is leading a party of bold adventurers on a perilous mission through the ruins of the past. The most hated woman in the South, the most feared man in the North, and the most selfish boy in the Union make a strange alliance, but a deadly one. They might even stand a chance of saving mankind from the Eaters -- if they didn't hate each other quite so much. Ancient secrets will be uncovered. Bloody battles will be won and lost. Bitter enemies will be forgiven -- but not before they are hanged. First Law Trilogy The Blade Itself Before They Are Hanged Last Argument of Kings For more from Joe Abercrombie, check out: Novels in the First Law world Best Served Cold The Heroes Red Country

Download or read book Last Woman Hanged written by Caroline Overington and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-11-01 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two husbands, four trials and one bloody execution: Winner of the 2015 Davitt Award for Best Crime Book (Non-fiction) -- the terrible true story of Louisa Collins. In January 1889, Louisa Collins, a 41-year-old mother of ten children, became the first woman hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol and the last woman hanged in New South Wales. Both of Louisa's husbands had died suddenly and the Crown, convinced that Louisa poisoned them with arsenic, put her on trial an extraordinary four times in order to get a conviction, to the horror of many in the legal community. Louisa protested her innocence until the end. Much of the evidence against Louisa was circumstantial. Some of the most important testimony was given by her only daughter, May, who was just 10-years-old when asked to take the stand. Louisa Collins was hanged at a time when women were in no sense equal under the law -- except when it came to the gallows. They could not vote or stand for parliament -- or sit on juries. Against this background, a small group of women rose up to try to save Louisa's life, arguing that a legal system comprised only of men -- male judges, all-male jury, male prosecutor, governor and Premier -- could not with any integrity hang a woman. The tenacity of these women would not save Louisa but it would ultimately carry women from their homes all the way to Parliament House. Caroline Overington is the author of eleven books of fiction and non-fiction, including the top-selling THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY psychological crime novel. She has said: 'My hope is that LAST WOMAN HANGED will be read not only as a true crime story but as a letter of profound thanks to that generation of women who fought so hard for the rights we still enjoy today.' Praise for LAST WOMAN HANGED 'The story she tells ... is a useful challenge to any tendency to simple moral indignation' -- Beverley Kingston, Sydney Morning Herald 'This is a fascinating book, a terrific read, and an excellent reminder of who tells the stories, and whose stories are forgotten' -- Frances Rand, South Coast Register '... what's ... interesting is Caroline Overington's even-handed appraisal of Collins's alleged crime(s) that led her to become the last woman hanged in New South Wales in 1889' -- Launceston Sunday Examiner

Download or read book Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby written by Donald Barthelme and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2011-02-15 with total page 69 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'I said that although hanging Colby was almost certainly against the law, we had a perfect moral right to do so because he was our friend, belonged to us in various important senses, and he had after all gone too far.' Donald Barthelme is a puckish player with language, a writer of short but endlessly rewarding comic gems, a thinker and an experimenter. In these nine short stories, whether writing about a hairy, donkeyish king or a touching, private gesture of city-sized proportions, his is a surreal, deadpan genius. This book includes Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby, The Glass Mountain, I Bought a Little City, The Palace at Four A.M., Chablis, The School, Margins, Game and The Balloon.

Download or read book Justice on Fire written by J. Patrick O'Connor and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2018-08-21 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On the night of November 29, 1988, near the impoverished Marlborough neighborhood in south Kansas City, an explosion at a construction site killed six of the city’s firefighters. It was a clear case of arson, and five people from Marlborough were duly convicted of the crime. But for veteran crime writer and crusading editor J. Patrick O’Connor, the facts—or a lack of them—didn’t add up. Justice on Fire is O’Connor’s detailed account of the terrible explosion that led to the firefighters’ deaths and the terrible injustice that followed. Justice on Fire describes a misguided eight-year investigation propelled by an overzealous Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agent keen to retire; a mistake-riddled case conducted by a combative assistant US attorney willing to use compromised “snitch” witnesses and unwilling to admit contrary evidence; and a sentence of life without parole pronounced by a prosecution-favoring judge. In short, an abuse of government power and a travesty of justice. O’Connor’s own investigation, which uncovered evidence of witness tampering, intimidation, and prosecutorial misconduct, helped give rise to a front-page series of articles in the Kansas City Star—only to prompt a whitewashing inquiry by the Department of Justice that exonerated the lead ATF agent and named other possible perpetrators who remain unidentified and unindicted. O’Connor extends his scrutiny to this cover-up and arrives at a startling conclusion suggesting that the case of the Marlborough Five is far from closed. Journalists are not supposed to make the news. But faced with a gross injustice, and seeing no other remedy, O’Connor felt he must step in. Justice on Fire is such an intervention.

Download or read book Australian Film 1900 1977 a Guide to Feature Film Production written by Andrew Pike and published by . This book was released on with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book I Know This Much Is True written by Wally Lamb and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-06-03 with total page 884 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With his stunning debut novel, She's Come Undone, Wally Lamb won the adulation of critics and readers with his mesmerizing tale of one woman's painful yet triumphant journey of self-discovery. Now, this brilliantly talented writer returns with I Know This Much Is True, a heartbreaking and poignant multigenerational saga of the reproductive bonds of destruction and the powerful force of forgiveness. A masterpiece that breathtakingly tells a story of alienation and connection, power and abuse, devastation and renewal--this novel is a contemporary retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. A proud king must confront his demons to achieve salvation. Change yourself, the myth instructs, and you will inhabit a renovated world. When you're the same brother of a schizophrenic identical twin, the tricky thing about saving yourself is the blood it leaves on your bands--the little inconvenience of the look-alike corpse at your feet. And if you're into both survival of the fittest and being your brother's keeper--if you've promised your dying mother--then say so long to sleep and hello to the middle of the night. Grab a book or a beer. Get used to Letterman's gap-toothed smile of the absurd, or the view of the bedroom ceiling, or the influence of random selection. Take it from a godless insomniac. Take it from the uncrazy twin--the guy who beat the biochemical rap. Dominick Birdsey's entire life has been compromised and constricted by anger and fear, by the paranoid schizophrenic twin brother he both deeply loves and resents, and by the past they shared with their adoptive father, Ray, a spit-and-polish ex-Navy man (the five-foot-six-inch sleeping giant who snoozed upstairs weekdays in the spare room and built submarines at night), and their long-suffering mother, Concettina, a timid woman with a harelip that made her shy and self-conscious: She holds a loose fist to her face to cover her defective mouth--her perpetual apology to the world for a birth defect over which she'd had no control. Born in the waning moments of 1949 and the opening minutes of 1950, the twins are physical mirror images who grow into separate yet connected entities: the seemingly strong and protective yet fearful Dominick, his mother's watchful "monkey"; and the seemingly weak and sweet yet noble Thomas, his mother's gentle "bunny." From childhood, Dominick fights for both separation and wholeness--and ultimately self-protection--in a house of fear dominated by Ray, a bully who abuses his power over these stepsons whose biological father is a mystery. I was still afraid of his anger but saw how he punished weakness--pounced on it. Out of self-preservation I hid my fear, Dominick confesses. As for Thomas, he just never knew how to play defense. He just didn't get it. But Dominick's talent for survival comes at an enormous cost, including the breakup of his marriage to the warm, beautiful Dessa, whom he still loves. And it will be put to the ultimate test when Thomas, a Bible-spouting zealot, commits an unthinkable act that threatens the tenuous balance of both his and Dominick's lives. To save himself, Dominick must confront not only the pain of his past but the dark secrets he has locked deep within himself, and the sins of his ancestors--a quest that will lead him beyond the confines of his blue-collar New England town to the volcanic foothills of Sicily 's Mount Etna, where his ambitious and vengefully proud grandfather and a namesake Domenico Tempesta, the sostegno del famiglia, was born. Each of the stories Ma told us about Papa reinforced the message that he was the boss, that he ruled the roost, that what he said went. Searching for answers, Dominick turns to the whispers of the dead, to the pages of his grandfather's handwritten memoir, The History of Domenico Onofrio Tempesta, a Great Man from Humble Beginnings. Rendered with touches of magic realism, Domenico's fablelike tale--in which monkeys enchant and religious statues weep--becomes the old man's confession--an unwitting legacy of contrition that reveals the truth's of Domenico's life, Dominick learns that power, wrongly used, defeats the oppressor as well as the oppressed, and now, picking through the humble shards of his deconstructed life, he will search for the courage and love to forgive, to expiate his and his ancestors' transgressions, and finally to rebuild himself beyond the haunted shadow of his twin. Set against the vivid panoply of twentieth-century America and filled with richly drawn, memorable characters, this deeply moving and thoroughly satisfying novel brings to light humanity's deepest needs and fears, our aloneness, our desire for love and acceptance, our struggle to survive at all costs. Joyous, mystical, and exquisitely written, I Know This Much Is True is an extraordinary reading experience that will leave no reader untouched.

Download or read book Diary of an Oxygen Thief written by Anonymous and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-05-23 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hurt people hurt people. Say there was a novel in which Holden Caulfield was an alcoholic and Lolita was a photographer’s assistant and, somehow, they met in Bright Lights, Big City. He’s blinded by love. She by ambition. Diary of an Oxygen Thief is an honest, hilarious, and heartrending novel, but above all, a very realistic account of what we do to each other and what we allow to have done to us.

Download or read book Harnessing the Power of the Criminal Corpse written by Sarah Tarlow and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-05-17 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book is the culmination of many years of research on what happened to the bodies of executed criminals in the past. Focusing on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it looks at the consequences of the 1752 Murder Act. These criminal bodies had a crucial role in the history of medicine, and the history of crime, and great symbolic resonance in literature and popular culture. Starting with a consideration of the criminal corpse in the medieval and early modern periods, chapters go on to review the histories of criminal justice, of medical history and of gibbeting under the Murder Act, and ends with some discussion of the afterlives of the corpse, in literature, folklore and in contemporary medical ethics. Using sophisticated insights from cultural history, archaeology, literature, philosophy and ethics as well as medical and crime history, this book is a uniquely interdisciplinary take on a fascinating historical phenomenon.

Download or read book The Man Who Invented the Calendar written by B. J. Novak and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2014-04-03 with total page 19 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Man Who Invented the Calendar provides a taster of the darkly hilarious treasures that can be found in B. J. Novak's One More Thing. We'll meet a vengeance-minded hare, obsessed with scoring a rematch against the tortoise who ruined his life; find out how February got its name; and learn the truth about the icing on carrot cake.

Download or read book The Ballad of Reading Gaol written by Oscar Wilde and published by . This book was released on 1928 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book They Can Only Hang You Once written by Dashiell Hammett, and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-01-17 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The last of Hammett's three short stories featuring private detective Sam Spade

Download or read book Hang the Little Man written by John Creasey and published by House of Stratus. This book was released on 2014-04-22 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Masked raiders are attacking small shops all over London. Owners fear for their lives and the situation is getting out of hand as one store after another is robbed. Each raid appears to be faultlessly timed? It is up to Chief Inspector Roger West of Scotland Yard to root out the truth.

Download or read book The Man They Couldn t Hang written by Michael Crowley and published by Waterside Press. This book was released on 2010-09-01 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A play in two Acts with an Introduction by the author. The story of John 'Babbacombe' Lee is one of the most bizarre in English criminal history. Lee is the only person to have been reprieved by a Home Secretary after standing on a gallows trap which failed to open. This happened at Exeter Prison in 1885 when the notoriously inept public hangman James Berry gave up after three abortive attempts. Lee spent 22 years in prison before being released. On retirement, Berry from Heckmondwike, Yorkshire, who carried out 134 executions, was the first executioner to write about his experiences in My Experiences As An Executioner. His resulting celebrity led to him taking to the boards, spinning gruesome tales of his former trade and showing audiences his dark souvenirs. Michael Crowley's imaginative play is set in a down-at-heel northern music hall where the proprietor is bent on reviving the venue's glory days by persuading the now released Lee to team up with Berry in a double act. Did John Lee commit the murder for which he was due to hang? Did poetic justice intervene on that fateful day in Exeter to prevent a miscarriage of justice? Will Lee stand on the scaffold once again with the noose around his neck, on stage and for the paying public? And will the truth come out or not as Lee begins to confide in the woman designated as leading lady during rehearsals? 'The Man They Couldn't Hang' by prison writer in residence Michael Crowley is an ideal vehicle for raising issues of crime and punishment. It will be particularly useful for drama groups in and out of prison, and tutors or group leaders seeking innovative ways of involving those they work with in issues of criminal justice and crime and punishment. The play is also suitable for full-scale drama productions.