“This true crime caper by Heidenry . . . of a 1953 Kansas child kidnapping gone bad carries a solid punch.” —Publishers WeeklyIn 1953, six-year-old Bobby Greenlease, the son of a wealthy Kansas City automobile dealer and his wife, was kidnapped from his Roman Catholic elementary school by a woman named Bonnie Heady, a well-scrubbed prostitute who was posing as one of his distant aunts. Her accomplice, Carl Austin Hall, a former playboy who had run through his inheritance and was just out of the Missouri State Penitentiary, was waiting in the getaway car with a gun, a length of rope and a plastic tarp. The two grifters thought they had a plan that would put them on the road to Easy Street; but, actually, they were on a fast-track to the gas chamber.Shortly after they snatched the little boy, the two demanded a ransom of $600,000.00 from the Greenlease family and it was paid; but, Bobby was already dead, shot in the head by Hall and buried in a flower garden behind the couple’s house, exactly where his body was found by police shortly thereafter. The Greenlease ransom was the highest ransom ever paid in the US to that date, and the case held the US transfixed in the same way the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby had done decades earlier.In a bone-chilling account of kidnapping, murder and the dogged pursuit of a child’s killers, John Heidenry crafts a haunting narrative that involves mob boss Joe Costello, a cast of unsavory grifters, hardboiled detectives, and a room at the legendary, but now razed, Coral Court Motel on Route 66. Heady and Hall were apprehended quickly, convicted and executed in a rare double execution in the State of Missouri’s gas chamber on a cold December night not long before Christmas. By that time, little Bobby Greenlease was stone cold in his grave and a fickle America had turned back to its post-War boom. However, one question has never been solved: as Hall was being pursued around Kansas City and St. Louis, half of the ransom was lost and never recovered. Did it end up with the mob via Joe Costello? To this day, no one knows, and dead mob bosses tell no tales.In a book that brings to mind films like Chinatown and Double Indemnity, John Heidenry has written a compelling work that blends true crime and American history to take a close look at one of the United States’ most notorious murders.“Heidenry delivers a lean, mean account. . . . Harsh, chilling, lurid, and gripping.” —Kirkus Reviews

Genghis Khan is one of history's immortals: a leader of genius, driven by an inspiring vision for peaceful world rule. Believing he was divinely protected, Genghis united warring clans to create a nation and then an empire that ran across much of Asia.Under his grandson, Kublai Khan, the vision evolved into a more complex religious ideology, justifying further expansion. Kublai doubled the empire's size until, in the late 13th century, he and the rest of Genghis’s ‘Golden Family’ controlled one fifth of the inhabited world. Along the way, he conquered all China, gave the nation the borders it has today, and then, finally, discovered the limits to growth.Genghis's dream of world rule turned out to be a fantasy. And yet, in terms of the sheer scale of the conquests, never has a vision and the character of one man had such an effect on the world.Charting the evolution of this vision, John Man provides a unique account of the Mongol Empire, from young Genghis to old Kublai, from a rejected teenager to the world’s most powerful emperor.

A COMPELLING LOOK AT THE TURNING POINT OF WORLD WAR II TOLD BY THOSE WHO WATCHED IT UNFOLD.‘A brisk, suspenseful World War II narrative.’ Kirkus Reviews‘Excellent . . . The real strength of his book . . . lies in its taut sense of the wider impact the Japanese attacks had internationally, from Ottawa to Canberra.’ The Christian Science MonitorDecember 7, 1941 — a day that would live in infamy.People all over the world remembered exactly where they were when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. In this fascinating account, Nicholas Best brings to life the recollections of key figures not normally associated with this historical event.Hollywood stars such as Marlene Dietrich and Clark Gable offer a compelling insight into thesocial and cultural impact of American vulnerability.Accounts from future US presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, as well as British officials and Japanese strategists, reveal missed opportunities and intelligence failures.Offering a human insight into an event that would forever alter the course of the conflict, Best brings to life the reactions and memories of people caught up in the whirlwind of war.PRAISE FOR SEVEN DAYS OF INFAMY:????? ‘Informative and wide-ranging view of the perspective of people all over the world on Pearl Harbor. I had no idea that there were actually people who cheered at the news.’ Patricia F.????? ‘This read very easily. I learned many interesting facts about the attack.’ John P.