Books like The Lufthansa heist by Hill, Henry

An intimate biography that explores the inner workings of the Mafia through real case studies, revealing the brutal realities and magnetic allure of organized crime.

In the 1960s, Joseph Valachi, a former Genovese family soldier, broke the Mafia’s code of silence, revealing the organization’s inner workings and leading to the arrest of major crime figures.

"The startling and sensational true story of the most famous unsolved heist in American history: the theft of $28 million in jewels from the Pierre Hotel. New York City, 1972: Bobby Comfort and Sammy "the Arab" Nalo were highly skilled jewel thieves who specialized in robbing luxury Manhattan hotels. (They once raided Sophia Loren's suite, escaping with over $1 million in gems.) With the blessing of the Lucchese crime family, they cooked up their target: the posh Pierre Hotel, host to kings and queens, presidents, and the wealthiest of the wealthy. Dressed in tuxedoes and driven in a limousine, the band of thieves arrived at the Pierre and--with near-balletic choreography--seized the security guards and then swiftly took as hostages the night staff and several unfortunate guests who happened to be roaming around the lobby. The deposit boxes inside the vault chamber were plundered and, after holding the Pierre under siege for almost two hours, the gentlemanly thieves then departed in their limousine with a haul of $28 million. It looked like the perfect crime--until it wasn't. In no time at all, Comfort, Nalo, and their partners begin to double and triple cross one another; two absconded to Europe with the bulk of the booty, while three were murdered by their former associates. The authorities immediately suspected Comfort and Nalo of masterminding the Pierre affair and the men were arrested, but the veteran criminals weren't talking. Furthermore, in order to ensure that they were not prosecuted, the Lucchese Family funneled a $250,000 bribe to the presiding judge to quash the charges. To this day The Pierre Hotel caper remains unsolved. A suspenseful narrative of Mafia intrigue, police corruption, and personal betrayal--including a poignant love story that mearly ends in a suicide-homicide--[this] is the incredible true tale of one of the greatest heists in American history."--Jacket.

Unveiling the Shadows of Organized Crime: The Life of Clyde Smaldone

A bumbling thief, Dortmunder, returns from the wild, sparking a police chase and a series of crimes across the city.

"For six terrifying months in 1911-1912, the citizens of Paris were gripped by a violent crime streak. A group of bandits went on a rampage throughout the city and its suburbs, robbing banks and wealthy Parisians, killing anyone who got in their way, and always managing to stay one step ahead of the police. But Jules Bonnot and the Bonnot Gang weren't just ordinary criminals; they were anarchists, motivated by the rampant inequality and poverty in Paris. John Merriman tells this story through the eyes of two young, idealistic lovers: Victor Kibaltchiche (later the famed Russian revolutionary and writer Victor Serge) and Rirette Maîtrejean, who chronicled the Bonnot crime spree in the radical newspaper L'Anarchie. While wealthy Parisians frequented restaurants on the Champs-Élysées, attended performances at the magnificent new opera house, and enjoyed the decadence of the so-called Belle Époque, Victor, Rirette, and their friends occupied a vast sprawl of dank apartments, bleak canals, and smoky factories. Victor and Rirette rejected the violence of Bonnot and his cronies, but to the police it made no difference. Victor was imprisoned for years for his anarchist beliefs, Bonnot was hunted down and shot dead, and his fellow bandits were sentenced to death by guillotine or lifelong imprisonment. Fast-paced and gripping, Ballad of the Anarchist Bandits is a tale of idealists and lost causes--and a vivid evocation of Paris in the dizzying years before the horrors of World War I were unleashed."--Jacket flaps.

The FBI investigation into a $1 billion drug pipeline, bringing heroin into the U.S. via pizza parlors.

An investigative account of the 1978 Lufthansa Airlines heist, presenting new evidence from the 2015 trial of Mafia boss Vincent Asaro and revealing details about the planning, execution, and aftermath of the largest cash robbery in U.S. history.

An ex-cop, John Dortmunder, reluctantly joins the criminal underworld to recover a stolen treasure, facing impossible odds and a mysterious past.