True Crime

Fourth Estate, 2000. Mr Kurtz, the colonial white master, brought evil to the remote upper reaches of the Congo River. A century after Conrad's Heart of Darkness was first published, Michela Wrong revisits the Congo as the era of Mobutu Sese Seko collapses into absurdity, anarchy and corruption. This is a brilliant portrait of the grotesque as confusion takes over: pink lipsticked rebel soldiers mingle with tracksuited secret policemen in hotels where fin de siècle dinner parties are ploughing through hotel wine cellars rather than see bottles lost to the new regime. Congo, Africa's richest country in terms of its natural resources, has institutionalised kleptomania: everyone is on the take. In a country where the minimum wage has dropped to below $150 a year, the government, over twenty-five years, spent $250 million providing courtesy cars. | Excellent condition overlarge paperback. Uncreased. Simply shelf wear to edges. Near 'as new' | Photo available on request | I'm an independent seller in Suffolk, UK. I post my sales each working day. Kind regards, Tina - Waveney books. Paperback. Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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Bluecoat Press, 2002 Liverpool Echoes is an intoxicating mix of personal memories and stories from Liverpool’s colourful past. The great and the good are most definitely celebrated here, but infamy, in its many ugly forms, is also here in abundance. Richard Whittington-Egan has always had a fascination for those poisoners, pirates, garrotters, gamblers, cheats and liars who have sought notoriety in the ‘chameleonic city on the water’, and Liverpool Echoes bears all the hallmarks of this literary craftsman. Softcover in very good condition. Uncreased spine, barely creased cover, scuffing to edges. Remains bright, tight and clean. Soft Cover. Very Good. 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall. more information

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Time Warner Paperbacks, 1994 The daughter of the German captain of a luxury cruise liner and an American actress, Marita Lorenz became Fidel Castro's mistress in 1959 when she was 18. She bore Castro's son and was recruited by the CIA to assassinate the Cuban dictator, a task from which she drew back at the very last moment. By then firmly enmeshed in the American intelligence network, she worked for the CIA, often reluctantly, for the next 25 years; among her bosses were E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis. With Sturgis in Dallas on the evening before Jack Kennedy was murdered, she met Jack Ruby and a man she later realized was Lee Harvey Oswald. Now aged 53, Marita tells her story, portraying with passion and candour her relationship with the Venezuelan dictator, Marcos Peres Jiminez, her testimony at the Watergate hearings and her return to Cuba, Castro and her son. | Thickish paperback with photos, very good condition, flaws: very slight creasing and scuffing, pages beginning to yellow | . Paperback. Very Good. 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall. more information

Offered by Waveney Books (United Kingdom)