True Crime Sports

In early 2018, Larry Nassar, the former doctor for USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University, was sentenced to serve out the rest of his life in prison after pleading guilty to a variety of sex crimes. New York Times best-selling author Mary Pilon and Carla Correa chronicle the scandal from its inception, tracking the institutions that Nassar hid behind, the athletic culture that he benefited from, and the women who eventually brought him to justice.

In 2009, Notts County FC were on the brink of bankruptcy when they were taken over by a mysterious company supposedly backed by the Bahraini royal family. The club was promised millions of pounds worth of investment and a list of marquee players, including Sol Campbell and Kasper Schmeichel were signed, in a recruitment drive led by former England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson, who was appointed to take the club all the way to the Premier League.

Lenny McLean was one of the deadliest bareknuckle fighters Britain has ever seen. He had dear, powerful friends, but he also had terrible enemies. So much so that he had two bullet wounds in his back - each from a different attack. He was also stabbed repeatedly - always from behind. But Lenny was also a warm, big-hearted grizzly bear of a man, whose main weakness was an overwhelming desire to put the welfare of his mates ahead of his own wellbeing.

Italy's ultras are the most organised and violent fans in European football. Many groups have evolved into criminal gangs, involved in ticket-touting, drug-dealing and murder. A cross between the Hells Angels and hooligans, they're often the foot-soldiers of the Mafia and have been instrumental in the rise of the far-right. But the purist ultras say that they are insurgents fighting against a police state and modern football. Only amongst the ultras, they say, can you find belonging, community and a sacred concept of sport.

When billions poured into the neglected east London borough hosting the 2012 Olympics, a turf war broke out between crime families for control of a now valuable strip of land. Using violence, guile and corruption, one gangster, the Long Fella, emerged as a true untouchable. A team of local detectives made it their business to take him on until Scotland Yard threw them under the bus and the business of putting on 'the greatest show on earth' won the day.

You may have read Newcastle and Middlesbrough accounts of Lee Duffy; now, for the first time, Paul Venis the actor is set to play Lee in the upcoming Sayers' film. In this audiobook, he speaks on behalf of the South Bank community about their most infamous son. It also includes Paul's own remarkable story: Unbeaten K1 world champion, British, European, and world champion (31 Fights, 31 Wins, 30 KO's).

In 2015, Russia’s Anti-Doping Centre was suspended by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) following revelations of an elaborate state-sponsored doping programme. Involving a nearly undetectable steroid delivery system known as ‘Duchesse cocktail’, tampering and switching of urine samples and a complex state-sanctioned cover-up, the programme was masterminded by Grigory Rodchenkov. The Rodchenkov Affair tells the full, unadulterated story that was first glimpsed in Bryan Fogel’s award-winning documentary and still continues to captivate and shock the world.

Filled with headline-making revelations, The Truth About Aaron is a shocking and moving account of promise, tragedy, and loss - of one man’s descent into rage and violence, as told by the person who knew him more closely than anyone else.

For decades, osteopathic physician Larry Nassar built a sterling reputation as the go-to doctor for America's Olympians while treating countless others at his office on Michigan State University's campus. It was largely within the high-pressure world of competitive gymnastics that Nassar exploited young girls, sexually assaulting hundreds of them under the guise of medical treatment. In Start by Believing, John Barr and Dan Murphy confront Nassar's acts, which represent the largest sex abuse scandal to impact the sporting world.

Joe Simpson, with just his partner Simon Yates, tackled the unclimbed west face of the remote 21,000 foot Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in June of 1995. But before they reached the summit, disaster struck. A few days later, Simon staggered into base camp, exhausted and frostbitten, to tell their non-climbing companion that Joe was dead.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of All-American Murder by James Patterson, read by Peter Coleman. Aaron Hernandez was a college football All-American who became the youngest player in the NFL and later reached the Super Bowl. He was a star on the league-dominant New England Patriots, who extended his contract for a record $40 million. Hernandez’s every move as a professional athlete played out in the headlines, yet he led a secret life - one that ended in a maximum-security prison. What drove him to go so wrong so fast?

It was a cold and foggy February night in 1983 when a group of armed thieves crept onto Ballymany Stud, near The Curragh in County Kildare, Ireland, to steal Shergar, one of the thoroughbred industry's most renowned stallions. The thieves demanded a hefty ransom for the safe return of one of the most valuable Thoroughbreds in the world, but the ransom was never paid and Shergar's remains have never been found.

The story of FIFA's fall from grace has it all: power, betrayal, revenge, sports stars, hustlers, corruption, sex and phenomenal quantities of money, all set against exotic locales stretching from Caribbean beaches to the formal staterooms of the Kremlin and the sun-blasted streets of Doha, Qatar.

When the federal government catches hotshot financial adviser Louis Martin “Marty” Blazer defrauding his NFL-player clients, it’s time to come clean. He has no reasonable defense. What he has is a bigger story to spill to the feds—that of a multibillion-dollar conspiracy that exploits the most talented college athletes and implicates one of the most popular entertainment industries in the nation. The DOJ is listening, and the truth could literally set Marty free. All he has to do is prove that the NCAA is a vast ongoing scam.

In June 2007, the FBI informed the NBA that one of its referees, Tim Donaghy, was the subject of a probe into illegal gambling. Within months, the public knew the broad outlines of a scheme involving Donaghy betting on games he officiated with a coconspirator, longtime Donaghy acquaintance and professional gambler Jimmy "Baba" Battista. They were joined in the scandal by a mutual childhood friend, Tommy Martino. By November 2008, each man had pleaded guilty to charges relating to the conspiracy and was in federal prison.

This is the true story of Ted, Viscount Deerhurst, the son of the Earl of Coventry and an American ballerina who dedicated his life to becoming a professional surfer. Surfing was a means of escape, from England, from the fraught charges of nobility, from family, and, often, from his own demons. Surf, Sweat and Tears takes us into the world of global surfing, revealing a dark side beneath the dazzling sun and cream-crested waves. Here is surf noir at its most compelling; a dystopian tale of one man’s obsessions, wiped out in a grisly true crime.

While other profilers tend to conceal the clear facts behind complex technical language and psychobabble, investigator Pat Brown actually tells it like it is. With the same dark wit that gets people who work with the criminally insane through their workday, Brown speaks frankly about the monsters among us who kill for sport. In Killing for Sport, Brown provides an honest portrayal of the predator-next-door, how he hunts for him victims, why he likes to torture them, where he tends to stash their bodies, and more.

This is the unbelievable, unforgettable, unparalleled story of an ordinary guy whose attempts to become famous doing the thing he wanted most—become a world class race car driver—devolved into a you-can’t-make-this-up tale of one of the biggest crime rings and drug scandals of the 1980s. Now, with the help of New York Times bestselling author A.J. Baime, Randy tells the whole truth for the first time ever, a gripping narrative unlike any other, a sports story for the ages, and shocking a true crime epic.

It was a cool, quiet evening at Calumet Farm, where the most valuable racehorses—including the prolific stallion Alydar—had settled into their stalls for the evening. Alton Stone, filling in for the regular night watchman, completed his rounds at the barn. Although nothing seemed out of the ordinary, an inexplicable hunch led Stone to check on Alydar. What he found—a grievously injured horse with no discernable cause—jump-started one of the biggest mysteries to ever hit the horse racing world.

Edwin Valero's life was like a rocket shot into a wall. With a perfect knockout record in twenty-seven fights, the demonic Venezuelan boxer, known as "El Inca" and "El Dinamita," seemed destined for a clash with all-time great Manny Pacquiao. But the Fates had other ideas. Fueled by cocaine and booze and paranoia, Valero blazed into a mania that derailed his career in the ring and resulted in the brutal death of his young wife Jennifer—and soon afterward, his own.