Christopher Othen

By 1943, Henri Lafont was the most powerful Frenchman in occupied Paris. Once a petty criminal running from the French police, when he found himself recruited by the Nazis his life changed for ever.Lafont established a motley band of sadistic oddballs that became known as the French Gestapo and included ex-footballers, faded aristocrats, pimps, murderers and thieves. The gang wore the finest clothes, ate at the best restaurants and threw parties for the rich and famous out of their headquarters on the exclusive rue Lauriston.In this vivid portrait, Christopher Othen explores how Lafont and his criminal clan rampaged across Paris through the Second World War until the Allies liberated France, and a terrible price had to be paid.

An exhilarating real-life Cold War thriller about the Americans who fought for Fidel Castro in the Cuban Revolution then switched sides to try to bring him downBack in 1957, Castro was a hero to many in the USA for taking up arms against Cubas dictatorial regime. Two dozen American adventurers joined his rebel band in the mountains, including fervent idealists, a trio of teens from the Guantanamo Bay naval base, a sleazy ex-con who liked underage girls, and at least two future murderers. Castros eventual victory delighted the world but then he ran up the red flag and some started wondering if theyd supported the wrong side.A gang of disillusioned American volunteers including future Watergate burglar Frank Fiorini and journalist Alex Rorke, whose 1963 disappearance remains unsolved changed allegiances and joined the Cuban exiles, CIA agents and soldiers of fortune who had washed up in Miami ready to fight Castros regime by any means necessary. These larger-than-life characters wreaked havoc across the Caribbean and went on to be implicated in President Kennedys assassination, a failed invasion of Papa Doc Duvaliers Haiti and the downfall of Richard Nixon.The Cold War had arrived in Miami, and things would never be the same again.

In King Leopold IIs infamous Congo Free State at the turn of the century, severed hands became a form of currency. But some in the Belgian government had no sense of historical shame, as they connived for an independent Katanga state in 1960 to protect Belgian mining interests. What happened next was extraordinary. It was an extremely uneven battle. The UN fielded soldiers from twenty nations, America paid the bills, and the Soviets intrigued behind the scenes. Yet to everyones surprise the new nations rag-tag army of local gendarmes, jungle tribesmen and, controversially, European mercenaries, refused to give in. For two and a half years Katanga, the scrawniest underdog ever to fight a war, held off the world with guerrilla warfare, two-faced diplomacy and some shady financial backing. It even looked as if the Katangese might win.Katanga 196063 tells, for the first time, the full story of the Congolese province that declared independence and found itself at war with the world.

Welcome to a world of tracksuits, Kalashnikovs and organised crime.After the fall of communism, the most dangerous Mafia youve never heard of ran Poland as its own private playground and wallowed in all the luxury that Eastern Europe had to offer until someone at the heart of the gang turned traitor and brought everything crashing down in a bloody round of murder and betrayal.Today Poland is a prosperous modern democracy standing proud at the Slavic edge of the European Union. But in the years after the fall of communism it was a gangster state being bled white by criminals while police and politicians looked the other way. You cant understand Poland until you know what it was like to live here when the Cold War had ended and everyone in this poor, icy corner of Eastern Europe was looking to get rich or die trying.

Un aspecto prácticamente desconocido de la guerra civil española, tratado con rigor histórico y maestría narrativa.Además de los reclutas del fascismo, noventa mil extranjeros de otros países lucharon en las filas del ejercito franquista: catolicos irlandeses, aventureros britanicos, monarquicos franceses, aristocratas belgas, fascistas rumanos, poetas peruanos y estrellas de cine finlandesas optaron por combatir al gobierno republicano. Este libro recuerda la historia de muchos de ellos y permite acceder a sus moviles y convicciones, con lo que se compone un panorama mas completo de la intervencion extranjera en la guerra civil, al tiempo que se muestra otra cara, mucho mas contradictoria, del heroismo romantico.