"On December 15, 1985, powerful mafia don Carlos Marcello, referring to JFK's death, told a fellow Texas prison inmate, in part, that, 'Yeah, I had the son of a bitch killed.' This changes everything about not only the president's assassination but also reveals Marcello's complicity in the deaths of journalist Dorothy Kilgallen in 1965 and the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.
The credible audiotaped admission by Marcello validates fifteen years of research by noted historian and bestselling author Mark Shaw in his last four books as true crime meets murder mystery in this groundbreaking historical exposé where the connection between three of America's most puzzling deaths is exposed for the first time.
To that end, Shaw’s evidence, which may be covered up by a recent governmental investigation even though those involved are aware of Marcello’s confession, points to his use of three patsies, Lee Harvey Oswald, Kilgallen's romantic interest Ron Pataky turned Judas, and Sirhan who served as decoys.
Abuse of Power will stand the test of time as the definitive source for those seeking logical, primary source accounts of the life and times, and the deaths of three prominent American icons."
"Hitmen for Hire takes the reader on a journey like no other, navigating a world of paid hitmen, informers, rogue policemen, criminal taxi bosses, gang leaders, and crooked politicians and businessmen. Criminologist Mark Shaw examines a society in which contract killings have become commonplace, looking at who arranges hits, where to find a hitman, and even what it is like to operate as a hitman – or woman.
Since 1994, South Africa has seen a worrying increase in the commercialisation of murder – and has been rocked by several high-profile contract killings. Drawing on his research of over a thousand incidents of hired assassinations, from 2000 to 2016, Shaw reveals how these murders are used to exert a mafia-type control over the country’s legal and illegal economic activity. Contracted assassinations, and the organised criminal activity behind them, contain sinister linkages with the upperworld, most visibly in relation to disputes over tenders and access to government resources. State security actors increasingly mediate relations between the under and upper worlds, with serious implications for the long-term success of the post-apartheid democratic project."
"‘Mark Shaw is the foremost analyst of organised crime in SA.’ – Jonny Steinberg
At the dawn of the country’s brave new democracy, Cape Town was at war. Pagad, which began as a community protest action against crime, had mutated into a sinister vigilante group wreaking death and destruction across the city. Between 1996 and 2001, there were hundreds of bomb blasts – most infamously at the Planet Hollywood restaurant at the V&A Waterfront – and countless targeted hits on druglords and gang bosses.
The police scrambled desperately to respond. The new ANC government was shaken. Citizens of Cape Town lived in fear. Who could save the city?
Mark Shaw tells the incredible tale of how former foes – struggle cadres and the apartheid security apparatus – pulled together to break the Pagad death squads. Out of this crisis emerged the elite law enforcement unit, the Scorpions.
It is a story that has never been told in full. Now many involved have broken their silence about this pivotal chapter in South Africa’s history, which offers far-reaching lessons on how to deal with organised crime today."
"‘With remarkable courage, insight and access, Mark Shaw takes the reader into the darkest corners of South Africa’s ganglands.’ – Mandy Wiener
The assassination of police investigator Charl Kinnear in Cape Town in 2020 was yet one more in a spate of murders related to the so-called ‘guns to gangs’ saga, in which state weapons are sold to South Africa’s criminal underworld.
It began in 2007 when Colonel Christiaan Prinsloo and his cronies began selling thousands of decommissioned police weapons to gang lords. Prinsloo’s motive: to fund his son’s university fees. The sale of weapons to criminals, which the police service has tried to downplay, has resulted in a killing spree of unprecedented proportions. Cape Town is now one of the most violent places on earth, and in 2019 the army was called in to patrol gang-infested areas.
Give us more Guns, based on hundreds of interviews with police, experts and the gangsters themselves, tells the story of this callous crime for the first time. Mark Shaw explores how the guns get into the hands of South Africa’s crime bosses and describes the bloodshed that ensues. He also uncovers accounts of rampant corruption within the police and in the state’s gun-licensing system, probing the government failure that has been instrumental in arming the country’s gangsters."
"Fighting for Justice exposes the cover-ups of the JFK assassination and the murders of Dorothy Kilgallen and Marilyn Monroe, while revealing for the first time the corrupt inner workings of the Warren Commission based on the firsthand 'whistleblower' account of an actual Commission member never identified before.
How does an explosive 'whistleblower' account from a Warren Commission (WC) member never identified before destroy once and for all the biggest lie in American history, the 'Oswald Alone' theory? On what basis did the member admit, 'It's more than Oswald. There is internal corruption on the Commission. I do not agree with the Report'?
Is the 'whistleblower' the same one who surreptitiously passed Jack Ruby's WC testimony to journalist Dorothy Kilgallen prior to its release date? And how did President Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover strong-arm the commission to prevent any investigation of the truth about who killed JFK and why?
Based on fifteen years of research, answers to these questions and more are uncovered in Fighting for Justice, Mark Shaw's improbable journey to exposing cover-ups of the JFK assassination while proving that Marilyn Monroe and Kilgallen were murdered."
"If there had been no cover-up of Robert Kennedy's complicity in the murder of Marilyn Monroe in 1962 and he had been prosecuted based on compelling evidence at the time, the assassination of JFK by Bobby's enemies would not have happened—changing the course of history and preventing the murder of media icon Dorothy Kilgallen.
In a breakthrough book that is sure to be relevant for years to come, bestselling author (The Reporter Who Knew Too Much) and distinguished historian Mark Shaw investigates the connection between the mysterious deaths of motion picture screen siren Marilyn Monroe, President John F. Kennedy, and What's My Line? TV star and crack investigative reporter Dorothy Kilgallen. A former noted criminal defense attorney and network legal analyst, Shaw provides an illuminating perspective as to how Robert Kennedy's abuse of power during the early 1960s resulted in the murders of Marilyn, JFK, and Dorothy."
"Was What’s My Line TV Star, media icon, and crack investigative reporter and journalist Dorothy Kilgallen murdered for writing a tell-all book about the JFK assassination? If so, is the main suspect in her death still at large?
These questions and more are answered in former CNN, ESPN, and USA Today legal analyst Mark Shaw’s twenty-fifth book, The Reporter Who Knew Too Much. Through discovery of never-before-seen videotaped eyewitness interviews with those closest to Kilgallen and secret government documents, Shaw unfolds a “whodunit” murder mystery featuring suspects including Frank Sinatra, J. Edgar Hoover, Mafia Don Carlos Marcello, and a “mystery man” who may have silenced Kilgallen. All while by presenting through Kilgallen’s eyes the most compelling evidence about the JFK assassinations since the House Select Committee on Assassination’s investigation in the 1970s.
Called by the New York Post “the most powerful female voice in America” and by acclaimed author Mark Lane “the only serious journalist in America who was concerned with who killed John Kennedy and getting all of the facts about the assassination,” Kilgallen’s official cause of death, reported as an overdose of barbiturates combined with alcohol, has always been suspect since no investigation occurred despite the death scene having been staged. Shaw proves Kilgallen, a remarkable woman who broke the “glass ceiling” before the term became fashionable, was denied the justice she deserved—until now."
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