9 h 51 minAudiobook16 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What gives a cunning criminal away when living by their wits is no longer enough?
In Remarkable Rogues, Charles Kingston gathers true crime sketches of criminals, con artists, and murderers from Europe and America. Each chapter follows one person or one case, giving you a complete short narrative rather than a single long plot. Kingston brings his knowledge of crime and courts to stories of people whose cleverness serves dangerous ends.
The book moves from a gallery of rogues to swindlers who live on trust, then into darker accounts of murder and the slow work of detection. Kingston shows the tricks criminals use and the habits that give them away. His brisk, plain storytelling lets you follow each case while noticing the patterns behind these different criminal careers.
What you’ll discover
- A gallery of rogues Meet people who live by their wits and turn their intelligence toward crime.
- The workings of trust See how swindlers depend on a victim’s confidence rather than force.
- Darker turns into murder Follow grave cases where the focus shifts to the slow work of detection.
- Habits that betray Notice how the habits of cunning criminals can finally give them away.
- One case at a time Enjoy a complete short narrative whenever you want one sharply drawn criminal story.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy true crime, con artists, daring heists and courtroom drama, and who like vivid portraits of cunning people from Victorian London to wartime Berlin and the American West.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Two women turn charm into poison
- Outlaw queen and the woman with fatal eyes
- Vanity and greed feed two swindlers
- Wartime greed and marriage dreams fund two frauds
- A buried widow and a false archduke
- False baronets and borrowed fortunes
- A ranch girl's fortune and a Christmas murder
- Poison and a tailor's careful lies
- Four rogues, from a duel to a diamond fortune
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- Audiobook
- 9 h 51 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 16 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Pícaros extraordinarios
A Russian countess, a Bremen poisoner and a fake archduke use charm as their weapon in twenty true crime tales.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Remarkable Rogues is a collection of twenty true crime stories by Charles Kingston, a British writer on crime who died in 1944. He wrote it after the First World War, drawing on court records and newspaper reports.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Two women turn charm into poison
The book opens in Russia with Marie Tarnowska, who at sixteen is courted by a prince, a baron and a count. Against her father's wishes she elopes with the count, Vassili Tarnowska. Within six months she learns he is a libertine, and Kingston says that sense of injustice starts her on the road to ruin. Men gather around her, and her gentle brother-in-law Peter falls hopelessly in love with her and takes his own life. She shrugs it off.
Her next lover is Alexis Bozevsky, an Imperial Guard officer with a magnificent moustache. Her jealous husband shoots him outside the Grand Hotel in Kieff, then calmly tells the police inspector what he has done. Marie abandons her children to nurse the dying man. Dr. Stahl, who loves her too, has already led her into drug use. When Bozevsky dies, Kingston writes that her heart dies with him.
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What is Remarkable Rogues about?
It is a collection of twenty true crime stories about swindlers, poisoners, forgers and murderers in Europe and America. Each chapter follows one person from first scheme to arrest, from a Russian countess to an outlaw queen and a master thief.
Who is Belle Star in Remarkable Rogues?
Belle Star is a female outlaw leader in Texas after the American Civil War. Raised in her father's gang, she takes command at eighteen and uses disguises, sharp shooting and daring raids to rule the district.
Are the stories in Remarkable Rogues true?
Kingston presents the chapters as real cases drawn from court records, police files and newspapers, set between 1750 and the First World War. He names real places, dates and trials, and he adds his own comments as a crime writer.
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