Most Popular Books by Mark Bowden

#1 New York Times Bestseller: The “riveting” account of the 1993 operation in Mogadishu—the longest sustained firefight involving US troops since Vietnam (The Wall Street Journal). On October 3, 1993, about a hundred elite US soldiers were dropped by helicopter into the teeming market in the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia. Their mission was to abduct two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord and return to base. It was supposed to take an hour. Instead, they found themselves pinned down through a long and terrible night fighting against thousands of heavily armed Somalis. The following morning, eighteen Americans were dead and more than seventy had been badly wounded. Drawing on interviews from both sides, army records, audiotapes, and videos (some of the material is still classified), Bowden’s minute-by-minute narrative is one of the most exciting accounts of modern combat ever written—a true story that captures the heroism, courage, and brutality of battle. “One of the most gripping and authoritative accounts of combat ever written.” —USA Today “Journalistic writing at its best.” —The Boston Globe “Vivid, immediate, and unsparing.” —The Washington Post Includes a new afterword

From the author of the bestselling "Black Hawk Down" comes the story of the Philadelphia Eagles'' season-long campaign for the NFL championship, told through the personal stories of the men on the field and the coaches, managers, and owner on the sidelines. of photos.

The true story of a cold case, a compulsive liar, and five determined detectives, from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author and “master journalist” (The Wall Street Journal). On March 29, 1975, sisters Katherine and Sheila Lyons, ages ten and twelve, vanished from a shopping mall in suburban Washington, DC As shock spread, then grief, a massive police effort found nothing. The investigation was shelved, and the mystery endured. Then, in 2013, a cold case squad detective found something he and a generation of detectives had missed. It pointed them toward a man named Lloyd Welch, then serving time for child molestation in Delaware. The acclaimed author of Black Hawk Down and Hue 1968 had been a cub reporter for a Baltimore newspaper at the time of the original disappearance, and covered the frantic first weeks of the story. In The Last Stone, he returns to write its ending. Over months of intense questioning and extensive investigation of Welch’s sprawling, sinister Appalachian clan, five skilled detectives learned to sift truth from determined lies. How do you get a compulsive liar with every reason in the world to lie to tell the truth? The Last Stone recounts a masterpiece of criminal interrogation, and delivers a chilling and unprecedented look inside a disturbing criminal mind. “One of our best writers of muscular nonfiction.” —The Denver Post “Deeply unsettling . . . Bowden displays his tenacity as a reporter in his meticulous documentation of the case. But in the story of an unimaginably horrific crime, it’s the detectives’ unwavering determination to bring Welch to justice that offers a glimmer of hope on a long, dark journey.” —Time

Killing Pablo charts the rise and spectacular fall of Pablo Escobar, the richest and most violent criminal in history. It exposes for the first time the massive covert operation by US Special Forces to hunt down the man described as ''the billionaire godfather of international drug trafficking''.

The “unexpectedly moving” story of dumb luck and the American Dream set in South Philly from the # 1 New York Times–bestselling author (Entertainment Weekly). What would you do if you found a million dollars? When Joey Coyle did, he was a twenty-eight-year-old drug-dependent, unemployed longshoreman living with his ailing mother in a tight-knit Philadelphia neighborhood. While cruising the streets just blocks from his home, fate took a turn worthy of a Hollywood caper when he found $1.2 million in unmarked bills—casino money that had fallen off an armored truck. It was virtually untraceable. Coyle? Not so much. Over the next seven days, fueled by euphoria, methamphetamine, and paranoia, Coyle shared his windfall with everyone from his eight-year-old niece to total strangers to a local mob boss who offered to “clean” it. All the while, Det. Pat Laurenzi and members of the FBI were working around the clock to find it. No one was prepared for how Coyle’s dream-come-true would come tumbling down, or what would happen when it did. From “a master of narrative journalism” comes the incredible true-life thriller of an ordinary man with an extraordinary dilemma, and the complicity, concern, and betrayal of friends, family, and neighbors that would prove his undoing (The New York Times Book Review). “A miniature serio-comedy about life in the city.” —The Washington Post “Masterfully reported and artfully paced.” —Entertainment Weekly “A taut, fast-paced tale.” —The Baltimore Sun

The author of Black Hawk Down vividly recounts a pivotal Vietnam War battle in this New York Times bestseller: “An extraordinary feat of journalism”. —Karl Marlantes, Wall Street Journal In Hue 1968, Mark Bowden presents a detailed, day-by-day reconstruction of the most critical battle of the Tet Offensive. In the early hours of January 31, 1968, the North Vietnamese launched attacks across South Vietnam. The lynchpin of this campaign was the capture of Hue, Vietnam’s intellectual and cultural capital. 10,000 troops descended from hidden camps and surged across the city, taking everything but two small military outposts. American commanders refused to believe the size and scope of the siege, ordering small companies of marines against thousands of entrenched enemy troops. After several futile and deadly days, Lieutenant Colonel Ernie Cheatham would finally come up with a strategy to retake the city block by block, in some of the most intense urban combat since World War II. With unprecedented access to war archives in the United States and Vietnam and interviews with participants from both sides, Bowden narrates each stage of this crucial battle through multiple viewpoints. Played out over 24 days and ultimately costing 10,000 lives, the Battle of Hue was by far the bloodiest of the entire war. When it ended, the American debate was never again about winning, only about how to leave. A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist in History Winner of the 2018 Marine Corps Heritage Foundation Greene Award for a distinguished work of nonfiction

From the # 1 New York Times–bestselling author of Black Hawk Down: The “shocking” story of the country’s unlikeliest drug kingpin (The Baltimore Sun). By the early 1980s, Larry Lavin had everything going for him. He was a bright, charismatic young man who rose from working-class roots to become a dentist with an Ivy League education and a thriving practice, and a beloved father with a well-respected family in one of Philadelphia’s most exclusive suburbs. But behind the façade of his success was a dark secret: Lavin was also the mastermind behind a cocaine empire that spread from Miami to Boston to New Mexico, catering to lawyers, stockbrokers, and other professionals, and generating an annual income of $60 million for the good doctor. Now, Mark Bowden, a “master of narrative journalism” (The New York Times Book Review) tells the harrowing saga of Lavin’s rise and fall in “a shocking American tragedy . . . [that] shoots straight from the hip” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). “An engrossing crime story and a compelling morality tale.” —The Arizona Republic “Has all the elements of a chilling suspense thriller . . . A smoothly crafted, exciting, can’t-put-it-down book.” —The New Voice (Louisville)

From the bestselling author of Black Hawk Down, the gripping story of the Conficker worm—the cyberattack that nearly toppled the world. The Conficker worm infected its first computer in November 2008, and within a month had infiltrated 1.5 million computers in 195 countries. Banks, telecommunications companies, and critical government networks—including British Parliament and the French and German military—became infected almost instantaneously. No one had ever seen anything like it. By January 2009, the worm lay hidden in at least eight million computers, and the botnet of linked computers it had created was big enough that an attack might crash the world. In this “masterpiece” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), Mark Bowden expertly lays out a spellbinding tale of how hackers, researchers, millionaire Internet entrepreneurs, and computer security experts found themselves drawn into a battle between those determined to exploit the Internet and those committed to protecting it.

National bestseller A fresh, insightful guide to reading body language in the post-digital age Whether you’re at a job interview or a cocktail party, searching LinkedIn or swiping right on a dating site, you want (no—need) to understand what people are really thinking, regardless of what they’re saying. Understanding what others are trying to tell you with their posture, hand gestures, eye contact (or lack thereof) or incessant fiddling with their iPhone might all be even more important than what you’re projecting yourself. Do they plan on making a deal with your company? Are they lying to you? Can you trust this person with your most intimate secrets? Knowing what others are thinking can tell you when to run with an opportunity and when not to waste your time, whether at work, in a crucial negotiation or on a promising first date. Bestselling authors Mark Bowden and Tracey Thomson, principals at the communications company Truthplane, illustrate the essential points of body language with examples from everyday life, leavened with humour and insights that you can use to your advantage in virtually any situation.

The New York Times–bestselling author of Black Hawk Down delivers a “suspenseful and inspiring” account of the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 (The Wall Street Journal). On November 4, 1979, a group of radical Islamist students, inspired by the revolutionary Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran. They took fifty-two Americans captive, and kept nearly all of them hostage for 444 days. In Guests of the Ayatollah, Mark Bowden tells this sweeping story through the eyes of the hostages, the soldiers in a new special forces unit sent to free them, their radical, naïve captors, and the diplomats working to end the crisis. Bowden takes us inside the hostages’ cells and inside the Oval Office for meetings with President Carter and his exhausted team. We travel to international capitals where shadowy figures held clandestine negotiations, and to the deserts of Iran, where a courageous, desperate attempt to rescue the hostages exploded into tragic failure. Bowden dedicated five years to this research, including numerous trips to Iran and countless interviews with those involved on both sides. Guests of the Ayatollah is a detailed, brilliantly recreated, and suspenseful account of a crisis that gripped and ultimately changed the world. “The passions of the moment still reverberate . . . you can feel them on every page.” —Time “A complex story full of cruelty, heroism, foolishness and tragic misunderstandings.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “Essential reading . . . A.” —Entertainment Weekly

In this unprecedented deep dive into inner-city gang life, Mark Bowden takes readers inside a Baltimore gang, offers an in-depth portrait of its notorious leader, and chronicles the 2016 FBI investigation that landed eight gang members in prison Sandtown is one of the deadliest neighborhoods in the world; it earned Baltimore its nickname Bodymore, Murderland, and was made notorious by David Simon’s classic HBO series “The Wire.” Drug deals dominate street corners, and ruthless, casual violence abounds. Montana Barronette grew up in the center of it all. He was the leader of the gang “Trained to Go,” or TTG, and when he was finally arrested and sentenced to life in prison, he had been nicknamed “Baltimore’s Number One Trigger Puller.” Under Tana’s reign, TTG dominated Sandtown. After a string of murders are linked to TTG, each with dozens of witnesses too intimidated to testify, three detectives set out to put Tana in prison for life. For them, this was never about drugs: It was about serial murder. Now an acclaimed journalist who spent his youth in the white suburbs of Baltimore, Mark Bowden returns to the city with exclusive access to the FBI files and unprecedented insight into one of the city’s deadliest gangs and its notorious leader. As he traces the rise and fall of TTG, Bowden uses wiretapped drug buys, police interviews, undercover videos, text messages, social media posts, trial transcripts, and his own ongoing conversations with Tana’s family and community to create the most in-depth account of an inner-city gang ever written. With his signature precision and propulsive narrative, Mark Bowden positions Tana – as a boy, a gang leader, a killer, and now a prisoner – in the context of Baltimore and America, illuminating his path for what it really was: a life sentence.

“Painstakingly reported stories about losers, oddballs and con men” from the #1 New York Times–bestselling journalist and author of Black Hawk Down (The New York Times Book Review). This riveting anthology collects the most diverse and far-reaching of Mark Bowden’s award-winning nonfiction—“with fascinating features on Norman Mailer, the war against terror, and even a Philadelphia Zoo gorilla, Bowden’s range is broad” (Entertainment Weekly). Whether traveling to Rhode Island where one of the largest cocaine rings in history is uncovered, or to the Luangwa Valley in Zambia where anti-poachers fight to save the black rhino, Bowden takes us down rough roads previously off-limits: the top-secret world of Guantanamo Bay; Saddam Hussein’s post 9/11 days on the run; a pimp’s inside track on police corruption in Philadelphia; and Al Sharpton’s campaign trail. Bowden also invites readers along to meet a small-town high school football team, farmers who make bras for cows, the Rocky Balboa statue in Philadelphia, and to see Disney World with a wide-eyed group of terminally ill children. In Road Work, Mark Bowden “fashion[s] prose that reads like good fiction, with the bonus that his stories are true” (The New York Times Book Review). “Astute character reading and solid research combine with ingenious and stylish prose: a superior portfolio from a journalist who stays at the top of his game.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review “Bowden is unlike any other journalist . . . Superb reporting, a fine mind conceiving the story line, and a compelling writing style lead to something approaching immortality.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

From Mark Bowden, the preeminent chronicler of our military and special forces, comesThe Finish, a gripping account of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. With access to key sources, Bowden takes us inside the rooms where decisions were made and on the ground where the action unfolded. After masterminding the attacks of September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden managed to vanish. Over the next ten years, as Bowden shows, America found that its war with al Qaeda--a scattered group of individuals who were almost impossible to track--demanded an innovative approach. Step by step, Bowden describes the development of a new tactical strategy to fight this war--the fusion of intel from various agencies and on-the-ground special ops. After thousands of special forces missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the right weapon to go after bin Laden had finally evolved. By Spring 2011, intelligence pointed to a compound in Abbottabad; it was estimated that there was a 50/50 chance that Osama was there. Bowden shows how three strategies were mooted: a drone strike, a precision bombing, or an assault by Navy SEALs. In the end, the President had to make the final decision. It was time for the finish.

From the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Black Hawk Down: “a first-rate collection” of long-form journalism on war, sports, politics, and more (Booklist). Mark Bowden has established himself as one of America’s leading journalists and nonfiction writers. The Three Battles of Wanat collects the best of his long-form articles, including pieces from the Atlantic, Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. The titular article delves into one of the bloodiest days of the War in Afghanistan and the years-long fallout it generated within the United States military. In “The Killing Machines,” Bowden examines the strategic, legal, and moral issues surrounding armed drones. And in a brilliant piece on Kim Jong-un called “The Bright Sun of Juche,” he recalibrates our understanding of the world’s youngest and most baffling dictator. Also included are profiles of newspaper scion Arthur Sulzberger; renowned defense attorney and anti-death-penalty activist Judy Clarke; professional gambler Don Johnson, who won six million dollars in a single night playing blackjack; and David Simon, the creator of the legendary HBO series The Wire. “Mark Bowden marshals his finest for The Three Battles of Wanat.” —Vanity Fair

In "Our Finest Day, " the bestselling author of "Black Hawk Down" reveals the human faces behind D-Day, using reproductions of personal letters, poignant journal entries from soldiers, secret dispatches and pages from code books, and strategic battle plans and maps. Interactive pull-out historical documents.

The #1 New York Times–bestselling “master of narrative journalism” and author of Black Hawk Down presents a compelling collection of true crime stories (The New York Times). Acclaimed investigative reporter Mark Bowden has ferreted out unbelievable-yet-true stories of wrongdoing, murder and mayhem for decades. His illustrious body of work has won him a lifetime achievement award from the International Thriller Writers organization, and a reputation as “a Woodward that outdoes even Woodward” (Malcom Gladwell, The New Yorker). The Case of the Vanishing Blonde collects six of Bowden’s most riveting stories—accounts spanning four decades of fascinating characters and unsettling tales to illustrate all manner of crimes and the ways technology has progressively altered criminal investigation. From a 1983 story of a University of Pennsylvania campus rape that sparked a national debate over the nature of consent, to three cold cases featuring the inimitable Long Island private detective Ken Brennan and a startling investigation into a murderer deep within the LAPD’s ranks—shielded for twenty six years by officers keen to protect one of their own—these stories are the work of a masterful narrative journalist.

“A gripping ground-level narrative…a marvel of reporting: tightly wound… but also panoramic.”—Washington Post “A lean, fast-paced and important account of the chaotic final weeks.”—New York Times In The Steal, veteran journalists Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague offer a week-by-week, state-by-state account of the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. In the sixty-four days between November 3 and January 6, President Donald Trump and his allies fought to reverse the outcome of the vote. Focusing on six states—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—Trump’s supporters claimed widespread voter fraud. Caught up in this effort were scores of activists, lawyers, judges, and state and local officials. Working with a team of researchers and reporters, Bowden and Teague uncover never-before-told accounts from the election officials fighting to do their jobs amid outlandish claims and threats to themselves, their colleagues, and their families. The Steal is an engaging, in-depth report on what happened during those crucial nine weeks and a portrait of the dedicated individuals who did their duty and stood firm against the unprecedented, sustained attack on our election system and ensured that every legal vote was counted and that the will of the people prevailed.

The Unique System of Nonverbal Skills Used by the Most Effective Leaders in Business Today CONTROL THE CONVERSATION, COMMAND ATTENTION, ANDCONVEY THE RIGHT MESSAGE--WITHOUT SAYING A WORD Whether you''re presenting an idea, delivering a speech, managing a team, or negotiating a deal, your body language plays a key role in your overall success. This ingenious step-by-step guide, written by an elite trainer of Fortune 50 CEOs and G8 world leaders, unlocks the secrets of nonverbal communication--using a proven system of universal techniques that can give you the ultimate professional advantage. Learn easily how to: Successfully master the visual TruthPlanearound you to win trust now. Gesture in a way that gains everyone’s attention—even before you speak. Appeal to others'' deep psychological needsfor immediate rapport and influence. You''ll discover how to sit, stand, and subtly alter your body language to move with confidence, control conversations, command attention, persuade andinfluence others, and convey positive energy—without saying a word. It''s the one key to success nobody talks about!

The Isles of Scilly are renowned for their natural beauty, wild flowers and temperate climate, but there is another reason to visit these paradise islands. Since the 16th century they have been in the frontline of this country''s military defences and successive generations of fortifications have survived in Scilly, unmatched in any other location around Britain. This unrivalled survival was due to the lack of pressure to develop the islands and happily because the feared enemy rarely attacked. However, there is another threat to this precious heritage, the power of the sea. William Borlase in the mid-18th century recorded how much of the islands'' history had succumbed to rising sea level, and today increasingly turbulent weather patterns may be accelerating the process of coastal erosion. This book celebrates the unique survival of military fortifications on the islands, but it also serves to illustrate the value and vulnerability of the whole country''s coastal heritage. Like King Canute, we cannot turn back the sea, but we can celebrate these precious survivals from the colourful history of our island nation.

PROVEN NONVERBAL STRATEGIES THAT WIN SALES When you are selling, the way you deliver your message will matter as much as, or more than, what you actually say. In this groundbreaking book, body language guru Mark Bowden teams up with renowned sales trainer Andrew Ford to reveal nonverbal communication skills guaranteed to give you the advantage in every sales situation. Winning Body Language for Sales Professionals reveals the universal body language signals that command instant respect and teaches you how to use them to: Avoid being perceived as just another “salesperson” Earn lasting trust—without saying a word Interpret others’ body language to determine “friends” and “enemies” Create an environment that puts buyers at ease Influence the feelings and behavior of your prospects These are the secrets every salesperson has been waiting for. When you com¬municate in a positive way with your body language, your words hold greater weight than ever—and winning the sale is just a handshake away.

It''s not what you say, but how you say it A proven new system for nonverbal communication—from an expert to Fortune 50 CEO''s and G8 world leaders Professionals can move up in the business world with the strategic tips and techniques employed by one of the world’s most skilled communicators. Winning Body Language shows how to move to make people believe what you are saying, make them trust you, how to use the area where you are standing, and how to imitate hand motions of influential personalities to inspire confidence, and much more. Body language expert Mark Bowden brings TruthPlane, a unique model of non-verbal communication that professionals can master to give effective, dynamic presentations or memorable one-on-one meetings to their staff, colleagues, management and clients. You''ll learn how to master the universal techniques of body language, including such counter-intuitive tips as: How manipulating the six square feet of area in front of your body known as the "truth plane" How to tap into audiences'' primal brain structures so they identify with you Why looking someone in the eye while speaking with them can be deadly How imitating Hilary Clinton''s hand motions can inspire confidence And more! Winning Body Language includes a full vocabulary of gesture delivery, a comprehensive and practical understanding of the signals that bind us all together, and unique tips and techniques to help us stand out and get noticed at work.

The NFL championship game that changed football forever: a New York Times–bestselling sports history classic by the author of Black Hawk Down. Yankee Stadium, December 28, 1958. What was about to go down on this Sunday evening in front of sixty-four thousand fans and forty-five million home viewers—the largest viewership ever assembled for a live televised event—was the first sudden death overtime in NFL history. This one battle between the league’s best offense, the Baltimore Colts, and the best defense, the New York Giants, would propel professional football from a moderately popular pastime into America’s favorite sport. On the field and roaming the sidelines were seventeen future Hall of Famers, including Colts stars Johnny Unitas, Raymond Berry, and Gino Marchetti; and Giants greats Frank Gifford, Sam Huff; and assistant coaches Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry. But they were opposing teams in more ways than one. It was a contest between Baltimore blue-collars, many of whom worked off-season taking shifts at Bethlehem Steel, and the trendy, New York glamour boys of splashy magazine ads and TV commercials who mingled with politicians, Broadway stars, and even Ernest Hemingway. Mark Bowden “dives into the trenches of the 1958 NFL Championship game” for a riveting play-by-play account, the stories behind the key players, the effect it had on the league, the sport, and the country (Entertainment Weekly). “Bring[s] the contest so alive that you find yourself almost wondering . . . years later, how it will turn out in the end.” —The New York Times “The Best Game Ever is sure to become an instant Sacred Text.” —Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post

Examines the landscape of the Malvern Hills, a ridge of ancient volcanic rocks along the western edge of the Severn Valley. The survey ranges from the early prehistoric period to the present day, including the two large Iron Age hillforts on the ridge.

A new and simple system to understanding and controlling the behavior of others Noted body language, behavior and communication expert Mark Bowden offers a totally practical, easy-to-read guide to understanding the impulsive actions of others, along with the best tools to manage them. A number one anxiety in business is dealing with problem people. In Tame the Primitive Brain, Mark Bowden''s fresh approach is the fastest and most effective way to understand why someone acts towards you the way they do; why you react to their behavior in the way you do; and most importantly, what exactly to do about it to achieve the right outcomes. Brings new and fresh perspectives to business readers for dealing with tricky behaviors Explains how to effectively manage those around you at any level in an organization Shares the latest evolutionary behavioral theory, neuroscientific evidence, and the tried and tested tools and tricks based on these premises This simple model of how we humans can and do relate to each other brings increased depth of understanding and expands your toolset to better manage yourself and others to achieve anything.

Fifteen riveting true crime stories from some of the best crime writers around. A sterling collection of the year’s most shocking, compelling, and gripping writing about real-life crime, the 2006 edition of The Best American Crime Writing offers fascinating vicarious journeys into a world of felons and their felonious acts. This thrilling compendium includes: Jeffrey Toobin’s eye-opening exposé in The New Yorker about a famous prosecutor who may have put the wrong man on death row Skip Hollandsworth''s amazing but true tale of an old cowboy bank robber who turned out to be a “classic good-hearted Texas woman” Jimmy Breslin’s stellar piece about the end of the Mob as we know it

Mark Bowden has written an entertaining and thoroughly researched biography of General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers (1827-1900).

Stonehenge is arguably the greatest prehistoric monument in western Europe; as a World Heritage Site it ranks in significance with such sites as the Acropolis of Athens, the Pyramids of Giza, Great Zimbabwe and Machu Picchu. Stonehenge sits at the heart of a landscape rich in other monuments and remains of the Neolithic period and Bronze Age that are also part of the World Heritage Site. Recent research by English Heritage''s landscape archaeologists within the Stonehenge World Heritage Site has led to the identification of previously unknown sites and, perhaps even more importantly, the re-interpretation of known sites, including Stonehenge itself. This work has been carried out alongside recent and on-going independent research initiatives conducted by a number of academic institutions, involving international co-operation. This book presents the most significant findings of the English Heritage research and shows how it integrates with the results of work undertaken by colleagues in other research bodies. It traces human influence on the landscape from prehistoric times to the very recent past and presents an up-to-date synthesis of the results of recent fieldwork. It will be of value to anyone interested in Stonehenge itself, in megalithic monuments, in the Neolithic period and Bronze Age of Europe and in the historic evolution of chalkland landscapes.