From its origins in the swamps of Southeast Asia to its role in the medieval Black Death to its unshakeable niche in modern urban centers, the rat has incredible evolutionary advantages. Combining biology with history, and social commentary with firsthand experience, Rat dispels the myths and exposes the little-known facts about the ubiquitous rodent.
Plague carrier, city vermin, and an out-and-out menace to modern man, the rat, like death and taxes, is a certain fixture in humankind’s history. Rats are found in virtually every nook and cranny of the globe and their numbers are ever increasing. Rats are always adapting and they seem to outwit any attempts by humans to wipe them out. What makes the rat such a worthy adversary and how has it risen to the top of the animal kingdom? 
 • Rats have been discovered living in meat lockers. The rats in there simply grew longer hair, fatter bodies, and nested in the carcasses they fed upon. • A female rat can, under good conditions, have well over 100,000 babies in her lifetime. • A rat can fall fifty feet onto pavement and skitter away unharmed. • A rat’s jaws can exert a force more than twenty times as powerful as a human’s. • The front side of a rat’s incisors are as hard as some grades of steel.
In Rat: How the World’s Most Notorious Rodent Clawed Its Way to the Top, Jerry Langton explores the history, myth, physiology, habits, and psyche of the rat and even speculates on the future of the rat and how they might evolve over the next few hundred years.

Rat: How the World's Most Notorious Rodent Clawed Its Way to the Top

History

Langton, Jerry

World

St.Martin's Press

In a quiet working-class neighborhood in east-end Toronto, on an early winter day in November 2003, Johnathon Madden returned home from school only to be bullied and threatened by is older brother, Kevin; Kevin's friend Tim Ferriman; and another teenager. the confrontation turned violent and fatal. Johnathon didn't have the strength or size to protect himself against the frenzied attack of his powerful 250-pound brother.Sibling violence may be as old as time, but this case is particularly disturbing and unsettling.Kevin Madden had problems. This was not news to his family, teachers, principal, social workers, and psychiatrists. but what drove him to commit murder - and why Johnathon? Why were his friends compelled to take part in the bloodletting? What events were going on behind the scenes that played a part in the tragedy?Jerry Langton, author of bestseller Fallen Angel, sets out to answer those questions and look for the clues that drove Kevin Madden over the edge.

RAGE: The True Story of Sibling Murder

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

wiley

You'll never meet the bikers in this book or visit the mythical rust belt city of Springfield. But through the eyes of Ned "Crash" Aiken, you will experience the real world of the outlaw biker gang-a world shaped by desperation, casual brutality and fascinating rites of passage. Biker follows the career trajectory of "Crash" from his days as a small-time high school drug dealer to his rapid rise through the ranks of a biker gang that is rapidly and brutally expanding its territory and criminal connections.
Aiken's story relates how an outlaw biker sees his gang from the inside. It is an experience shaped by seamy and ruthless characters waging a neverending battle to establish their supremacy. From drug running and gun sales, to prostitution and allegiances forged by violence, this is a struggle played out within biker gangs the world over. And as the reader discovers in this intense docudrama, this is not the romantic freewheeling beer-fest version of the Hells Angels, but a sleazy existence that draws social outcasts like moths to a flame.
PRAISE FOR JERRY LANGTON AND FALLEN ANGEL
"[Fallen Angel] is required reading for those interested in the genre."—The Globe and Mail
"Langton is a natural storyteller."—The Toronto Star

Biker: Inside the Notorious World of an Outlaw Motorcycle Gang

The inside story of the street war between Canada's most violent biker gangs-the Outlaws and the Hell's AngelsOnce bikers who road together, Mario Parente and Walter Stadnick, are now mortal enemies, chiefs, respectively, of the Outlaws and Hell's Angels, embroiled in a bloody turf war over control of the lucrative drug, prostitution, and vice markets in Ontario's Golden Horseshoe. Written with the cooperation of Mario Parente, Showdown describes the biker gang equivalent of the Godfather, the violent power shifts as Satan's Choice, a rival gang falls into disarray, and as Parente gears up to protect Southwest Ontario from Stadnick's vision of making the Hell's Angels the largest criminal biker gang in Canada.
<ul>
<li>A gang's-eye look at the 2006 Shedden Massacre, where eight men were slaughtered</li>
<li>An account that lets Mario Parente go on the record with his story of the biker wars</li>
</ul>
With frightening and compelling detail, Showdown lets readers experience firsthand the personalities and day-to-day workings behind the brutal and deadly rivalries that mark one piece of Canada's criminal underworld.

Showdown: How the Outlaws, Hells Angels and Cops Fought for Control of the Streets

Engineering & Transportation

Automotive

Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire
Ned Aiken was set up for a quiet life. After falling into the biker world almost by accident, rising through the ranks of a major motorcycle gang and eventually betraying them to the FBI in return for indemnity and witness protection, Ned chafes at his boring mailroom job and the cheap apartment where the Feds make him live. Babysat by a slovenly field agent, insulted and bullied by the bosses he hates, the corporate culture at the bottom of the ladder doesn’t suit the innocent-looking twenty-something used to commanding the respect of thugs and living the free-wheeling lifestyle of a drug dealer.
Cornered into a delivery job by some sketchy co-workers, Ned soon finds himself neck-deep with the Russian mafia. Sophisticated, violent, and possessing a code of honor that doesn’t always translate to their North American associates, these are a class of criminal for whom borders and restraint are merely minor problems to be overcome. Aiken, grateful for the money and restrain are merely minor problems to be overcome. Aiken, grateful for the money and addicted to the excitement, find that juggling his FBI handler and avoiding the Sons of Satan who want him dead prove to be more difficult than he initially thought. Especially as his usefulness to the Russians and his responsibilities—and personal risk—grow.
This time focusing on the true-to-life operations of the Russian mafia, their culture and incredible sphere of power and influence, bestselling author Jerry Langton takes readers deep into the inner workings of their criminal empire. You won’t find their names in any newspapers or magazines, but you will understand how—and why—the Russian mob has become one of the most powerful forces in the international underworld.

Outlaw Biker: The Russian Connection

Walter Stadnick is not an imposing man. At five-foot-four, his face and arms scarred by fire in a motorcycle accident, he would not spring to mind as a leader of Canada's most notorious biker gang, the Hells Angels. yet through sheer guts and determination, intelligence and luck, this Hamilton-born youth who had the nickname of "Nurget" rose in the Hells Angels ranks to become national president. Not only did he lead the Angels through the violent war with their rivals the rock machine in Montreal in the Nineties, Stadnick saw opportunity to grow the Hells Angels into a national criminal gang. he was a visionary--and a highly successful one. Bikers are not known for their fondness for rival gangs. Stadnick and the Angels fought and defeated rival gangs, or used power of persuasion to patch them over. As Stadnick's influence spread, law enforcement took notice of the growing presence of the Angels in Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia. However, Stadnick's success did not come without a price. Arrested and charged with 13 counts of first-degree murder, stadnick beat the murder charges but was convicted of gangsterism and is currently serving time. Fallen Angel details one man's improbable rise to power in one of the world's most violent organizations, while shedding light on how this enigmatic and dangerous biker gang operated and why it remains so powerful.

Fallen Angel: The Unlikely Rise of Walter Stadnick and the Canadian Hells Angels

Americas

St-Pierre is two-time and current champion of the UFC's most desired and hotly contested weight class. He has forced other fighters to go to great lengths in an effort to unseat him.
But he's more than that. He's ramping up the popularity of the sport itself and the culture around it. St-Pierre is a marketer's dream. He's handsome, charismatic and funny in a self-effacing way. He's Canadian, fluently bilingual, came up from a difficult background with a few personal tragedies and has never been involved with drugs or crime or had his love life make any headlines. He's the man that the UFC is going to ride on in its quest to transform itself from niche market to mainstream.
It's already beginning. While other UFC fighters have sponsors like gyms and equipment suppliers, St-Pierre has signed multi-million-dollar deals with brands such as Under Armour and is even following in the footsteps of such luminaries as Michael Jordan, Peyton Manning and Sidney Crosby as a spokesman for Gatorade.
Fighter details the life of St-Pierre: how his talent, hard work and perseverance have paid off handsomely, and how his star has risen in the psyche of mixed martial arts fans around the world. It describes how he is held in high esteem by a huge number of Canadians despite the fact that his profession is looked down upon by many and is even illegal in several US States and Canadian Provinces. St-Pierre's ascent and fame have become a democratizing force, pressuring the establishment to take Mixed Martial Arts and Ultimate Fighting seriously in ways that it would not have without him.

Fighter: The Unauthorized Biography of Georges St-Pierre, UFC Champion

Biographies & Memoirs

A frightening look at Mexico's new power elite—the Mexican drug cartelsThe members of Mexico's drug cartels are among the criminal underworld's most ambitious and ruthless entrepreneurs. Supplanting the once dominant Colombian cartels, the Mexican drug cartels are now the major distributor of heroin and cocaine to the U.S. and Canada. Not only have their drugs crossed north of the border, so have the cartels (in 2009, 230 active Mexican drug cartels have been reported in U.S. cities). In Gangland, bestselling author Jerry Langton details their frightening stranglehold on the economy and daily life of Mexico today—and what it portends for the future of Mexico and its neighbours.
Offering a firsthand look from members of law enforcement, politicians, journalists, and people involved in the drug trade in Mexico and Canada, Gangland sheds a harsh light on the multibillion dollar industry that is the drug trade, the territorial wars, and the on-the-street reality for the United States, with the importation of narco-terrorists. With the unstinting realism and keen analysis that have made him an internationally respected journalist, Langton offers the bleak prospects of what a collapsed government in Mexico might lead to—a new Mexican warlord state not unlike Somalia.
<ul>
<li>Details the emergence of the Mexican drug cartels—the transformation of middlemen who ferried drugs from Bolivia and Colombia to the U.S. and Canada into self-styled entrepreneurs</li>
<li>Describes how the growth of the cartels led to violent territorial wars—with Felipe Calderon declaring war on the cartels in 2006</li>
<li>Offers a frightening look at how much the incursion of the drug cartels has affected American life and business—Wachovia and Bank of America have been found guilty of laundering cartel profits</li>
</ul>
An unflinching examination of the world's most lucrative—and deadliest—drug cartel, Gangland lets readers explore, with brutal clarity, the newest front on America's latest war.

Gangland

True Crime

Sometimes, you make bad choices.
Sometimes, bad choices are made for you.
Ned "Crash" Aiken thought he had made a clean break. He had turned on his biker brothers in the Sons of Satan and entered the FBI's witness protection program, only to end up in a different kind of prison, one of mediocre work and cheap apartments. He then fell in with the Russian mob, learning their brutal code first-hand and fleeing their organization when the stakes got too high. Between the FBI, the Sons and the Russians, there are a lot of people who want to get their hands on the innocent-looking ex-drug trafficker.
Now he's in Mexico, trying to go straight and stay alive. But Mexico isn't like the United States. It isn't even like it used to be in its heyday as a playground for wealthy gringos to vacation or college kids to party on the cheap. Ned is no stranger to drugs, violence and brutality, and what he sees in Mexico he can only try to ignore.
But even while Ned tries his best to mind his own business, he is forced back into the underworld against his will. He finds himself at the mercy of a cartel and its notorious leader, and now the game is just about survival. But how can you play the game when there are no rules?
From the author of the best-selling Gangland, a searing read about the Mexican cartels, Dead Biker is a disturbing story about immense power and indiscriminate brutality, and lives held hostage in more ways than one.

Dead Biker: Inside the Violent World of the Mexican Drug Cartels

Excellent volume on drug gangs in B.C. with the focus on the "Bacon Brothers", one of which is on trail for murder and the other one deceased. great reference material on Lower Mainland gang activity.

The Notorious Bacon Brothers: Inside Gang Warfare on Vancouver Streets

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Books by Langton, Jerry