Showing results by author "Stu Armstrong" in All Categories

Mary Bell’s name to this day is infamous in Newcastle upon Tyne. Aged only 11 in 1968, she murdered two young boys, one aged three and one aged four, in Scotswood, an area of the West End of Newcastle upon Tyne. In both instances, Mary Bell told the victim that he had a sore throat, which she would massage to make them better before her hands became tighter when she would strangle them to death.

Strap in for a high-octane dive into the dangerous world of Britain’s most feared and ruthless armed robbers. Notorious, Volume 2: Armed Robbers explodes with the true stories of the criminal masterminds, violent blaggers, and street-level soldiers who took on banks, payroll vans, jewellers and the Flying Squad itself.

Shadows on Scotswood delves into one of Britain’s most haunting criminal cases, reimagining the story of Mary Bell, a young girl who shocked a nation with her crimes in the 1960s, child murder committed by a child would be huge news. Set against the bleak, gritty backdrop of Newcastle’s Scotswood neighborhood, the book explores Mary’s troubled childhood, marred by neglect, abuse, and a toxic family environment that would shape her life in ways no one could have foreseen.

The Diaries of a Doorman Volume 3 - Bouncing in the Sun is set in the Canary Islands back in the 1990s where Stu worked and lived in the murky world of Doormen. This was a time and a place where the line between bouncer and villain was often blurred.

Trevor’s back on the streets and this time, he’s not just on crack… he’s on spice. After serving a slapstick 18-month sentence (of which he served only 12 for “good-ish behaviour”), Trevor reunites with Chanelle his pipe-smoking partner-in-crime and sometime prostitute, sometime businesswoman — outside prison. They return to their spiritual home: Wetherspoons, where £1.99 can still buy you a pint and a sense of delusion. But things have changed. Trevor’s got a new addiction. Chanelle’s got new ideas. And Britain’s most dysfunctional couple are about to unleash hell all over again.

The Sunderland Strangler is a chilling and meticulously researched account of one of Britain's most notorious serial killers—Steven Grieveson. Based on true events, this gripping narrative blends factual detail with carefully imagined scenes, dialogue, and character insights to recreate the life, crimes, and eventual conviction of a man who terrorised a community for years.

Martin Keane thought the worst was behind him. A reformed man with a steady job, a loving partner, and a young son, he had left behind the reckless violence of his past. But when a relentless online troll begins tormenting his family, the facade of normal life begins to crack. At first, it's just cruel words on a screen. Then it escalates—threats, humiliation, and psychological warfare pushing Martin to his breaking point.

Ever since the 1950s, through its heyday of the '70s & '80s, the Spanish Costas and Islands have been synonymous with figures from the British Underworld. Some on the run, some just for sun and fun, Spain has been magnetic to British criminals.

THE DIARIES OF A DOORMAN RELOADED' was created to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the original ‘DIARIES OF A DOORMAN’ books, step back one more time deep into, the often murky world, of working the doors! It's not a life that's for everyone, a world where every night you are potentially putting your neck on the line to keep night-time revellers safe.

Bare-knuckle boxing is now a sport in its own right, after emerging from the shadows over the last decade in the UK, and now stateside in the USA. Bare-knuckle boxing is now the world's fastest growing combat sport. But the purest form of pugilism has its critics, and many of them all quote the same things: “It's brutal." "It’s dangerous." "It's illegal.” And each of those statements is totally incorrect! Find out exactly why bare-knuckle boxing is medically proven to be safer than gloved boxing.

In the ashes of the Soviet Union, one man rises from the shadows to seize power, fortune, and vengeance.

The Cult Next Door: Britain’s Quietest Nightmare is a chilling blend of true crime realism and psychological thriller, set in the deceptively peaceful suburbs of Berkshire. When seven residents vanish without a trace from Lavender Close, an ordinary cul-de-sac in Reading, the nation is stunned. But behind the disappearance lies a sinister truth: a cult has been operating in plain sight, its rituals masked as community meetings, its leader cloaked in charm and manipulation.

On the night of February 5th, 2004, twenty-six Chinese migrant workers stepped onto the cold sands of Morecambe Bay in Lancashire, England — unaware that within hours, twenty-one of them would be dead. In this harrowing and powerful true crime account, Stu Armstrong exposes the dark underside of human trafficking and labour exploitation in modern Britain. Blending real events with immersive, character-driven fictionalisation, the story is told through the eyes of Ming, one of the survivors.

Trevor Malloy is just your average dead-inside council admin from the crumbling northern town of Smackleton—single, depressed, and one Greggs sausage roll away from a breakdown. Then one night, he smokes crack. Now he’s hurtling face-first into the seedy underbelly of small-town Britain: from pimping his girlfriend out of a stolen ice cream van to launching a crypto-dogging empire called DoggChain. Along the way, he botches robberies, runs a cactus porn studio in a garden centre, sells fake funerals to real pensioners, and starts an OnlyFans agency for people with extremely niche fetishes.

In the explosive sequel to Oligarch, former KGB operative turned deadly renegade Dmitri Korsakov returns to the shadows—this time to dismantle a global conspiracy that threatens to plunge the world into chaos. When a botched drone deal in London reveals the growing power of Black Lion—a clandestine international arms network—Dmitri is thrust back into a world of espionage, betrayal, and brutal violence. With the West compromised and old enemies resurfacing, Dmitri must cross borders and moral lines to stop a syndicate he once unknowingly helped build.

Butterbean: The Eric Esch Story by Stu Armstrong is an in-depth biography of the legendary heavyweight fighter Eric “Butterbean” Esch, tracing his journey from humble beginnings to global fame in combat sports. The book explores how Butterbean, once an overweight kid bullied for his size, defied expectations to become a dominant force in boxing, kickboxing, and mixed martial arts.

Fighting in my view can be classed as an art form, not the drunken scuffles outside of the kebab shop at closing time but equally matched fighters who have spent a lifetime training for that moment, not only physically but mentally. Every move that they make, offensive or defensive they have likely practiced many thousands of times for that split second in time. Now call that what you want, but I call that art!

Narco—what exactly does the word mean? Originally, narco was simply short for narcotics, but since President Reagan's "War on Drugs" in the 1980s, a narco is the word adopted by the Drug Enforcement Agency and is simply referred to a person who traffics or deals in illegal narcotics. Since the Netflix series, the word has slipped not only into popular culture but also the dictionary, very often thought of as the billionaire cartel bosses of South America such as Mexico's El Chapo of the Sinaloa Cartel, and perhaps the most famous of all, Columbia Medellin Cartel boss Pablo Escobar.

Based on real events, The Pressure Cooker Bomber is a chilling, fictionalized retelling of a true crime story that shook a nation. It delves into the psychological and social forces that drive extremism while providing an unflinching look at the aftermath—for victims, for families, and even for those who perpetrate such acts.

Osman Warning is a gripping, thought-provoking book that explores the chilling consequences of a threat to life and the ripple effect it has on an ordinary family. Inspired by the real-life case of the Osman family, this fictionalized account follows the journey of Yasmin and Ali Osman as they struggle to protect themselves and their loved ones from a seemingly unstoppable danger. As the family grapples with mounting fear, paranoia, and a shattered sense of safety, they must rely on each other and the support of their community.