Showing results by author "Stu Armstrong" in All Categories

'A Boy Named Henry – British Boxing Legend Sir Henry Cooper's Story 'by Stu Armstrong is a captivating journey through the life of one of Britain’s most cherished sporting heroes. From humble beginnings in Bermondsey, South London, to his iconic battles in the ring, this compelling biography shines a light on the extraordinary man behind the gloves.

David Fuller lived an unassuming life as a family man and skilled hospital worker in the quiet English town of Tunbridge Wells. To those around him, he was dependable, polite, and seemingly ordinary. But behind the carefully constructed façade lay a man harboring unspeakable darkness.

The 2010 Northumbria Police manhunt was the biggest ever police operation in Britain. It was conducted across Tyne and Wear and Northumberland with the objective of apprehending fugitive Raoul Moat, the former Newcastle nightclub bouncer who had just been released from Durham jail. After killing one person and wounding two others in a two-day shooting spree in July 2010, the 37-year-old went on the run for nearly a week. The manhunt concluded when Moat committed suicide, having shot himself in the town of Rothbury, Northumberland, following a six-hour standoff with armed police.

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.

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!

Step inside the minds of the most cold-blooded murderers in British history. In Volume 1 of the Notorious series, acclaimed true crime author Stu Armstrong brings you face-to-face with the UK’s most infamous killers—men and women whose crimes shook the nation and left trails of horror, grief, and unanswered questions in their wake.

Bare Knuckle Kings: 19th Century Champions by Stu Armstrong takes listeners into the heart of the bare-knuckle boxing world during one of its most vibrant and dangerous eras—the 19th century. This meticulously researched book brings to life the champions who rose from humble beginnings to forge legacies in a sport that was as raw as it was revered. Armstrong highlights each fighter’s journey, from their origins to the brutal and often bloody matches that cemented their reputations as legends of the ring.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

For years, Europes most dangerous criminals operated in the shadows, hidden behind an impenetrable veil of encryption. Murderers, cartel lords, gun traffickers, and drug barons spoke freely on EncroChat, an ultra-secure communications platform they believed was untraceable. Police couldn’t hack it, Intelligence services couldn’t crack it, and on the darknet, it was gospel: Encro was God mode.

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.

Step into the chilling world of Britain’s most dangerous women. In Notorious: Volume 6 – The UK’s Most Infamous Women, Stu Armstrong exposes the shocking true stories of female killers, gangsters, and masterminds whose crimes stunned the nation and shattered lives. For centuries, crime has been seen as a man’s domain, but history tells a darker, more complex tale. From sadistic child killers to ruthless crime bosses and manipulative fraudsters, these women defied societal expectations of femininity, wielding power and destruction in equal measure.

Danny Mercer was once on the right side of the prison bars—a respected officer in the British prison service. But when he crossed the line for the wrong woman, everything changed. Framed, betrayed, and thrown into the same system he once enforced, Danny finds himself fighting for survival among violent inmates who hate him for being a “screw,” and officers who loathe him for being corrupt. Inside, danger is everywhere.

Notorious, Volume 4 takes listeners deep into the invisible battlefield of the 21st century, where keystrokes are weapons, data is currency, and the enemy could be anywhere in the world… or right next door. From back-alley hackers and credit card cloners to billion-dollar ransomware syndicates and state-sponsored cyber armies, this explosive volume uncovers the shocking truths behind the most dangerous criminals you’ll never see. Meet the real-world villains, social engineers who manipulate minds, coders who hijack infrastructure, and corrupt call-center networks operating with near impunity.

The UK’s Most Infamous Prisons is a chilling, unflinching journey into the darkest corners of Britain’s prison estate, where high walls conceal not only the nation’s most dangerous criminals, but its deepest institutional failures. From the fortress-like corridors of HMP Belmarsh, dubbed “Britain’s Guantanamo,” to the violence-scarred cells of HMP Strangeways, this book explores the most infamous prisons in the UK. Each chapter focuses on a different institution, uncovering not just their notorious inmates, serial killers, terrorists, gang lords, but the grim realities of life inside.