An award-wining and "outrageously entertaining" true crime story (San Francisco Chronicle) about the professional hockey player-turned-bank robber whose bizarre and audacious crime spree galvanized Hungary in the decade after the fall of the Iron Curtain. During the 1990s, while playing for the biggest hockey team in Budapest, Attila Ambrus took up bank robbery to make ends meet. Arrayed against him was perhaps the most incompetent team of crime investigators the Eastern Bloc had ever seen: a robbery chief who had learned how to be a detective by watching dubbed Columbo episodes; a forensics man who wore top hat and tails on the job; and a driver so inept he was known only by a Hungarian word that translates to Mound of Ass-Head. Ballad of the Whiskey Robber is the completely bizarre and hysterical story of the crime spree that made a nobody into a somebody, and told a forlorn nation that sometimes the brightest stars come from the blackest holes. Like The Professor and the Madman and The Orchid Thief, Julian Rubinstein's bizarre crime story is so odd and so wicked that it is completely irresistible. "A whiz-bang read...Hilarious and oddly touching...Rubinstein writes in a guns-ablazing style that perfectly fits the whiskey robber's tale." --Salon
An award-winning journalist’s dramatic account of a shooting that shook a community to its core, with important implications for the future On the last evening of summer in 2013, five shots rang out in a part of northeast Denver known as the Holly. Long a destination for African American families fleeing the Jim Crow South, the area had become an “invisible city” within a historically white metropolis. While shootings there weren’t uncommon, the identity of the shooter that night came as a shock. Terrance Roberts was a revered anti-gang activist. His attempts to bring peace to his community had won the accolades of both his neighbors and the state’s most important power brokers. Why had he just fired a gun? In The Holly, the award-winning Denver-based journalist Julian Rubinstein reconstructs the events that left a local gang member paralyzed and Roberts facing the possibility of life in prison. Much more than a crime story, The Holly is a multigenerational saga of race and politics that runs from the civil rights movement to Black Lives Matter. With a cast that includes billionaires, elected officials, cops, developers, and street kids, the book explores the porous boundaries between a city’s elites and its most disadvantaged citizens. It also probes the fraught relationships between police, confidential informants, activists, gang members, and ex–gang members as they struggle to put their pasts behind them. In The Holly, we see how well-intentioned efforts to curb violence and improve neighborhoods can go badly awry, and we track the interactions of law enforcement with gang members who conceive of themselves as defenders of a neighborhood. When Roberts goes on trial, the city’s fault lines are fully exposed. In a time of national reckoning over race, policing, and the uses and abuses of power, Rubinstein offers a dramatic and humane illumination of what’s at stake.
What do you get when you add together a bottle of whiskey, a bad gambler, a flea-market wig, a plastic gun and a Hungarian bank? $5,900. And what do you get twenty-nine of these robberies later? The legend of the Whiskey Robber. When the Eastern bloc thawed, some extraordinary stories were revealed. But none is as entertaining as this. Attila Ambrus escaped late-eighties Romania for Hungary - but soon found that living on his wits wasn't getting him very far. Becoming goalie for a third-division ice hockey team brought no fortune and little glory, and his procession of moneymaking ruses fared little better - until he discovered robbery. With a supporting cast of car-wash owners, exotic dancers, drunk army generals and cocaine-snorting Hungarian rappers, Julian Rubinstein's tale is a spectacular debut, immortalizing the most charming outlaw since the Sundance Kid.
For the first time in one place, Roger M. Sobin has compiled a list of nominees and award winners of virtually every mystery award ever presented. He has also included many of the “best of” lists by more than fifty of the most important contributors to the genre.; Mr. Sobin spent more than two decades gathering the data and lists in this volume, much of that time he used to recheck the accuracy of the material he had collected. Several of the “best of” lists appear here for the first time in book form. Several others have been unavailable for a number of years.; Of special note, are Anthony Boucher’s “Best Picks for the Year.” Boucher, one of the major mystery reviewers of all time, reviewed for The San Francisco Chronicle, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and The New York Times. From these resources Mr. Sobin created “Boucher’s Best” and “Important Lists to Consider,” lists that provide insight into important writing in the field from 1942 through Boucher’s death in 1968.? This is a great resource for all mystery readers and collectors.; ; Winner of the 2008 Macavity Awards for Best Mystery Nonfiction.
The bestselling author of Linked returns with a ground breaking new theory that will enthrall fans of The Tipping Point Can we scientifically predict our future? It's a mystery that has nagged scientists for perhaps thousand of years. Now Albert-László Barabási-the award-winning author of the sleeper hit Linked- explains how the digital age has yielded a massive, previously unavailable data set that proves the daily pattern of human activity isn't random, it's "bursty." We work and fight and play in short flourishes of activity followed by next to nothing. Compellingly illustrated with the account of a bloody medieval crusade in sixteenth-century Transylvania and the modern tale of a contemporary artist hunted by the FBI, Bursts reveals that we are far more predictable than we like to think.
Behind Bars is filled with stories both ancient and urgent of what happens when alcohol meets crime, from illicit stills in the Scottish Highlands to moonshine in the USA, rum smuggled by Caribbean pirates to the roaring times of Prohibition, current-day gangs selling millions of dollars’ worth of fake Bordeaux, and the often-unsolved cases of people walking into a liquor store, stealing whiskey bottles worth tens of thousands of dollars, and walking out, never to be seen again. Award-winning travel and drinks writer Mike Gerrard takes readers on a centuries-long journey highlighting the most bizarre – and expensive – alcohol-related crimes all while revealing the inside world of spirits, how they have been distilled, legislated, imbibed, and infused into our culture for hundreds of years. Featuring colorful tangents and detailed appendices, Behind Bars will whet the whistle of any curious reader. Spanning the stories of ancient wine swindlers in Pompeii to the modern radiocarbon-dating techniques used by today’s cutting-edge scientists to investigate suspect bottles of expensive alcohol, from million-dollar robberies of wine cellars buried deep underground to whiskey rings surrounding the highest reaches of the Presidency, Gerrard smartly and swiftly reveals that the link between alcohol and crime is a never-ending story.
The Rough Guide to True Crime tells the stories of criminal acts ranging from the absurd to the appalling, using a light touch with the former and illuminating the psychology in play behind the crimes. A compilation of crime's greatest hits, preposterous occurrences and heinous acts, the Rough Guide to True Crime will satisfy the armchair voyeur and amateur criminologist alike.
With an acting career spanning thirty years, Johnny Depp has appeared in a diverse range of television and film roles. Depp has won a Golden Globe, fourteen People's Choice Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award, among others. This arresting book provides a compelling biography of Johnny Depp. Chapters cover his reluctant embrace of stardom, his search for direction during childhood, his experience being a teen idol, his breaking out into challenging acting roles, and raising a family.
Lonely Planet: The world's leading travel guide publisher Lonely Planet Budapest & Hungary is your passport to all the most relevant and up-to-date advice on what to see, what to skip, and what hidden discoveries await you. Ogle sinuous Art Nouveau architecture in Budapest, take a cruise along the blue Danube, or see the dust fly at a cowboy show; all with your trusted travel companion. Get to the heart of Hungary and begin your journey now! Inside Lonely Planet's Budapest & Hungary Travel Guide: Colour maps and images throughout Highlights and itineraries show you the simplest way to tailor your trip to your own personal needs and interests Insider tips save you time and money, and help you get around like a local, avoiding crowds and trouble spots Essential info at your fingertips - including hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, transit tips, and prices Honest reviews for all budgets - including eating, sleeping, sight-seeing, going out, shopping, and hidden gems that most guidebooks miss Cultural insights give you a richer and more rewarding travel experience - including history, architecture, painting, folk art, music, literature, etiquette, religion, landscapes, wildlife, wine, cuisine, and more. Useful features - including First Time Hungary, Eat & Drink Like a Local and Month by Month (annual festival calendar) Coverage of Budapest, the Danube Bend, Lake Balaton, Szeged, Pecs, Sopron, Southern Transdanubia, the Great Plain, Western Transdanubia, Eger, Northern Uplands, Szentendre, Visegrad, Villany, and more. eBook Features: (Best viewed on tablet devices and smartphones) Downloadable PDF and offline maps prevent roaming and data charges Effortlessly navigate and jump between maps and reviews Add notes to personalise your guidebook experience Seamlessly flip between pages Bookmarks and speedy search capabilities get you to key pages in a flash Embedded links to recommendations' websites Zoom-in maps and images Inbuilt dictionary for quick referencing The Perfect Choice: Lonely Planet Budapest & Hungary, our most comprehensive guide to Hungary, is perfect for those planning to both explore the top sights and take the road less travelled. About Lonely Planet: Lonely Planet is a leading travel media company and the world’s number one travel guidebook brand, providing both inspiring and trustworthy information for every kind of traveler since 1973. Over the past four decades, we’ve printed over 145 million guidebooks and grown a dedicated, passionate global community of travelers. You’ll also find our content online, and in mobile apps, video, 14 languages, nine international magazines, armchair and lifestyle books, ebooks, and more. Important Notice: The digital edition of this book may not contain all of the images found in the physical edition.
