When George Washington beat a hasty retreat from New York City in August 1776, many thought the American Revolution might soon be over. Instead, Washington rallied—thanks in large part to a little-known, top-secret group called the Culper Spy Ring. He realized that he couldn’t defeat the British with military might, so he recruited a sophisticated and deeply secretive intelligence network to infiltrate New York. Drawing on extensive research, Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger have offered fascinating portraits of these spies: a reserved Quaker merchant, a tavern keeper, a brash young longshoreman, a curmudgeonly Long Island bachelor, a coffeehouse owner, and a mysterious woman. Long unrecognized, the secret six are finally receiving their due among the pantheon of American heroes.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Turn: Washington’s Spies, now an original series on AMC Based on remarkable new research, acclaimed historian Alexander Rose brings to life the true story of the spy ring that helped America win the Revolutionary War. For the first time, Rose takes us beyond the battlefront and deep into the shadowy underworld of double agents and triple crosses, covert operations and code breaking, and unmasks the courageous, flawed men who inhabited this wilderness of mirrors—including the spymaster at the heart of it all. In the summer of 1778, with the war poised to turn in his favor, General George Washington desperately needed to know where the British would strike next. To that end, he unleashed his secret weapon: an unlikely ring of spies in New York charged with discovering the enemy’s battle plans and military strategy. Washington’s small band included a young Quaker torn between political principle and family loyalty, a swashbuckling sailor addicted to the perils of espionage, a hard-drinking barkeep, a Yale-educated cavalryman and friend of the doomed Nathan Hale, and a peaceful, sickly farmer who begged Washington to let him retire but who always came through in the end. Personally guiding these imperfect everyday heroes was Washington himself. In an era when officers were gentlemen, and gentlemen didn’ t spy, he possessed an extraordinary talent for deception—and proved an adept spymaster. The men he mentored were dubbed the Culper Ring. The British secret service tried to hunt them down, but they escaped by the closest of shaves thanks to their ciphers, dead drops, and invisible ink. Rose’s thrilling narrative tells the unknown story of the Revolution–the murderous intelligence war, gunrunning and kidnapping, defectors and executioners—that has never appeared in the history books. But Washington’s Spies is also a spirited, touching account of friendship and trust, fear and betrayal, amid the dark and silent world of the spy.
Collecting the series that led into INFINITE CRISIS! Six of justice's deadliest enemies band together to start a revolution. Together, they want to take a stand to stop the super-heroic community from tampering with their minds and to prove how deadly they can be! But not everyone agrees to this agenda. Six rogues are recruited by the enigmatic Mockingbird, charged with opposing the Society and given assignments to thwart their rivals and even help their enemies. Who is Mockingbird? Could it be one of the six? Collects VILLIANS UNITED #1-6, SECRET SIX #1-6, VILLIANS UNITED: INFINITE CRISIS SPECIAL #1.
John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry was one of the events which sparked the US Civil War. This study looks at the group of Northern aristocrats who covertly aided Brown, convinced that armed conflict was necessary to purge the United States of the government-sanctioned evil of slavery.
Batman teams up with the Man of Steel to track down and help those who have been infected by a ravenous, mutated Joker virus. Just one problem: they don't know who they are. A virus is spreading, and it's not just after innocent people, but some of our most powerful heroes as well. The biggest question isn't why or how, but who? The Batman Who Laughs was one of the premier villains crawling his way from the depths of the Dark Multiverse and wreaking havoc on the DC Universe. Now he has been infecting some of the biggest heroes across the world with a mutated version of the Joker virus that is coursing through him. Cue the team-up of two of the greatest superheroes in history: Batman and Superman. They decide to work together to find out who is infected and hopefully cure them before it's too late.
Always a lover of history, Mary Higgins Clark wrote this extensively researched biographical novel and titled it Aspire to the Heavens, after the motto of George Washington's mother. Published in 1969, the book was more recently discovered by a Washington family descendant and reissued as Mount Vernon Love Story. Dispelling the widespread belief that although George Washington married Martha Dandridge Custis, he reserved his true love for Sally Carey Fairfax, his best friend's wife, Mary Higgins Clark describes the Washington marriage as one full of tenderness and passion, as a bond between two people who shared their lives -- even the bitter hardship of a winter in Valley Forge -- in every way. In this author's skilled hands, the history, the love, and the man come fully and dramatically alive.
Superstar writer Gail Simone (BIRDS OF PREY, BATGIRL, WONDER WOMAN) reinvents her fan-favorite super-team-up! Six strangers captured, drugged and thrown together in a prison cell in the middle of the ocean. All of them with certain special abilities. None of them exactly superheroes. How are they connected? Why were they taken? With no answers coming, these unlikely allies must band together to escape the shadowy figure who locked them away and continues to hunt them down for reasons they don’t understand. If they can manage not to kill each other first, they may just stay alive long enough to get their revenge on the mysterious “Mockingbird.” And a taste for revenge, it turns out, is the one thing they all have in common. Not quite heroes, not quite villains; one thing’s for sure-these ain’t the Justice Dorks. Featuring art from Ken Lashley (ACTION COMICS), Dale Eaglesham (GREEN LANTERN), Tom Derenick (INJUSTICE: GODS AMONG US) and more! Collects issues #1-6 and DC SNEAK PEEK: SECRET SIX #1.
As a member of the Secret Six is determined to bring back a loved one from the Gates of Hell using a 'Get Out of Hell Free' card stolen back in the first arc of the series. Meanwhile Bane must face his inner demons and make some crucial decisions regarding his future with the Secret Six!
According to the Eliot Ness myth, which has been widely disseminated through books, television shows, and movies, Ness and the Untouchables defeated Al Capone by marshaling superior firepower. In Scarface Al and the Crime Crusaders, Dennis Hoffman presents a fresh new perspective on the downfall of Al Capone. To debunk the Eliot Ness myth, he shows how a handful of private citizens brought Capone to justice by outsmarting him rather than by outgunning him. Drawing on previously untapped sources, Hoffman dissects what he terms a “private war” against Capone. He traces the behind-the-scenes work of a few prominent Chicago businessmen from their successful lobbying of presidents Coolidge and Hoover on behalf of federal intervention to the trial, sentencing, and punishment of Al Capone. Hoffman also reconstructs in detail a number of privately sponsored citizen initiatives directed at stopping Capone. These private ventures included prosecuting the gangsters responsible for election crimes; establishing a crime lab to assist in gangbusting; underwriting the costs of the investigation of the Jake Lingle murder; stigmatizing Capone; and protecting the star witnesses for the prosecution in Al Capone’s income tax evasion case. Hoffman suggests that as American society continues to be threatened by illegal drugs, gangs, and widespread violence, it is important to remember that the organized crime and political corruption of Prohibition-era Chicago were checked through the efforts of private citizens. !--?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /-- Dennis E. Hoffman is an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
