Six Days in August: The Story of Stockholm Syndrome
Six Days in August: The Story of Stockholm Syndrome

Author: David King

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2020-08-04

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0393635090

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A rollicking account of the bizarre hostage drama that gave rise to the term "Stockholm syndrome." On the morning of August 23, 1973, a man wearing a wig, makeup, and a pair of sunglasses walked into the main branch of Sveriges Kreditbank, a prominent bank in central Stockholm. He ripped out a submachine gun, fired it into the ceiling, and shouted, "The party starts!" This was the beginning of a six-day hostage crisis—and media circus—that would mesmerize the world, drawing into its grip everyone from Sweden’s most notorious outlaw to the prime minister himself. As policemen and reporters encircled the bank, the crime-in-progress turned into a high-stakes thriller broadcast on live television. Inside the building, meanwhile, complicated emotional relationships developed between captors and captives that would launch a remarkable new concept into the realm of psychology, hostage negotiation, and popular culture. Based on a wealth of previously unpublished sources, including rare film footage and unprecedented access to the main participants, Six Days in August captures the surreal events in their entirety, on an almost minute-by-minute basis. It is a rich human drama that blurs the lines between loyalty and betrayal, obedience and defiance, fear and attraction—and a groundbreaking work of nonfiction that forces us to consider "Stockholm syndrome" in an entirely new light.

Death in the City of Light
Death in the City of Light

Author: David King

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2012-06-05

Total Pages: 442

ISBN-13: 0307452905

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The gripping, true story of a brutal serial killer who unleashed his own reign of terror in Nazi-Occupied Paris. As decapitated heads and dismembered body parts surfaced in the Seine, Commissaire Georges-Victor Massu, head of the Brigade Criminelle, was tasked with tracking down the elusive murderer in a twilight world of Gestapo, gangsters, resistance fighters, pimps, prostitutes, spies, and other shadowy figures of the Parisian underworld. But while trying to solve the many mysteries of the case, Massu would unravel a plot of unspeakable deviousness. The main suspect, Dr. Marcel Petiot, was a handsome, charming physician with remarkable charisma. He was the “People’s Doctor,” known for his many acts of kindness and generosity, not least in providing free medical care for the poor. Petiot, however, would soon be charged with twenty-seven murders, though authorities suspected the total was considerably higher, perhaps even as many as 150. Petiot's trial quickly became a circus. Attempting to try all twenty-seven cases at once, the prosecution stumbled in its marathon cross-examinations, and Petiot, enjoying the spotlight, responded with astonishing ease. Soon, despite a team of prosecuting attorneys, dozens of witnesses, and over one ton of evidence, Petiot’s brilliance and wit threatened to win the day. Drawing extensively on many new sources, including the massive, classified French police file on Dr. Petiot, Death in the City of Light is a brilliant evocation of Nazi-Occupied Paris and a harrowing exploration of murder, betrayal, and evil of staggering proportions.

Stockholm Syndrome
Stockholm Syndrome

Author: Julia Sanders

Publisher:

Published: 2017-08-22

Total Pages: 91

ISBN-13: 9781549564499

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STOCKHOLM SYNDROME - Bonding with Captors: True Stories of a Psychological Phenomenon In the spring of 1998, a ten year old girl was abducted on her way to school by two men in Donaustadt, Vienna. She was held captive by a sexual predator for eight years before finally making a daring, impromptu escape from her makeshift prison in her captor's cellar. When she heard the news that her former captor had committed suicide, she mourned his loss as though she were grieving the death of an old friend. In the fall of 2001, a British journalist was captured by Islamic terrorists and held captive for eleven days at their compound in Afghanistan. During her ordeal, she rightly believed that any moment could be her last. Terrorist prisoners rarely ever see freedom again following their capture, so when they uncharacteristically agreed to release her from captivity, she immediately fled home without hesitation. Upon her arrival on home soil, she converted from Christianity to Islam as a way to honour those who held her hostage.These bizarre instances, whilst rare, are a psychological phenomenon known as Stockholm syndrome. It is a trope we've seen in movies and TV shows a thousand times before. A beautiful women will be taken prisoner by hostile forces, only for a genuine affection between hostage and captor to manifest. Usually, there is an underlying narrative in these types of stories which always result in good triumphing over evil, perhaps in the form of the hostile captor seeing the error of his ways and setting his prisoner free. Or, in some stories, the hostage is simply manipulating their captor in order to aid their eventual escape. However, the reality of these circumstances is never quite so simple.

I Am Regina
I Am Regina

Author: Sally M. Keehn

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2001-12-31

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 110107695X

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The cabin door crashes open-and in a few minutes Regina's life changes forever. Allegheny Indians murder her father and brother, burn their Pennsylvania home to the ground, and take Regina captive. Only her mother, who is away from home, is safe. Torn from her family, Regina longs for the past, but she must begin a new life. She becomes Tskinnak, who learns to catch fish, dance the Indian dance, and speak the Indian tongue. As the years go by, her new people become her family . . . but she never stops wondering about her mother. Will they ever meet again? "A first-person narrative based on the true story of a young woman held by Indians from 1755-1763, related with all the impact of a hard-hitting documentary . . .Wonderful reading." (School Library Journal) "I Am Regina is an enthralling and profoundly stirring story, historical fiction for young people at its very finest." (Elizabeth George Speare, Newbery Award-winning author of The Witch of Blackbird Pond)

Amy Chelsea Stacie Dee
Amy Chelsea Stacie Dee

Author: Mary G. Thompson

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2016-10-11

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 110199682X

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A bittersweet homecoming holds dark secrets in this heart-wrenching story of loss, love, and survival for readers of Room When sixteen-year-old Amy returns home, she can't tell her family what’s happened to her. She can’t tell them where she’s been since she and her best friend, her cousin Dee, were kidnapped six years ago—who stole them from their families or what’s become of Dee. She has to stay silent because she's afraid of what might happen next, and she’s desperate to protect her secrets at any cost. Amy tries to readjust to life at “home,” but nothing she does feels right. She’s a stranger in her own family, and the guilt that she’s the one who returned is insurmountable. Amy soon realizes that keeping secrets won’t change what's happened, and they may end up hurting those she loves the most. She has to go back in order to move forward, risking everything along the way. Amy Chelsea Stacie Dee is a riveting, affecting story of loss and hope.

Drinking the Sea at Gaza
Drinking the Sea at Gaza

Author: Amira Hass

Publisher: Metropolitan Books

Published: 2014-11-04

Total Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 1466884533

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In 1993, Amira Aass, a young Israeli reporter, drove to Gaza to cover a story - and stayed, the first journalist to live in the grim Palestinian enclave so feared and despised by most Israelis that, in the local idiom, "Go to Gaza" is another way to say "Go to hell." Now, in a work of calm power and painful clarity, Hass reflects on what she has seen in Gaza's gutted streets and destitute refugee camps. Drinking the Sea at Gaza maps the zones of ordinary Palestinian life. From her friends, Hass learns the secrets of slipping across sealed borders and stealing through night streets emptied by curfews. She shares Gaza's early euphoria over the peace process and its subsequent despair as hope gives way to unrelenting hardship. But even as Hass charts the griefs and humiliations of the Palestinians, she offers a remarkable portrait of a people not brutalized but eloquent, spiritually resilient, bleakly funny, and morally courageous. Full of testimonies and stories, facts and impressions, Drinking the Sea at Gaza makes an urgent claim on our humanity. Beautiful, haunting, and profound, it will stand with the great works of wartime reportage, from Michael Herr's Dispatches to Rian Malan's My Traitor's Heart.

Vienna, 1814
Vienna, 1814

Author: David King

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2008-03-11

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 0307407365

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“Reads like a novel. A fast-paced page-turner, it has everything: sex, wit, humor, and adventures. But it is an impressively researched and important story.” —David Fromkin, author of Europe’s Last Summer Vienna, 1814 is an evocative and brilliantly researched account of the most audacious and extravagant peace conference in modern European history. With the feared Napoleon Bonaparte presumably defeated and exiled to the small island of Elba, heads of some 216 states gathered in Vienna to begin piecing together the ruins of his toppled empire. Major questions loomed: What would be done with France? How were the newly liberated territories to be divided? What type of restitution would be offered to families of the deceased? But this unprecedented gathering of kings, dignitaries, and diplomatic leaders unfurled a seemingly endless stream of personal vendettas, long-simmering feuds, and romantic entanglements that threatened to undermine the crucial work at hand, even as their hard-fought policy decisions shaped the destiny of Europe and led to the longest sustained peace the continent would ever see. Beyond the diplomatic wrangling, however, the Congress of Vienna served as a backdrop for the most spectacular Vanity Fair of its time. Highlighted by such celebrated figures as the elegant but incredibly vain Prince Metternich of Austria, the unflappable and devious Prince Talleyrand of France, and the volatile Tsar Alexander of Russia, as well as appearances by Ludwig van Beethoven and Emilia Bigottini, the sheer star power of the Vienna congress outshone nearly everything else in the public eye. An early incarnation of the cult of celebrity, the congress devolved into a series of debauched parties that continually delayed the progress of peace, until word arrived that Napoleon had escaped, abruptly halting the revelry and shrouding the continent in panic once again. Vienna, 1814 beautifully illuminates the intricate social and political intrigue of this history-defining congress–a glorified party that seemingly valued frivolity over substance but nonetheless managed to drastically reconfigure Europe’s balance of power and usher in the modern age.

Operation Nimrod
Operation Nimrod

Author: Russell Phillips

Publisher: Shilka Publishing

Published: 2015-10-05

Total Pages: 111

ISBN-13:

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Drawing on extensive research, Operation Nimrod dispels the myths and reveals the truth of those six long days, and the dramatic rescue that thrust the SAS into the public eye. On 29th April 1980, British police assured Iran that their embassy was secure. The very next day, terrorists stormed the embassy and took twenty-six hostages. With the Iranian government willing to let the hostages become martyrs, and the British government only willing to talk if the terrorists surrendered, twenty-six lives hung in the balance. What followed was six days of tension and terror. It was finally ended when the SAS launched a daring rescue mission, broadcast live on television. Millions held their breath, waiting to see the outcome of Operation Nimrod. Buy this book to learn the truth about one of the most dramatic rescue missions ever undertaken by the SAS.

To Live and Defy in LA
To Live and Defy in LA

Author: Felicia Angeja Viator

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2020-02-25

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0674976363

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How gangsta rap shocked America, made millions, and pulled back the curtain on an urban crisis. How is it that gangsta rap—so dystopian that it struck aspiring Brooklyn rapper and future superstar Jay-Z as “over the top”—was born in Los Angeles, the home of Hollywood, surf, and sun? In the Reagan era, hip-hop was understood to be the music of the inner city and, with rare exception, of New York. Rap was considered the poetry of the street, and it was thought to breed in close quarters, the product of dilapidated tenements, crime-infested housing projects, and graffiti-covered subway cars. To many in the industry, LA was certainly not hard-edged and urban enough to generate authentic hip-hop; a new brand of black rebel music could never come from La-La Land. But it did. In To Live and Defy in LA, Felicia Viator tells the story of the young black men who built gangsta rap and changed LA and the world. She takes readers into South Central, Compton, Long Beach, and Watts two decades after the long hot summer of 1965. This was the world of crack cocaine, street gangs, and Daryl Gates, and it was the environment in which rappers such as Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, and Eazy-E came of age. By the end of the 1980s, these self-styled “ghetto reporters” had fought their way onto the nation’s radio and TV stations and thus into America’s consciousness, mocking law-and-order crusaders, exposing police brutality, outraging both feminists and traditionalists with their often retrograde treatment of sex and gender, and demanding that America confront an urban crisis too often ignored.

The Last Job: "The Bad Grandpas" and the Hatton Garden Heist
The Last Job:

Author: Dan Bilefsky

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2019-04-23

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0393609529

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The definitive account of one of the most brazen jewel heists in history. Over Easter weekend 2015, a motley crew of six English thieves, several in their sixties and seventies, couldn’t resist coming out of retirement for one last career-topping heist. Their target: the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit, in the heart of London’s medieval diamond district. “The Firm” included Brian Reader, ringleader and legend in his own mind; Terry Perkins, a tough-as-nails career criminal but also a frail diabetic; Danny Jones, a fitness freak, crime enthusiast, and fabulist; Carl Wood, an extra pair of hands, and definitely more brawn than brains; John “Kenny” Collins, getaway driver, prone to falling asleep on the job; and the mysterious Basil, a red-wigged associate who has only now been identified. Perhaps not the smoothest of criminals—one took a public bus to the scene of the crime; another read Forensics for Dummies in hopes he would learn how to avoid getting caught—they planned the job over fish and chips at their favorite pubs. They were cantankerous and coarse, dubbed the “Bad Grandpas” by British tabloids, and were often as likely to complain about one another as the current state of the country. Still, these analog thieves in a digital age managed to disable a high-security alarm system and drill through twenty inches of reinforced concrete, walking away with a stunning haul of at least $19 million in jewels, gold, diamonds, family heirlooms, and cash. Veteran reporter and former London correspondent for the New York Times Dan Bilefsky draws on unrivaled access to the leading officers on the case at the Flying Squad, the legendary Scotland Yard unit that hunted the gang, as well as notorious criminals from London’s shadowy underworld, to offer a gripping account of how these unassuming criminal masterminds nearly pulled off one of the great heists of the century.