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El re de cocaina
By Ayda Levy. 2012
Bautizado por la prensa internacional como "el rey de la cocaína", Roberto Suárez Gómez llegó a exportar diariamente casi dos…
toneladas de la droga desde sus laboratorios en la Amazonía boliviana a sus socios del cártel de Medellín, dirigido por Pablo Escobar, a Estados Unidos, en una operación conjunta con la CIA, y a Europa. Protegida por la corrupción de mandatarios de varios países, así como por militares y gobernantes bolivianos, La corporación fue conocida como "la General Motors del narcotráfico". Ayda Levy, viuda de Roberto Suárez, de quien se separó al enterarse de que el acaudalado empresario, descendiente del imperio del caucho, estaba involucrado en el narcotráfico, narra en estas páginas sus vivencias y las revelaciones que el productor de la droga más pura del mundo compartió con ella. La memoria implacable de la autora va desvelando, entre otras, la financiación de golpes de estado, el involucramiento de Klaus Barbie, el Carnicero de Lyon, la implicación directa del Banquero de Dios, Roberto Calvi, la negociación de las rutas con el general Noriega y con el gobierno cubano, y el plan acordado con el coronel Oliver North para financiar la contra nicaragüense con el producto de la venta de cocaína en Estados Unidos. Llamado "el Robin Hood de Bolivia" por la revistaTime y fuente de inspiración para un personaje clave de la película Scarface, Suarez intento pagar la deuda externa boliviana al tiempo que era uno de los hombres más buscados por la DEA en el mundo. Desengañado, decidió entregarse a las autoridades y, tras cumplir una breve condena, murió en libertad. Nunca se había escrito un testimonio como el de Ayda Levy, quien revela en este libro una pieza fundamental del rompecabezas del narcotráfico que jamás había sido contada.A Disposition to Be Rich
By Geoffrey C. Ward. 2012
Ferdinand Ward was the greatest swindler of the Gilded Age. Through his unapologetic villainy, he bankrupted Ulysses S. Grant and…
ran roughshod over the entire world of finance. Now, his compelling, behind-the-scenes story is told--told by his great-grandson, award-winning historian Geoffrey C. Ward.Ward was the Bernie Madoff of his day, a supposed genius at making big money fast on Wall Street who turned out to have been running a giant pyramid scheme--one that ultimately collapsed in one of the greatest financial scandals in American history. The son of a Protestant missionary and small-town pastor with secrets of his own to keep, Ward came to New York at twenty-one and in less than a decade, armed with charm, energy, and a total lack of conscience, made himself the business partner of the former president of the United States and was widely hailed as the "Young Napoleon of Finance." In truth, he turned out to be a complete fraud, his entire life marked by dishonesty, cowardice, and contempt for anything but his own interests.Drawing from thousands of family documents never before examined, Geoffrey C. Ward traces his great-grandfather's rapid rise to riches and fame and his even more dizzying fall from grace. There are mistresses and mansions along the way; fast horses and crooked bankers and corrupt New York officials; courtroom confrontations and six years in Sing Sing; and Ferdinand's desperate scheme to kidnap his own son to get his hands on the estate his late wife had left the boy. Here is a great story about a classic American con artist, told with boundless charm and dry wit by one of our finest historians.Fake: Forgery, Lies, & Ebay
By Kenneth Walton. 2006
It was the golden age of eBay. Optimistic bidders went online to the world's largest flea market in droves, ready…
to spend cash on everything from garden gnomes to Mercedes convertibles. Among them were art collectors willing to spend big money on unseen paintings, hoping to buy valuable pieces of art at below-market prices. EBay also attracted the occasional con artist unable to resist the temptation of abusing a system that prided itself on being "based on trust. " Kenneth Walton -- once a lawyer bound by the ethics of his profession to uphold the law -- was seduced by just such a con artist and, eventually, became one himself. Ripped from the headlines of the New York Times, the first newspaper to break the story, Fake describes Walton's innocent beginnings as an online art-trading hobbyist and details the downward spiral of greed that ultimately led to his federal felony conviction. What started out as a satisfying exercise in reselling thrift store paintings for a profit in order to pay back student loans and mounting credit card debt soon became a fierce addiction to the subtle deception of luring unsuspecting bidders into overpaying for paintings of questionable origins. In a landscape peopled with colorful eccentrics hoping to score museum-quality paintings at bargain prices, Walton entered into a partnership with Ken Fetterman, an unslick (yet somehow very effective) con man. Over the course of eighteen months they managed to take in hundreds of thousands of dollars by selling forged paintings and bidding on their own auctions to drive up the prices. When their deception was discovered and made international headlines, Walton found himself stalked by reporters and federal agents while Fetterman went on the lam, sparking a nationwide FBI manhunt. His elaborate game of cat and mouse lasted nearly three years, until the feds caught up with him after a routine traffic violation and brought him to justice. In this sensational story of the seductive power of greed, Kenneth Walton breaks his silence for the first time and, in his own words, details the international scandal that forever changed the way eBay does business.The Ultimate Book of Impostors
By Ian Graham. 2013
Think You Know Who Your Friends Are? Think again... From Mata Hari to D. B. Cooper, history is littered with…
people pretending to be someone else. Some go undetected for years, cultivating their false identities so skillfully, even their spouses don't know. Other frauds go up in flames after one misstep. The Ultimate Book of Impostors presents the astonishing true stories behind over one hundred of the craziest and funniest phonies in history, including: A fake French government official who managed to sell the Eiffel Tower--twice One of the Wild West's toughest and more admired "male" stagecoach drivers, who was actually a woman! An Israeli Mossad team that stole the identities of real British and Australian citizens to trap an unsuspecting target for assassination Packed with fun facts and outrageous accounts of fake pilots, phony princesses, imitation Indians, and serial sham artists, this irresistible book exposes the truth behind the world's wildest fraud--and why they did it--and reveals that even those we think we know best may not be exactly who they seem.Being Uncle Charlie
By Bob Deasy. 2013
Being Uncle Charlie is the intense, intimate and graphic story of one Canadian undercover cop who spent two decades infiltrating…
organized crime. From Russian and Italian mafias to notorious biker gangs, Bob Deasy gained access to and the acceptance of criminals who most cops in any country would never encounter or arrest, let alone befriend.Bob Deasy had an illustrious twenty-three year career with the Ontario Provincial Police. Using little more than his quick wits, natural confidence and a deft mental equilibrium that allowed him to stay three chess moves ahead of his quarry, Deasy was the secret weapon behind some of the signature crime busts in Canadian history. Infiltrating the Outlaws Motorcycle Club and the Russian and Italian mobs, he also single-handedly set up international import-export businesses, faked contract hit jobs and executed one of the largest drug buys in OPP history. He also perfected the now controversial "Mr. Big" technique of posing as a crime kingpin to solicit unwitting confessions from suspects in long-dormant cold murder cases--a tactic he defends as he practised it, and with which he enjoyed a 100% success rate.Being Uncle Charlie is a nail-biting ride--sometimes comic, always entertaining--that reads like a one-man history of modern crime, told through the ground-level, insider's perspective of a cop who was able to blend in with the unsavoury, the desperate and the diabolical.Wicked Prescott (Wicked)
By Parker Anderson. 2016
Swindlers, confidence men and outlaws--the mountain shadows and Ponderosa pines surrounding Prescott conceal their grim histories and crooked ways. The…
small hamlet turned mining town became Arizona's first capital in 1864, and with wealth and power came every type of vice and crime. One block west of the famed Whiskey Row, the roaring red-light district attracted ladies of easy virtue, who often became victims of crimes of passion and coldblooded murder. Legendary crook Fleming "Jim" Parker escaped from Yavapai County Jail on the back of the sheriff's stolen horse. Cattle rustlers terrorized nearby ranches, while tavern brawls and liquor-fueled shootouts dominated newspaper headlines. More than ten legal hangings brought criminals to justice. Local author Parker Anderson recounts these and more wicked misdeeds from Prescott's wild early days.In 1917, after years of selling worthless patent remedies throughout the Southeast, John R. Brinkley-America's most brazen young con man-arrived…
in the tiny town of Milford, Kansas. He set up a medical practice and introduced an outlandish surgical method using goat glands to restore the fading virility of local farmers.It was all nonsense, of course, but thousands of paying customers quickly turned "Dr." Brinkley into America's richest and most famous surgeon. His notoriety captured the attention of the great quackbuster Morris Fishbein, who vowed to put the country's "most daring and dangerous" charlatan out of business.Their cat-and-mouse game lasted throughout the 1920s and '30s, but despite Fishbein's efforts Brinkley prospered wildly. When he ran for governor of Kansas, he invented campaigning techniques still used in modern politics. Thumbing his nose at American regulators, he built the world's most powerful radio transmitter just across the Rio Grande to offer sundry cures, and killed or maimed patients by the score, yet his warped genius produced innovations in broadcasting that endure to this day. By introducing country music and blues to the nation, Brinkley also became a seminal force in rock 'n' roll. In short, he is the most creative criminal this country has ever produced.Culminating in a decisive courtroom confrontation that pit Brinkley against his nemesis Fishbein, Charlatan is a marvelous portrait of a boundlessly audacious rogue on the loose in an America that was ripe for the bamboozling.From the Hardcover edition.Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet
By Jeffrey Rosen. 2016
According to Jeffrey Rosen, Louis D. Brandeis was "the Jewish Jefferson," the greatest critic of what he called "the curse…
of bigness," in business and government, since the author of the Declaration of Independence. Published to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of his Supreme Court confirmation on June 1, 1916, Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet argues that Brandeis was the most farseeing constitutional philosopher of the twentieth century. In addition to writing the most famous article on the right to privacy, he also wrote the most important Supreme Court opinions about free speech, freedom from government surveillance, and freedom of thought and opinion. And as the leader of the American Zionist movement, he convinced Woodrow Wilson and the British government to recognize a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Combining narrative biography with a passionate argument for why Brandeis matters today, Rosen explores what Brandeis, the Jeffersonian prophet, can teach us about historic and contemporary questions involving the Constitution, monopoly, corporate and federal power, technology, privacy, free speech, and Zionism.Autobiografía de un Terrorista - De la Muerte a la Vida
By Carlos Corzo Fernández, Raj. 2017
Hay muchas personas que han manifestado su incredulidad con respecto al hecho de que todo este libro sea en sí,…
la narración de un terrorista, y tienen dudas sobre la veracidad de la historia. Me gustaría responderles a todos ellos con ese adagio tan conocido de que: "A veces, la realidad supera a la ficción " Lo que tenemos que entender aquí es que, la mayoría de los terroristas en el mundo son jóvenes engañados; sus mentes han sido manipuladas, y toda esa ficción con la que se les ha alimentado, para ellos, es la verdad que más importa en sus vidas. Y a pesar de que la mayoría de ellos se haya endurecido hasta un punto sin retorno; hay algunos que se han dado cuenta de su locura, y han podido regresar a la vida humana normal, después de abandonar el camino de la muerte y de la destrucción. Esta es la historia de uno de esos jóvenes.Cartel Wives: A True Story of Deadly Decisions, Steadfast Love, and Bringing Down El Chapo
By Mia Flores, Olivia Flores. 2017
An astonishing, revelatory, and redemptive memoir from two women who escaped the international drug trade, with never-before-revealed details about El…
Chapo, the Sinaloa Cartel, and the dangerous world of illicit drugs.Olivia and Mia Flores are married to the highest level drug traffickers ever to become US informants. Their husbands worked with--and then brought down--El Chapo, as well as dozens of high-level members of the Mexican cartels. They had everything money could buy: luxury cars, huge houses, and expensive jewelry--but they chose to give it all up when they cooperated with the US government. They knew that life was about more than wealth; it was about love, family, and doing what's right. CARTEL WIVES is a love story, a "Married to the Mob" story, an insider's look into the terrifying but high-flying empire of the new world of drugs, and, finally, the story of a major DEA and FBI operation.American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst
By Jeffrey Toobin. 2016
From New Yorker staff writer and bestselling author of The Nine and The Run of His Life: The People v.…
O. J. Simpson, the definitive account of the kidnapping and trial that defined an insane era in American history On February 4, 1974, Patty Hearst, a sophomore in college and heiress to the Hearst family fortune, was kidnapped by a ragtag group of self-styled revolutionaries calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army. The already sensational story took the first of many incredible twists on April 3, when the group released a tape of Patty saying she had joined the SLA and had adopted the nom de guerre "Tania." The weird turns of the tale are truly astonishing--the Hearst family trying to secure Patty's release by feeding all the people of Oakland and San Francisco for free; the bank security cameras capturing "Tania" wielding a machine gun during a robbery; a cast of characters including everyone from Bill Walton to the Black Panthers to Ronald Reagan to F. Lee Bailey; the largest police shoot-out in American history; the first breaking news event to be broadcast live on television stations across the country; Patty's year on the lam, running from authorities; and her circuslike trial, filled with theatrical courtroom confrontations and a dramatic last-minute reversal, after which the term "Stockholm syndrome" entered the lexicon. The saga of Patty Hearst highlighted a decade in which America seemed to be suffering a collective nervous breakdown. Based on more than a hundred interviews and thousands of previously secret documents, American Heiress thrillingly recounts the craziness of the times (there were an average of 1,500 terrorist bombings a year in the early 1970s). Toobin portrays the lunacy of the half-baked radicals of the SLA and the toxic mix of sex, politics, and violence that swept up Patty Hearst and re-creates her melodramatic trial. American Heiress examines the life of a young woman who suffered an unimaginable trauma and then made the stunning decision to join her captors' crusade. Or did she? A New York Times BestsellerArctic Adventure: My Life in the Frozen North (Lyons Press Ser.)
By Peter Freuchen. 1976
Originally published in 1956, this book is a memoir by Danish explorer Peter Freuchen, a close friend and travel companion…
of Arctic legend Knud Rasmussen, and ended up living in Greenland for fifteen years, 800 miles from the North Pole--adopting the native ways of life, marrying an Inuit woman, and having two children along the way.Arctic Adventure is filled with tales of seal and polar bear hunts, enduring starvation, encountering people who had resorted to cannibalism, and the stirring experience of seeing the sun again after three months of winter darkness.Rich in human saga, Freuchen's warmth, wit, and literary talent make this recollection of real-life adventure stories a stand-out."Except for Richard E. Byrd, and despite his foreign beginnings, Freuchen was perhaps better known to more people in the United States than any other explorer of our time."--Evelyn Stefansson, The New York Times"[A] formidable and fascinating man"--Harriet Baker, AnOtherRichly illustrated throughout with maps and black-and-white photographs.Black Range Tales: Chronicling Sixty Years of Life and Adventure in the Southwest
By James A. Mckenna, Shane Leslie. 1936
First published in 1936, this book is a collection of sixteen stories recounting James ("Uncle Jimmie") McKenna's tales of prospecting,…
Indian Fights, exploration, town life and all the characters from the early days of the Black Range, the Mogollons, and the rest of the Gila Country of southwest New Mexico. The result is alternately humorous, poignant, amazing or insightful, and paints a vivid picture of a people who embodied the measured optimism of the American West."Uncle Jimmie" blazed a trail to the Southwest in his youth, and his life for the next sixty years was filled with all the history-making adventure and treasure that his ardent nature craved. It was not always the treasure of gold, although gold was there. But there was life while it lasted, death when it came, a mystery-ridged land and courageous people to explore it."THIS IS A GREAT BOOK! THE REAL THING IS RARE AND THERE'S NO MISTAKING IT."--Commonweal"The greatness comes from McKenna's magic blend of Celtic wit, thirst for life, and modesty about the enormous importance of his own adventures."--Christian ScienceThe Saga of Cimba: A Journey From Nova Scotia To The South Seas (The sailor's Classics Ser.)
By Richard Maury. 2016
First published in 1939, this book is a vivid account of Richard Maury's voyage from New York to Fiji in…
the small, 35-foot, Nova Scotia-built schooner Cimba. When a 23-year-old Maury and a likeminded sailor filled with wanderlust set off into the winter North Atlantic on November 30, 1933, it proved to be an expedition of high adventure, and one embarked upon at a time when such voyages were practically unheard of. The reader is taken on a fascinating journey to Bermuda and, from there, to Grand Turk, Jamaica, Panama and through the Canal, with the two young sailors finding their every dream come true at Galapagos, Marquesas, Tahiti, Samoa--culminating in a gripping finale at Fiji..."If I were asked to pick the best book in recent years about deep water cruising in a small yacht, I would unhesitatingly choose The Saga of Cimba by Richard Maury."Maury went to sea because he loved being at sea and ports to him were interruptions rather than objectives. The story of his cruise is the story of the struggles and triumphs of his diminutive schooner in breasting thousands of miles of deep water. It is the sailing of the schooner that engrossed him. The yarn is the story of a boat rather than the story of her skipper. One can go on to the book's last enthralling page and be left speculating on what sort of a man this Maury is. He never tells you. You have to sense it from his attitude toward his little vessel. But you are left in no doubt about Cimba herself. You know what manner of ship she is. You know every inch of her by the time you have seen her to the Fijis."--Rudder Magazine"Told with such beauty that it will win the admiration not only of those who sail but of the whole reading public"--New York World Telegram."One of the finest sea yarns of all times"--Rudder."Bound to be the classic of this type"--Boston Transcript."Reality he most exciting small boat yarn I have read"--FELIX REISENBERG.The Dark Frigate
By Charles Boardman Hawes. 2016
THE DARK FRIGATE--Winner of the Newbery Medal.In seventeenth-century England, a terrible accident forces orphaned Philip Marsham to flee London in…
fear for his life. Bred to the sea, he signs on with the Rose of Devon, a dark frigate bound for the quiet shores of Newfoundland. Philip's bold spirit and knowledge of the sea soon win him his captain's regard. But when the Rose of Devon is seized in midocean by a devious group of men plucked from a floating wreck, Philip is forced to accompany these "gentlemen of fortune" on their murderous expeditions. Like it or not, Philip Marsham is now a pirate--with only the hangman awaiting his return to England.With its bloody battles, brutal buccaneers, and bold, spirited hero, this rousing tale will enthrall readers in search of seafaring adventure."No one, we think, has written so perfect a pirate tale since Treasure Island"--New York Herald TribuneRangers And Sovereignty
By Dan W. Roberts. 2015
A gripping slice of Americana, telling the exciting tale of Texas Ranger Daniel Webster Roberts' Ranger service. As Captain of…
Company D, this book details the social life of the rangers, their relations with frontier society, their food, dress, and entertainment."We set out in this writing to record the work of Company "D", Frontier Battalion, not for any selfish consideration. But, being almost importuned by our real friends to do so, we thought we could tell what we really know to be true in a way that might spin out a thread strong enough to bind together an intelligent idea of the needs of that service, how the service was performed, and at least a vision of the final disposition of the horrid Indian question. Our egotism doesn't lead us to say that Texas did it all; but our little part is richly treasured in the archives of our "native heath"--Texas. Our sorrows are there, also, in many a grave not even marked by human hands to show where our brave defenders met death--yielding the last sacrifice in defense of Texas."Born Of The Sun
By John H. Culp. 2015
Set shortly after the Civil War, this distinguished novel tells the story of a boy starting a new life in…
the Concho country of Northwest Texas."An epic novel of frontier life--'BORN OF THE SUN' is...continuously dramatic and entertaining. It belongs on the same shelf with the novels of Alan Le May and A. B. Guthrie, Jr."--New York Times"A book any red-blooded American should be proud to read, and we guarantee he'll be well entertained."--NEW HAVEN REGISTER"True Americana, filled with the exuberance and hardy spirit of the pioneers."--ROANOKE TIMES"A magnificent book."--Dorothy M. Johnson"Strong adult fiction...superb reading...authentic story."--DENVER SUNDAY POST"One of the most vivid and refreshing novels of the southwest to come along in recent years."--TULSA SUNDAY WORLD"A permanent addition to enduring Texas fiction."--DALLAS TIMES HERALDLand of Enchantment: Memoirs of Marian Russell Along The Santa Fé Trail
By Marion Sloan Russell. 2015
Few of the great overland highways of America have known such a wealth of color and romance as that which…
surrounded the Santa Fé Trail. For over four centuries the dust-gray and muddy-red trail felt the moccasined tread of Comanches, Apaches, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes. These soft footfalls were replaced by the bold harsh clang of the armored conqueror, Coronado, and by a host of Spanish explorers and soldiers seeking the gold of fabled Quivira. Black and brown-robed priests, armed only with the cross, were followed in turn by bearded buckskin-clad fur traders and mountain men, by canny Indian traders, and lean, weather-beaten drovers with great herds of long-horned cattle. [...]The story dictated in such vivid detail by Marian Sloan Russell is a unique and valuable eyewitness account by a sensitive, intelligent girl who grew to maturity on the kaleidoscopic Santa Fé Trail. "Maid Marian," as she was known by the freighters and soldiers, made five round-trip crossings of the trail before settling down to live her adult life along its deeply rutted traces.--From Foreword"When it was first published in 1954, Marian Russell's Land of Enchantment was praised as an outstanding memoir of life on the Santa Fe Trail...Now readers everywhere can enjoy Mrs. Russell's recollections,... And those readers will discover that Mrs. Russell described much more than just life on the Trail. Indeed her memoirs cover virtually every aspect of life in the West...--Southwest Review"These memoirs reveal a strong, energetic woman whose perceptions of old Santa Fe and pioneer life on the trail paint a vivid picture of the nineteenth-century West. The unusual and exact details which Marian Russell recalls make her story enthrallingly real."--American WestMissouri Outlaws: Bandits, Rebels & Rogues (True Crime)
By Paul Kirkman. 2009
Whether seen as a common criminal or Robin Hood with a six-shooter, the Missouri outlaw left an indelible mark on…
American culture. In the nineteenth century, Missouri was known as the "Outlaw State" and offered a list of lawbreakers like Jesse James, Bloody Bill Anderson, Belle Starr and Cole Younger. These notorious criminals became folk legends in countless books, movies and television shows. Author Paul Kirkman traces the succession of Missouri's first few generations and how each contributed to the making of some of the most notorious outlaws and lawmen in American history.The Trickster: A Study In American Indian Mythology
By Paul Radin. 2015
The myth of the Trickster--ambiguous creator and destroyer, cheater and cheated, subhuman and superhuman--is one of the earliest and most…
universal expressions of mankind. Nowhere does it survive in more starkly archaic form than in the voraciously uninhibited episodes of the Winnebago Trickster Cycle, recorded here in full. Anthropological and psychological analyses by Radin, Kerényi, and Jung reveal the Trickster as filling a twofold role: on the one hand he is "an archetypal psychic structure" that harks back to "an absolutely undifferentiated human consciousness, corresponding to a psyche that has hardly left the animal level" (Jung); on the other hand, his myth is a present-day outlet for the most unashamed and liberating satire of the onerous obligations of social order, religion, and ritual.