Mike Dash executed, no pun intended, an enormous amount of research in this book to bring the early years of the mafia in America to light. Because there is an extensive list of individuals, the names dropped are as long as a city block. Thankfully, Mike gives a list of characters and their brief...
"We have just come out of such a sorrow that the mind is still a little confused." -- Gijsbert Bastiaensz*****Commerce. Psychopaths.What do the two have in common? If I were asked that before I read this book, I’d be glib and respond with something like “trajectory.” But no. I’ve learned it’s som...
This was an odd book. When I had first read the description I had pictured one of those larger books that went into the history of the tulip and probably many detailed drawings or photographs of different varieties. That is not what this book is about.This book covers the history of the great Tul...
Thuggee, or strangulation for robbery, was the modus operandi of organized groups of murderers active for about two centuries in Northern and Central India before eradicated, prompted by the efforts of one Willam Sleeman of the East India Company who was the first outsider to recognize the cult, ...
of Amsterdam, who was probably the most fashionable physician in the whole of the republic. Other men might grow the flower, trade it, and even make their fortunes from it. Pietersz. changed his name because of it. He became, quite literally, Dr. Tulip. Claes Pietersz. began styling himself Nicol...
Two hundred years before the invention of the trapdoor and the drop, the only other piece of equipment that an executioner required was a ladder to prop against one of the uprights. The prisoner was driven up the ladder, arms tied, legs free, the noose already around his neck. The hangman tied th...
The world had changed significantly since he had gone away. New York was more crowded than ever; the city had added nearly another million people to its population, more than a hundred thousand of them Italians. Cars, a rarity in 1910, were commonplace in 1920. So too were subway trains. The coun...