Book picks similar to
Icelandic Essays: Explorations in the Anthropology of Modern Life by Shirley Crisler
essays-and-critical-theory
nonfiction
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20th-century
The Coin Store: A True Story of Drug Cartels, Mobsters, Cops and Agents
Patrick Burns , Special Agent (Ret.) - 2016
He was the King of Cocaine, the wealthiest and most violent criminal in the world. By the 1980s his Medellin Drug Cartel was responsible for smuggling several tons of cocaine into America each and every day, killing thousands of people along the way. The end result was hundreds of millions of dollars in cash profits. In response, and as part of President Reagan’s War on Drugs, Congress created the Money Laundering Act of 1986. The goal was to take the profit out of Escobar’s business. And the plan was working. Drug Money seizures went up. But as U.S. Agents became more and more efficient at finding the dirty cash, stashed inside ship bellies and truck beds at America’s ports and land borders, Pablo and other Cartel leaders sought a more efficient method to get their money back to Colombia. They found the solution in an unlikely place, a dusty back room of a tiny, rare coin shop in the small town of Cranston, Rhode Island. The shop owner was a young, local mobster who had already been laundering much of the Mob's stolen gold. With a few minor adjustments, his coin shop evolved into a springboard for a new venture, a billion dollar money laundering scheme. The Italian Mafia's stolen gold was used to dispose of the Colombian Cartel's dirty cash. It was the perfect scheme, brilliant. As his customer base grew, the young mobster, known as Fat Man, a.k.a. Mr. Cash, set up a string of phony gold shops crisscrossing America. The end result was one of the world's largest, most efficient money laundering networks. By some accounts, Fat Man laundered more than a billion dollars of drug profits for Pablo Escobar and the other Cartel leaders. This is the true story of how it all happened. It is a step –by- step view of how the scheme worked and how it was ultimately uncovered. This story reveals conventional and at times unconventional tactics used by the government in its three-year, worldwide investigation. It is also a behind-the-scenes look at Fat Man himself and his crew, as well as the agents and cops who pursued them. It was unlikely that Fat Man, a small town gangster, would ever become an international money launderer for the Colombian Drug Lords. But what was more unlikely was the fact that it took a rookie agent to finally uncover the scheme. And more unlikely than that was the fact that the rookie agent was Fat Man’s neighbor. Both were born within just a few days from each other, grew up just a few miles from each other, lived in similar blue-collar neighborhoods and even lived in all but identical homes. And both were influenced, in very different ways, by the New England Mob, which was headquartered nearby on Federal Hill in Providence, RI. While Fat Man relished a life of crime, I dreamed of becoming an agent. In 1987, while his scheme originally went unnoticed, I was at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Academy in southern Georgia. One year after the new Money Laundering Law was created, I began work as a new U.S. Treasury Agent. My first post of duty was Providence, RI. My first assignment was to follow a lead, a suspicious cash deposit at a local bank. It was originally considered to be a dead end, “keep busy” work for a new, inexperienced agent with little to do. But that changed when I followed the lead to Fat Man’s Coin Store. This is how it all happened.
Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace
Joseph M. Williams - 2012
A guidebook for those who want to write well.
DOUBT: The Madeleine McCann Mystery (Gone Girl Book 1)
Nick van der Leek - 2017
We also know the original lead investigator, Goncalo Amaral’s, counter-narrative, now a legally defensible matter of public record. The questions that arise from these opposing narratives are dead simple: Which narrative is more credible? Which narrator is more credible? What was the motive behind all the publicity? Neither Madeleine nor her abductor ultimately benefited from the ongoing media barrage, so who did? True crime maestro, Nick van der Leek, plumbs quagmires of confusion and a thicket of thorny inconsistencies to probe what lies beneath: the psychologies. What is the significance of "doctors" as suspects? Did it matter or mean anything that the McCanns and their cabal of friends in the Algarve were mostly doctors? Peeling away the gossamer threads, over the course of just four days [April 29th – May 2nd], van der Leek intuits that very little was routine: not the weather, not where meals were eaten, not where or when they slept and not what they did as a family. But what were their routines when it came to other, murkier things, like sleeping patterns, cell phones and sedatives? Drawing intangibles out of the darkness, van der Leek sews the vexing loose ends from several conflicting stories into a definite - if not definitive - end-result.
To the Wilds of Alaska: A New Life in the Alaskan Wilderness
Janette Ross Riehle - 2016
And while they weren’t survivalists they survived, and even thrived, for months at a time in the subarctic wilderness without electricity, telephones, indoor plumbing or ready access to medical services. Sylvia, an attractive, strong-minded 14-year-old who loved the outdoors, came to Alaska with her family in 1934, hoping to escape the despair and poverty of the Depression years in southern Oregon. Although their first winter on a forested 160-acre homestead was spent in a log cabin without windows or a floor, it was still better than back in Oregon where things were tough. Three years later, while working at a fish cannery in Anchorage, Sylvia came to the notice of a good-looking, good-natured young man who had spent the previous two winters on the remote Yentna River with his older brother. Vernon was looking for a wife to move to the wilderness with him and immediately decided that she was the one. Six weeks later they were married and ready to begin their life together in a world that no longer exists—a world of sled dogs, moose meat, fresh trout, snowshoes, outboard motors and wooden dories. They worked hard and faced many dangers, but enjoyed their life depending largely on their own resources and on each other. While written for the general public, this book, as well as the other three in the series, is also suitable for older children who are interested in how families lived in earlier times and in far different circumstances than their own. The later books are written in part from the perspective of the children, as well as that of their parents.
My Will to Live: My Story of Surviving the Holocaust
Eve Gordon - 2014
His life is rapidly changed. His family is destroyed. An unbelievable story about escape, intrigue, survival and the miraculous ability of one young man to outwit and outlive his gestapo torturers.
Shots Fired Deputy Down
Craig Johnson - 2015
This book covers Sergeant Johnson’s career and assignments that included working in the jails, patrol, community policing, Special Investigations (Narcotics and Gangs), and the FBI Violent Crimes Task Force. Sergeant Johnson was promoted to sergeant in 2010 and was assigned to the Eastern portion of San Diego County where he worked in patrol and a specialty assignment for the remainder of his career. On September 25, 2012, Sergeant Johnson’s career and the careers of several other deputies would take a turn for the worst. Sergeant Johnson and his team of deputies were ambushed by a child molester armed with a high powered rifle as they attempted to arrest the suspect. One of Sergeant Johnson’s deputies was shot at extremely close range and was trapped in the apartment with the suspect. Sergeant Johnson was hit by gun fire on the landing of the suspect’s apartment and trapped on the second floor with nowhere to go. The ordeal lasted fifteen minutes before Sergeant Johnson and the wounded deputy were rescued and transported to a hospital. This book discusses the harrowing experience of being shot and barricaded without an escape. It discusses the incredible story of Christian faith during the moments when Sergeant Johnson and his team of deputies feared for their lives. The cover photo is a testament to Sergeant Johnson’s faith and the survival of Sergeant Johnson and his team of deputies who were there on that day. This book highlights Sergeant Johnson’s early career and accomplishments, deals with personal tragedies related to the shooting and other events in Sergeant Johnson’s life, and Sergeant Johnson’s struggle to overcome such a traumatic event. The hope of this book is to help others learn they will survive these critical situations, and the aftermath that affects many called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). With the help of therapy, family, and faith, Sergeant Johnson survived the ordeal that occurred on September 25, 2012. Sergeant Johnson considers himself a survivor and not a victim. By reading this book you will experience what it is like to be a peace officer in Southern California. You will have a better understanding of the peril that peace officers face on a daily basis. You will have a better understanding how these events can weigh on each officer over his or her long careers. This book discusses details about the shooting (which was approximately a 15 minute ordeal), the rescue of Sergeant Johnson and his deputies, and Sergeant Johnson’s recovery that took over a year for him to deal with. This book is a testament to all of the men and women who wear the badge and all they deal with on a daily basis. This book praises Sergeant Johnson’s Christian faith that was paramount for him to survive this traumatic event and heal.
Israeli Mossad: Operation Orchard Israel's Strike On The Syrian Reactor
Dan Magen - 2016
For 7 months, both the U.S and Israeli governments imposed blackouts on all new reports about the raid. Subsequently, the Central Intelligence Unit (CIA), and the White House confirmed that American intelligence had confirmed that the raided site was a military purposed nuclear facility. Syria denied those claims. In 2009, an investigation conducted by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) reported traces of graphite and uranium and concluded that the raided site had features resembling an undeclared nuclear reactor. However, IAEA could not confirm or deny the findings because Syria had refused to provide IAFA investigators the co-operation they needed to take their investigations to a conclusive end. On April 2011, almost four years after the raid, IAEA officially confirmed that the bombed site was indeed a nuclear reactor. How did it happen? What weren’t we told? To know more about this operation, this is the right book for you. You will learn everything you need to know about the Operation Orchard.
ER Sketches: Tales from an ER
Carol Jarmel-Fishman - 2015
This book contains interconnected short stories in which the doctors, nurses and other staff members attempt to keep separate these two spheres of their lives, for to allow them to overlap would make their lives even more difficult. Pain, tragedy, humor and compassion fill these pages as events unfold and the characters struggle to maintain equilibrium; the author is a retired ER nurse, and these stories are all based on real people and incidents.
ER Stories from the Inside
Brian Fleig - 2019
• Real stories tell the sad, gory, uplifting and the funny, • Stories from across the country by an actual travel nurse
Hollywood Celebrities: Where Are They Now?
Ron Ebner - 2013
Here in this book Ron Ebner—author of The Winds of Hell, Nova, Plague World, and two short story collections—has collected a voluminous amount of information about current actors and former actors, including:Disney favorites Annette Funicello, Tommy Kirk, Tim Considine, Hayley Mills and Kevin Corcoran, as well as Mouseketeers Sharon Baird, Lonnie Burr, Cubby O’Brien and Karen Pendleton; Lauren Chapin and Elinor Donahue of “Father Knows Best”; Johnny Crawford of “The Rifleman”; Shelley Fabares of “The Donna Reed Show”; Little Rascal “Spanky” McFarland; Beverly Washburn; Cynthia Pepper; Native American actors Chief Dan George and Will Sampson; the frisky star of the original Nancy Drew movies, Bonita Granville; Al “Grandpa” Lewis; Fess Parker; John Amos…and many others.Read through these pages and find out what’s happening with about 100 of your favorite Hollywood celebrities.
All in a Doctor’s Day: A collection of short medical stories
Peter Sykes - 2020
Peter Sykes lifts the lid on the good, the bad and the ugly in the NHS, based on real-life situations from his 40 years experience at the sharp end of medical practice.Some of these stories will make you laugh, a few will make you cry and others have a surprising twist in the tail.They feature patients, doctors and nurses, blood, sweat and toil, life and death, heartache and joy.
To So Few: A Novel of the Battle of Britain
Russell Sullman - 2013
Pilot Officer Harry Rose, fresh from training and eager to prove himself, is posted to Excalibur Squadron, a Hawker Hurricane fighter unit based in southern England. In the coming weeks and months of that fateful summer, as the outnumbered RAF battle grimly with the Luftwaffe in the skies above Britain, Rose will come to know what it is to love, and will experience both the glorious euphoria of success and the desperate bitterness of loss. As his friends dwindle in number, Rose knows that it can be only a matter of time before it is his turn...
Top 20 Most Dangerous Animals On The Planet
Speedy Publishing - 2014
A child would enjoy a Top 20 Most Dangerous Animals on the Planet Picture Book because most children are visually stimulated and fascinated by colorful photos of animals. This book would be helpful for children as well as they can learn what to avoid if they were to come across this animal in the wild in the future. Overall, children enjoy picture books and would especially enjoy a book which teaches them about animals and the dangers of the animals pictured in the illustrations.
Cold Fury: The Cannock Chase Murders
David J. Cooper - 2020
Why would a man, married to an attractive young woman, want to sexually assault and murder innocent little girls?In the late 1960s, Cannock Chase in Staffordshire became the centre of the biggest murder hunt in Britain.The bodies of five year old Diane Tift, six year old Margaret Reynolds, and seven year old Christine Darby were found dumped there.The killer thought he was cleverer than the police and slipped through the net four times.He would have continued with the killings but he made a big mistake.Find out what happened and how the police eventually caught up with him.
The Re/Search Guide to Bodily Fluids
Paul Spinrad - 1994
Each bodily function is discussed from a variety of viewpoints: scientific, anthropological, historical, mythological, sociological, and artistic. Topics include constipation, the history and evolution of toilet paper, farting, urine, earwax, smegma, and many other engrossing topics!You think you know shit? How about: Scatological Lives of the Greats; Thomas Crapper, Closet Genius; Excrement in Psychoanalysis; Excretal Customs Worldwide; Bodily Functions in Literature & Cinema; Historical Applications of Excrement....Spend a little time getting to know yourself! Read all about Feces, Flatus, Vomit, Urine, Mucus, Menstruation, Saliva, Sweat, & more!