He kept it with him on the way to church that day and nearly every day after. It was a fixture as he grew up, tucked in jeans or wrapped around his head as he played lacrosse for Boston College. The bandanna was a signature, long before it became a symbol.   Welles was like a lot of us, if just a bit better - an honors student, but not the valedictorian; a Division I athlete, but not a star; kindhearted but not saintly. He wanted the stuff of a good life and was willing to work for it. Fresh from college, he came to New York City for a job on Wall Street. His office was on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center.   But Welles wasn't entirely fulfilled by his desk job. He'd grown up volunteering at the local fire department in Nyack and loved the necessity and camaraderie, the meaning of the role. And so, shortly before 9/11, he called his father to say he was thinking of quitting finance and applying to be a firefighter with the FDNY. His father, a fellow banker and volunteer firefighter, was stunned.   When the World Trade Center fell, Welles' parents, like the families of so many who were lost in the attacks, had no idea what happened to him. In the unbearable days and weeks that followed, they came to accept that he would never come home. But the mystery of his final hours lingered painfully.   Eight months after the attacks, however, Welles' mother would read another news account that would yet again change the family's lives. A survivor from the attacks, who'd been badly hurt on the 78th floor of the South Tower, said she and others had been led to safety by a stranger, carrying a woman on his back, down nearly twenty flights of stairs. When they emerged from the stairwell, firefighters took them the rest of the way out. But the young man turned around and went back up the stairs. He would make the trip up and down again and again, taking a group with him each time. The survivor never asked his name and couldn't see his face. But she remembered one detail clearly: he was wearing a red bandanna.   Welles' parents knew they'd found their son. They sent the woman a picture of Welles, and she confirmed: it was him. The story spread. Welles was honored as an FDNY fireman, the first time in its history the New York City Fire Department had named a civilian to its ranks as an officially recognized member. Year after year, first at Boston College and now around the country, there are Red Bandanna days and races to honor Welles' sacrifice. When President Barack Obama spoke at the opening of the 9/11 Museum at Ground Zero, he chose to tell the story of one life lost: Welles Crowther.   Tom Rinaldi's The Red Bandanna is about a fearless choice, about the crucible of terror and the indomitable spirit to answer it. It travels Crowther's path to purpose and the journey his family has been on in the days and years since. Examining one decision in the gravest situation, it celebrates the difference one life can make. It is the story of a new symbol for strength, and how a bandanna has become the red badge of courage for a new time.

    Murder, Inc. is the book that exposed the Syndicate to the eyes of the world. First published in 1951, it rose to the top of the best-seller list, but later fell out-of-print. Now, here is a new edition of the classic that tells all about the great gangsters of the late ’30s and ’40s: Frank Costello, Louis ”Lepke” Buchalter, Meyer Lansky, Lucky Luciano, Buggsy Siegel, Johnny Torrio, Willie Sutton, Joey Adonis, Dutch Schultz. Here are the stories of how Pittsburgh Phil and Buggsy Goldstein literally set Puggy Feinstein on fire; how and why Kid Twist Reles sang to the D.A. for twelve straight days, confessing dozens of murders; how the killers’ boss, Albert Anastasia, slipped through the arms of the law.From the highest levels of the U.S. government down to the lowest levels of street crime, the Syndicate infiltrated American life. Murder, Inc. tells how it was formally organized by the nation’s ranking mob lords at the end of Prohibition to control all crime, from gambling to crooked politics to labor extortion and murder. It describes the carefully built organization with its board of governors and its kangaroo court, and shows how this massive and powerful organization was finally broken.For it was only from the murderers themselves that the truth could be learned. And no man was more qualified to tell the whole story than Burton Turkus, the Brooklyn assistant D.A. who listened to the killers’ tales and who sent seven of them to the electric chair. Together with Sid Feder, a veteran journalist, they produced Murder, Inc., the definitive work on the most dangerous group of gangsters the law has ever known.

    Cohen changed Wall Street. He and his fellow pioneers of the hedge fund industry didn't lay railroads, build factories, or invent new technologies. Rather, they made their billions through speculation, by placing bets in the market that turned out to be right more often than wrong and for this, they gained not only extreme personal wealth but formidable influence throughout society. Hedge funds now oversee more than $3 trillion in assets, and the competition between them is so fierce that traders will do whatever they can to get an edge.Cohen was one of the industry's biggest success stories, the person everyone else in the business wanted to be. Born into a middle-class family on Long Island, he longed from an early age to be a star on Wall Street. He mastered poker in high school, went off to Wharton, and in 1992 launched the hedge fund SAC Capital, which he built into a $15 billion empire, almost entirely on the basis of his wizard like stock trading. He cultivated an air of mystery, reclusiveness, and excess, building a 35,000-square-foot mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut, flying to work by helicopter, and amassing one of the largest private art collections in the world. On Wall Street, Cohen was revered as a genius: one of the greatest traders who ever lived.That image was shattered when SAC Capital became the target of a sprawling, seven-year investigation, led by a determined group of FBI agents, prosecutors, and SEC enforcement attorneys. Labeled by prosecutors as a magnet for market cheaters whose culture encouraged the relentless pursuit of edge and even black edge, which is inside information SAC Capital was ultimately indicted and pleaded guilty to charges of securities and wire fraud in connection with a vast insider trading scheme, even as Cohen himself was never charged.Black Edge offers a revelatory look at the gray zone in which so much of Wall Street functions. It's a riveting, true-life legal thriller that takes readers inside the government's pursuit of Cohen and his employees, and raises urgent and troubling questions about the power and wealth of those who sit at the pinnacle of modern Wall Street.

    Instead, within ten years, she’d revolutionized morning TV and made household names of her co-hosts: Joy Behar, Star Jones, Meredith Vieira and Elisabeth Hasselbeck. But the daily chatfest didn’t just comment on the news. It became the news. And the headlines barely scratched the surface.Based on stunning interviews with nearly every host and unprecedented access, award-winning journalist Ramin Setoodeh takes you backstage where the stars really spoke their minds. Here's the full story of how Star, then Rosie, then Whoopi tried to take over the show, while Barbara struggled to maintain control of it all, a modern-day Lear with her media-savvy daughters. You'll read about how so many co-hosts had a tough time fitting in, suffered humiliations at the table, then pushed themselves away, feeling betrayed—one nearly quitting during a commercial. Meanwhile, the director was being driven insane, especially by Rosie.Setoodeh uncovers the truth about Star’s weight loss and wedding madness. Rosie’s feud with Trump. Whoopi’s toxic relationship with Rosie. Barbara’s difficulty stepping away. Plus, all the unseen hugs, snubs, tears—and one dead rodent.Ladies Who Punch shows why The View can be mimicked and mocked, but it can never be matched.

    At runs and clubhouses, between rides and riots, Dobyns befriends bad-ass bikers, meth-fueled “old ladies,” gun fetishists, psycho-killer ex-cons, and even some of the “Filthy Few”–the elite of the Hells Angels who’ve committed extreme violence on behalf of their club. Eventually, at parties staged behind heavily armed security, he meets legendary club members such as Chuck Zito, Johnny Angel, and the godfather of all bikers, Ralph “Sonny” Barger. To blend in with them, he gets full-arm ink; to win their respect, he vows to prove himself a stone-cold killer.Hardest of all is leading a double life, which has him torn between his devotion to his wife and children, and his pledge to become the first federal agent ever to be “fully patched” into the Angels’ near-impregnable ranks. His act is so convincing that he comes within a hairsbreadth of losing himself. Eventually, he realizes that just as he’s been infiltrating the Hells Angels, they’ve been infiltrating him. And just as they’re not all bad, he’s not all good.Reminiscent of Donnie Brasco’s uncovering of the true Mafia, this is an eye-opening portrait of the world of bikers–the most in-depth since Hunter Thompson’s seminal work–one that fully describes the seductive lure criminal camaraderie has for men who would otherwise be powerless outsiders. Here is all the nihilism, hate, and intimidation, but also the freedom–and, yes, brotherhood–of the only truly American form of organized crime.

    Newbery Honor Book author Jim Murphy orchestrates with fact, science, technology, and sociology the testimony of survivors and victims to tell the harrowing story of the phenomenal blizzard that crippled New York City in March, 1888.

    It details Randy Jurgensen's determined effort to bring to justice the murderer of Patrolman Phillip Cardillo, who was shot and killed inside Harlem's Mosque #7 in 1972, in the midst of an allout assault on the NYPD from the Black Liberation Army. The New York of this era was a place not unlike the Wild West, in which cops and criminals shot it out on a daily basis.Despite the mayhem on the streets and the Machiavellian corridors of Mayor Lindsay's City Hall, Detective Jurgensen singlehandedly took on the Black Liberation Army, the Nation of Islam, NYPD brass, and City Hall, capturing Cardillo's killer, Lewis 17X Dupree. He broke the case with an unlikely accomplice, Foster 2X Thomas, a member of the Nation of Islam who became Jurgensen's witness. The relationship they formed during the time before trial gave each of the two men a greater perspective of the two sides in the street war and changed them forever. In the end, Jurgensen had to settle for a conviction on other charges, and Dupree served a number of years. The murder case is still officially unsolved. In 2006 the NYPD reopened the case, and it is once again an active investigation with full media attention.The book has received acclaim from current New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, as well as former Commissioner William Bratton.

    In Lower Manhattan, on a field in Pennsylvania, and along the banks of the Potomoc, the United States suffered the single largest loss of life from an enemy attack on its soil.In November 2002 the United States Congress and President George W. Bush established by law the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission. This independent, bipartisan panel was directed to examine the facts and circumstances surrounding the September 11 attacks, identify lessons learned, and provide recommendations to safeguard against future acts of terrorism. This volume is the authorized edition of the Commission's final report. This volume is the authorized edition of the Commission's final report.

    The resulting explosion leveled the four-year-old structure and resulted in a death toll of more than three hundred—most of them children. To this day, it is the worst school disaster in the history of the United States. The tragedy and its aftermath were the first big stories covered by Walter Cronkite, then a young wire service reporter stationed in Dallas. He would later say that no war story he ever covered—during World War II or Vietnam—was as heart-wrenching.In the weeks following the tragedy, a fact-finding committee sought to determine who was to blame. It soon became apparent that the New London school district had, along with almost all local businesses and residents, tapped into pipelines carrying unrefined gas from the plentiful oil fields of the area. It was technically illegal, but natural gas was in abundance in the “Oil Patch.” The jerry-rigged conduits leaked the odorless “green” gas that would destroy the school.A long-term effect of the disaster was the shared guilt experienced—for the rest of their lives—by most of the survivors. There is, perhaps, no better example than Bill Thompson, who was in his fifth grade English class and “in the mood to flirt” with Billie Sue Hall, who was sitting two seats away. Thompson asked another girl to trade seats with him. She agreed—and was killed in the explosion, while Thompson and Hall both survived and lived long lives, never quite coming to terms with their good fortune.My Boys and Girls Are in There: The 1937 New London School Explosion is a meticulous, candid account by veteran educator and experienced author Ron Rozelle. Unfolding with the narrative pace of a novel, the story woven by Rozelle—beginning with the title—combines the anguished words of eyewitnesses with telling details from the historical and legal record. Released to coincide with the seventy-fifth anniversary of the New London School disaster, My Boys and Girls Are in There paints an intensely human portrait of this horrific event.

    For many Americans, he was the voice and face that gave shape and meaning to every day's news. But who was Peter Jennings really? In this absorbing biography, readers will get to know Jennings through the memories of his friends, family, competitors, colleagues, and interview subjects. Their stories are full of surprises. Jennings, we learn, was a high school dropout who spent the rest of his life in pursuit of knowledge. He traveled the world in search of stories, a notebook perpetually thrust through his back belt loop. In his front pocket, he carried a miniature copy of the Constitution, a testament to his love for the United States; a Canadian by birth, Jennings acquired American citizenship in 2003.Peter Jennings was a celebrity, of course—a dashingly handsome and elegant man, famous for his ability to charm women and world leaders alike—but in these pages he is remembered as a loyal friend and a devoted family man, who loved nothing more than to canoe with his kids and listen to jazz with his friends in the Hamptons. Not that he was the relaxing sort. Jennings was a task-master, who ripped other reporters' pieces to shreds, forcing them to rewrite from the ground up. He was a perfectionist, too, who drove his fellow correspondents crazy with his ad-libbed questions on the air. It was all about standards. Throughout his life, Peter Jennings was driven by a passion to seek the truth and convey that truth accurately, simply, cleanly, and elegantly to his American audience. He was our voice.

    Amaryllis Fox's memoir tells the story of her ten years in the most elite clandestine ops unit of the CIA, hunting the world's most dangerous terrorists in sixteen countries while marrying and giving birth to a daughter.

    Emma Edmonds cut off her hair and assumed the identity of a man to enlist as a Union private, witnessing the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. The beautiful widow, Rose O’Neale Greenhow, engaged in affairs with powerful Northern politicians to gather intelligence for the Confederacy, and used her young daughter to send information to Southern generals. Elizabeth Van Lew, a wealthy Richmond abolitionist, hid behind her proper Southern manners as she orchestrated a far-reaching espionage ring, right under the noses of suspicious rebel detectives.Using a wealth of primary source material and interviews with the spies’ descendants, Abbott seamlessly weaves the adventures of these four heroines throughout the tumultuous years of the war. With a cast of real-life characters including Walt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne, General Stonewall Jackson, detective Allan Pinkerton, Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, and Emperor Napoleon III, Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy draws you into the war as these daring women lived it.Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy contains 39 black & white photos and 3 maps.

    Based on a comprehensive ten-year study into the murders of his fellow pilots on 9/11, he explains how hijackers, novice pilots at the controls of massive guided missiles, were able to beat United States Air Force fighters to iconic targets with advanced maneuvering, daring speeds and a kamikaze finish. But, as Marshall explains, the tactical plan was so precise that it rules out car-bombers and shoe-bombers known as al Qaeda, KSM and Osama bin Laden. So then, who was it? That's what you are about learn. Backed by official NTSB, FAA and black box recordings, Marshall finds the most capable and most documented group of conspirators buried deep within a Congressional Inquiry's report and retraces their work in gripping detail. Fasten your seatbelt--- the sad truth is that all of the solid evidence points to a dark collaboration between members of the Bush Administration and a covert group of Saudi government officials. This is a game changer that will finally set the record straight on the most horrific crime in US history. This book is a compilation of official reports that disputes the Bush Administration, the Bush Intelligence Community and the American media's account of the 9/11 attack. United States Senator Bob Graham's Congressional Joint Inquiry in 2002 revealed that Saudi Arabian Intelligence agents met the 9/11 hijackers in the Los Angeles in January of 2000, harbored them and led them to 18 months of flight training in Florida and Arizona. Marshall follows reports from FBI field agents that warned George W. Bush's Administration that a "cadre of individuals of investigative interest were engaged in flight training" in the Arizona desert in the spring of 2001. Marshall identifies three top federal investigators who complained that Dick Cheney obstructed justice by refusing access to suspects who supposedly confessed to the greatest crime in U.S. history. None of the federal investigators were ever allowed to verify the confession of Khalid Sheik Mohammed who had been water boarded over 180 times at Guantanamo detention facility. The book disputes the video and media confession of Osama bin Laden and points out that none of the accusations by the Bush Administration could be proved. Marshall asserts that the Saudi government was the true executioners of the 9/11 attack and framed their enemies while CIA special operations set up an elaborate decoy named Osama bin Laden to divert attention away from the Saudi operation. He follows the hijackers to flight training airports and finds that Saudi agents led the hijackers to the Arizona desert where Boeing 757 and Boeing 767 airliners were parked at a secluded CIA operated airport. The operators of the CIA airport were traced to suspicious insider stock trades on two airlines, United Airlines and American Airlines, the only two airlines used in the 9/11 attack. Marshall breaks down the tactical flight plan that was used by the hijackers and chronicles the actions of Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Saudi Arabian Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Dick Cheney and George W. Bsuh to learn that their account of the attack was severely flawed. Three top investigators wrote that Dick Cheney had obstructed the investigation and redacted the involvement of the Saudi government agents who were employed in California by the Saudi Civil Aviation authority. The Congressional Inquiry reported that the Saudi agents had "seemingly unlimited funding from Saudi Arabia" and had traced the hijacker financial support to Prince Bandar through a Riggs Bank account. Finally Marshall chronicles the media trial that allowed Bush and Cheney to derail American Justice by trying the 9/11 case with media propaganda and away from the American federal court sys

    This is the remarkable true story of a man who lived alone in the woods of Maine for 27 years, making this dream a reality--not out of anger at the world, but simply because he preferred to live on his own.In 1986, a shy and intelligent twenty-year-old named Christopher Knight left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the forest. He would not have a conversation with another human being until nearly three decades later, when he was arrested for stealing food. Living in a tent even through brutal winters, he had survived by his wits and courage, developing ingenious ways to store edibles and water, and to avoid freezing to death. He broke into nearby cottages for food, clothing, reading material, and other provisions, taking only what he needed but terrifying a community never able to solve the mysterious burglaries. Based on extensive interviews with Knight himself, this is a vividly detailed account of his secluded life--why did he leave? what did he learn?--as well as the challenges he has faced since returning to the world. It is a gripping story of survival that asks fundamental questions about solitude, community, and what makes a good life, and a deeply moving portrait of a man who was determined to live his own way, and succeeded.

    He's the one-time pelt smuggler, professional hockey goalie (possibly the worst in the sport's history), pen salesman, Zamboni driver, gravedigger, church painter, roulette addict, building superintendent, whiskey drinker, and native of Transylvania who's decided that the best thing to do with his time is to rob as many banks as possible.His rival: Lajos Varjú, the Inspector Clouseau of the Iron Curtain, whose knowledge of police work comes from Hungarian-dubbed episodes of Columbo. His deputy is nicknamed "Mound of Asshead" because of his propensity for crashing police cars. His forensics expert, known as "Dance Instructor" for his lucrative side career teaching ballet, wears a top hat and tails on the job.Welcome to Julian Rubinstein's uproariously funny and unforgettable account of crime in the heart of the new Europe. With a supporting cast that includes car wash owners, exotic dancers, drunk army generals, cocaine-snorting Hungarian rappers, the Johnnie Cochran of Budapest, and a hockey team that seems to spend as much time breaking the law as it does practicing, Ballad of the Whiskey Robber gives us the most charming outlaw-hero since the Sundance Kid—and the Sundance Kid didn't play hockey.As the Eastern bloc slips off its communist skin and replaces it with leopard-skin hot pants, Ballad of the Whiskey Robber is here to screw in the pink lightbulbs. Part Unbearable Lightness of Being, part Pink Panther, and part Slap Shot, Julian Rubinstein's tale is a spectacular literary debut—and a story so outrageous that it could only be true.