A great read that gives readers a better understanding of a terrorist attack from many points of view.
Well-researched account of the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai, with plenty of firsthand detail.
Starting with a group of 10 young fidayeen fighters approaching Mumbai by water on the night of the attacks, journalists and documentarians Scott-Clark and Levy (The Meadow, 2012, etc.) document everything possible, from the blow-by-blow account of the many hours the hotel was under siege to the recruitment and rigorous training of the Pakistani men who volunteered for jihad, however doubtfully. They even recount the story of the man who scouted targets for Lashkar-e-Toiba and, they believe, was acting as a double agent for the United States at the time. This has the benefit of providing a full, rounded picture and gives helpful background and context, most of which pulls readers deeper into the intrigue. Still, the sheer amount of detail can be overwhelming. Though the main focus is what happened at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, nothing is left out. The authors also recount events at a nearby cafe, a Jewish center, a smaller hotel and elsewhere around town. All the information from those who survived the attacks is compelling and well-written. With more guests present than the other targets, there were many stories to tell, and the authors make palpable the fear and despair of the guests and employees. They also bring attention to the many mistakes made by police and hotel security in the months leading up to the offensive—there were many warnings that such an attack might be coming—and on the ground while it was happening. Important and enlightening, these parts of the book are perhaps more terrifying than the rest. Through it all, though, there are just enough moments to applaud.
A great read that gives readers a better understanding of a terrorist attack from many points of view.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-14-312375-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2013
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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