More than once, the author questions the reliability of his own sources, leaving us unsure of just how much of this murky...
In war-torn Serbia, a compulsive petty thief metamorphoses from mob boss to paramilitary warlord to international war criminal.
Until his assassination in early 2000—after The Hague indicted him on 24 counts of war crimes, and the United States offered a $5 million bounty on his head—Zeljko Raznatovic, aka Arkan, was responsible for much of the carnage that swept the former Yugoslavia as it descended into a nightmare of mass murder and ethnic cleansing. Freelance journalist Stewart recounts Arkan’s career from his early days as a bank robber to his recruitment as a hit man by Yugoslavian dictator Josip Tito. Twice sprung from prison thanks to his government connections, he displayed an unchecked appetite for the spoils of crime that was soon matched by his thirst for power. As Yugoslavia unraveled in the 1980s following Tito’s death, Arkan transformed himself from international bank robber and gangster to ultra-nationalist paramilitary leader, forming his own private army manned with unruly young soccer fans, whose anger and frustration he deftly tapped. With the blessing of another Serbian madman, President Slobodan Miloševic, Arkan and his army of “Serbian patriots” pillaged their way through Croatia, then Bosnia and finally Kosovo, leaving thousands dead in their wake. In the process, he amassed millions in spoils, married the country’s top pop singer in an opulent wedding rivaling that of Prince Charles and Diana, and even won a seat in Parliament. Stewart diligently follows his dark, bloody trail, but doesn’t quite manage to bring this sinister madman out of the shadows. Readers never get a feel for the source of Arkan’s hatred and ruthlessness.
More than once, the author questions the reliability of his own sources, leaving us unsure of just how much of this murky story—including whether Arkan is actually dead—we should believe. Nevertheless, a chilling, eye-opening account of a madman who deserves a choice seat in the pantheon of the 20th-century’s most evil criminals.Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-35606-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
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
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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