An entertaining, well-researched tale of a late-20th-century scandal.
Fast-paced account of a late-1970s abduction in Paris that exposed rivalries, anger, and secrets.
Former Time Paris bureau chief Sancton was living in France in 1978 when he followed newspaper reports of the brash kidnapping of industrialist Baron Édouard-Jean Empain, whose huge empire comprised 174 companies in fields that included mining, banking, shipbuilding, armaments, and nuclear energy. Sancton’s brisk recounting of the abduction and its aftermath draws on Empain’s memoirs as well as those of Alain Caillol, convicted of masterminding the crime, who not only talked with Sancton, but eagerly gave him documents and clippings. These sources, along with trial testimony, reports, and additional interviews, enabled the author to create a palpable sense of the carrying out of the crime and Empain’s ordeal, which included the amputation of a fingertip, sent to his family. Empain’s conglomerate had been established by his grandfather, a titan of the belle epoque who managed vast holding companies and multinational investments and whose achievements included building the Paris Métro. By the end of the 19th century, Sancton writes, “the Empain group was a major player in the fields of transport, energy, finance, and civil engineering.” Born into luxury, Empain reveled in fast cars, glamorous women, and high-stakes gambling, habitually losing huge sums at his twice-weekly poker games and, in 1977, some 11 million francs at a casino in Cannes. However, the men who took part in the kidnapping, though “left-leaning and anti-capitalist,” were not aiming to make a political statement; they wanted a ransom of 80 million francs. As days turned into months, the kidnappers realized they would not achieve their goal. Sancton vividly chronicles the invasive publicity that cost Empain his marriage, the police investigators’ frustration and strategies, the machinations of rivalrous business associates who welcomed Empain’s disappearance, and the disclosures about his philandering and gambling that tainted Empain and his family.
An entertaining, well-researched tale of a late-20th-century scandal.Pub Date: April 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-18380-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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