No comments about Black Barty: The Real Pirate of the Caribbean.

1 comments about A Breed Apart: A Journey to Redemption.

1. I read this book in one sitting which is not something I have done in years. Once I started reading Mr. Woods Journey to Redemption I was fascinated by how someone who had come from so much especially a BLACK MAN could travel such an horrible road by choice, by adrenaline and not really by need (which is the reasoning one hears for so much of criminal activity). The message of this book spoke volumes. It did not whitewash the excitement and rush the author got from his criminal activity but it also did not sugarcoat his prison experience. This book should be a must read for teenage boys although I fear some of the graphic descriptions might prevent that. This book is magnificent even though it does venture into preaching at the end which a factor Mr. Woods can be forgiven given his "preaching" heritage.

1 comments about The Hoffa Wars: The Rise and Fall of Jimmy Hoffa.

1. The Introduction for "The Hoffa Wars" was Jonathan Kwitney's memory of a search for Jimmy Hoffa at a remote lodge that Hoffa owned a part of. This occured two days after the disappearance and the author participated in the search in Eagle River,WI. It was an entertaining Intro.
   
   Dan Moldea's book was first published in 1978 amid harsh criticism for his suggestion that the trio of Santos Trafficante,Carlos Marcello,and Jimmy Hoffa were responsible for the JFK assassination. In the years since then, that theory has become arguably the most popularly held theory.
   
   The main topic of "The Hoffa Wars" is Jimmy Hoffa himself and the history of the Teamsters Union. A lot of corruption is detailed and Mr. Moldea makes it clear that he is no fan of Hoffa.
   
   This book covers a lot of territory; from Hoffa's early years with the local union to his eventual disappearance.
   The violence among rivals and the circumstances leading to mafia control of some unions is highlighted.
   
   The Nixon bribes, mafia connections, shakedowns during union "organizing" are all discussed in this book.
   
   After reading many books about the JFK assassination, This book is impressive and the author has really done his research.
   
   As far as Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance is concerned....the information that Mr. Moldea provides in this book was confirmed by Frank Sheeran in the book "I Heard You Paint Houses."
   
   The only caveat with this edition is the very small print.
   Despite the volume of the book, it's an easy read with no fluff. I recommend "The Hoffa Wars".

No comments about Kathy the Cannibal.

No comments about Outlaw Tales of South Dakota: True Stories of the Mount Rushmore State's Most Infamous Crooks, Culprits, and Cutthroats (Outlaw Tales).

1 comments about South Street.

1. Profusely illustrated with illustrative photos, "South Street" by Barbara G. Mensch is a history of New York City's famous Fullerton Fish Market. Barbara's photography combines nicely with her lively and informative stories of a colorful community of fishmongers who worked together, resisted outside influences of government and corporations, and basically policed themselves. "South Street" concludes with the closure of the docks and the opening of the Seaport mall which was viewed at the time as the result of the expulsion of control by organized crime and the emergence of domination by corporations. A work of impressive scholarship combined with talented narration, "South Street" is enthusiastically recommended for academic and community library American History reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

3 comments about Black Bart: Boulevardier Bandit: The Saga of California's Most Mysterious Stagecoach Robber and the Men Who Sought to Capture Him.

1. Written by former reporter George Hoeper, Black Bart: Boulevardier Bandit is an amazing biography of one of California's most colorful historical figures. For over eight years, the indubitably polite and genteel criminal Charles Boles (alias Black Bart) preyed upon Wells Fargo & Co., enacting at least 28 stagecoach robberies - always on foot with an unloaded shotgun, and never demanding money from stagecoach passengers or drivers. Folk legends sprung up about Black Bart, who lived the life of a boulevardier in San Francisco, hobnobbing with the city's upper crust and writing poetry. In 1888, Black Bart disappeared from the Palace Hotel in Visalia, never to be seen again; Black Bart: Boulevardier Bandit offers information to suggest that Black Bart's final fate was not to settle in some distant land, but rather to lose his life in the dry Nevada wasteland and rest in an unmarked grave. "Black Bart may have been remorseful about not returning to his family, but if he was remorseful about turning to a life of crime, he never expressed it... It seemed, when questioned by reporters on the possibility of returning to his old ways, that his decision to abandon crime was based more on the fear of being caught again than on his rehabilitation and sorrow for his sins of the past." An extensively researched biography, enthusiastically recommended for anyone curious about one of California's most famous career criminals.



2. The book was well researched and well written. It provided good information that was used in "Black Bart Days" that was held on June 23 & 24th in Sutter Creek, California. I knew George Hoeper. He was an excellent historian and writer.



3. A fascinating book, which neither idolized Black Bart, or demonizes him either. Hoeper has really done his research. I never knew the full story about Black Bart before. This story fills in lots of the gaps that people don't know.

   The only complaint I had was that at the end, Hoeper's "new evidence" that Black Bart died in Nevada is nothing more than a mild... "It might have been him." I expected some evidence. To this day, nobody REALLY knows what happened to Bart after he got out of prison.

   Other than a mild letdown at the end, I still HIGHLY reccommend this book. A fascinating story of one of the Old West's most "larger than life" characters.

4 comments about The Lena Baker Story.

1. Lela Bond Phillips's recounting of this once forgotten miscarriage of justice is a gripping story well told in its sparse yet lively style covering barely 120 pages. While others would have padded the book with trial transcripts and other ephemera Phillips sticks to the facts of the case painting a warts and all portrait of Lena Baker, the accused murderer and her relationship with Ernest White, the victim. Phillips is unsparing in the depiction of the events leading to the murder as well as well as providing background information on all the major characters as events unfold. Phillips does an outstanding job of explaining how the standards of crime scene investigation and forensic evidence of the era were not as rigorous as they are now and points out the inherent contradictions in the testimony and evidence presented at trial. Phillips studiously avoids making judgments and is careful to point out that readers should not use contemporary standards to judge the characters and their actions. The unflattering and unemotional depiction of an interracial relationship gone wrong in the Jim Crow South has the potential for overwrought prose, but Phillips keeps that in check, largely due to her writing ability (she has an MA in English). In fact her style of writing is well suited for historical writing even though here she is writing out-of-field.
   
   When printed in 1998 this book generated renewed interest in the case and efforts to mark Ms. Baker's grave and obtain a pardon from the Board of Parole and Pardons was undertaken. Those efforts bore fruit on August 15, 2005 when the Board posthumously pardoned Ms. Baker. The pardon is a small consolation as she was electrocuted 60 years ago in Georgia's electric chair; the only woman to be put to death. This book is highly recommended for those interested in exploring the Jim Crow era of the South, Georgia History, and real life crime stories. Phillips's style of writing is very enjoyable and this book is a lively page turner that will give you a better understanding of the times.



2. (The following review is taken from The Eufaula Tribune, Joel P. Smith, Triibune publisher) The Lena Baker Story, the story of the first and only woman to be executed in Georgia, is almost as fascinating as Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The plot centers on Lena Baker, 44, who had never known anything but the pangs of poverty, and gristmill owner Ernest B. Knight, a white man 23 years the African-American Baker's senior. They had carried on a love-hate relationship for some three years --"The kind that usually ends in one of the parties being harmed." It began when Lena was hired to care for the mill owner while he recovered from a broken leg.The trashy affair isn't exploited, but it dramatically raises the question, was justice served even though the slave woman-locked in his gristmill and not allowed to go home -- confessed to killing him?....I found the well-researched true story to be a page-turner....The book is divided into three parts: Lena's life, the trial and the execution. If the story line doesn't have appeal, the life and times of the shooter and the gristmill owner do. It's a delightful, graphic depiction of this bygone era, encompassing politics in Georgia, including neighboring Quitman County. Georgia's own gubernatorial debacle is included, when Ellis Arnall and Herman Talmadge both claimed to be governor, sitting 20 feet from each other in the executive suite, carrying on the business of Georgia....Much history and life of the times are skillfully incoorporated into the book, such as the founding of Andrew College in 1854 to bring prospective wives to Cuthbert for the young men attending a local Baptist academy. There's the tale about the old woman who took her cats in a croaker sack with her when she went downtown to shop foor groceries. then Mrs. Luci Moye made a daily trip in the late afternoon to Eufaula to buy her pet parrot, Polly, a cherry Coke, following her "racous litany of 'Polly want a cherry Coke.'" The story doesn't have a happy ending, though. The Cuthbert Times, a local newspaper I bought years later and edited, crassly reported on her death on page one: "Baker Burns."



3. The story of Lena Baker, the first and only woman to be executed legally in the state of Georgia, needed to be told.
   Lena was an impoverished Black woman who lived in Cuthbert, the seat of Randolph County, in southwest Georgia. She lost control of her life because, in addition to her station, of two facts. A prominent white man insisted she be his mistress, and she was dependent on alcohol.
   When she killed her oppressor in self-defense, she was tried for murder. Did she receive a fair trial? Was her case given an adequate investigation? Was she assigned a competent defense attorney?
   The exploration of these questions makes Phillips's The Lena Baker Story an absorbing one, but even more engaging are the minute details the reader learns of small-town, Southern life in the 1940s. We are told what is playing at the movies. We know that one Cuthbert resident drove all the way to Eufala, Alabama, to buy her pet bird cherry cokes. We know what most folks had for dinner.
   This book is highly recommended for its general appeal and to any student of the history of jurisprudence, of the civil rights of Blacks and women, of Americana, or of Georgia history.



4. The story of Lena Baker, the first and only woman to be executed legally in the state of Georgia, needed to be told.
   Lena was an impoverished Black woman who lived in Cuthbert, the seat of Randolph County, in southwest Georgia. She lost control of her life because, in addition to her station, of two facts. A prominent white man insisted she be his mistress, and she was dependent on alcohol.
   When she killed her oppressor in self-defense, she was tried for murder. Did she receive a fair trial? Was her case given an adequate investigation? Was she assigned a competent defense attorney?
   The exploration of these questions makes Phillips's The Lena Baker Story an absorbing one, but even more engaging are the minute details the reader learns of small-town, Southern life in the 1940s. We are told what is playing at the movies. We know that one Cuthbert resident drove all the way to Eufala, Alabama, to buy her pet bird cherry cokes. We know what most folks had for dinner.
   This book is highly recommended for its general appeal and to any student of the history of jurisprudence, of the civil rights of Blacks and women, of Americana, or of Georgia history.

No comments about Tiger of the Wild Bunch: The Life and Death of Harvey "Kid Curry" Logan.

No comments about Hot Rod Surf 100% Genuine.