Showing results by author "Stephan Talty" in All Categories

In the spring of 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte was at the height of his powers. Forty-five million called him emperor, and he commanded a nation that was the richest, most cultured, and advanced on earth. No army could stand against his impeccably trained, brilliantly led forces, and his continued sweep across Europe seemed inevitable.

He challenged the greatest empire on earth with a ragtag bunch of renegades and brought it to its knees. This is the real story of the pirates of the Caribbean. Henry Morgan, a 20-year-old Welshman, crossed the Atlantic in 1655, hell-bent on making his fortune. Over the next three decades, his exploits in the Caribbean became legendary. His daring attacks on the mighty Spanish empire on land and at sea determined the fates of kings and queens, and his victories helped shape the destiny of the New World.

A searing story of starvation and survival in North Korea, followed by a dramatic escape, rescue by activists and Christian missionaries, and success in the United States thanks to newfound faith and courage.

It was just another day on the job for 53-year-old Richard Phillips, captain of the Maersk Alabama, a United States-flagged cargo ship that was carrying, among other things, food and agricultural materials for the World Food Program. That all changed when armed Somali pirates boarded the ship.

The untold story of the most important rescue mission not just of the Vietnam War, but the entire Cold War: one American aviator who knew our most important secrets crashed behind enemy lines and was sought by the entire North Vietnamese and Russian military machines. One Navy SEAL and his Vietnamese partner had to sneak past them all to save him.

Beginning in the summer of 1903, an insidious crime wave filled New York City, and then the entire country, with fear. The children of Italian immigrants were kidnapped, and dozens of innocent victims were gunned down. Bombs tore apart tenement buildings. Judges, senators, Rockefellers, and society matrons were threatened with gruesome deaths. The perpetrators seemed both omnipresent and invisible. Their only calling card: the symbol of a black hand.

The true story behind the events that inspired the major motion picture Only the Brave. A "unique and bracing" (Booklist) first-person account by the sole survivor of Arizona's disastrous 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire, which took the lives of 19 "hotshots" - firefighters trained specifically to battle wildfires. Brendan McDonough was on the verge of becoming a hopeless, inveterate heroin addict when he, for the sake of his young daughter, decided to turn his life around. He enlisted in the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a team of elite firefighters based in Prescott, Arizona.

Before he remade himself as the master spy known as Garbo, Juan Pujol was nothing more than a Barcelona poultry farmer. But as Garbo, he turned in a masterpiece of deception that changed the course of World War II. Posing as the Nazis’ only reliable spy inside England, he created an imaginary million-man army, invented armadas out of thin air, and brought a vast network of fictional subagents to life. The scheme culminated on June 6, 1944, when Garbo convinced the Germans that the Allied forces approaching Normandy were just a feint - the real invasion would come at Calais.

The untold story of an Israeli spy’s epic journey to bring the notorious Butcher of Latvia to justice - a case that altered the fates of all ex-Nazis.

No other event in the last fifty years is shrouded in myth like the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. Today, we remember this moment for the 76 people, including 20 children, who died in the fire; for its inspiration of the Oklahoma City bombing; and for the wave of anti-government militarism that followed. What we understand far less is what motivated the Davidians’ enigmatic leader, David Koresh.

What if you belonged nowhere and to no one? What if you learned as a teenager that the father who had mistreated you for years wasn't your father at all - and that you were actually born to the mistress of a Greek gangster? And what if the only way to connect with your real father was to become his fiercest rival? Kevin Pappas's story is a true-crime epic for a new generation of wiseguys.

In 1942, the Brooklyn-born Erickson was a millionaire oil mogul who volunteered for a dangerous mission inside the Third Reich: Locating the top-secret synthetic oil plants that kept the German war machine running. To fool the Nazis, Erickson played the role of a collaborator. He hung a portrait of Hitler in his apartment and "disowned" his Jewish best friend, then flew to Berlin, where he charmed Himmler and signed lucrative oil deals with the architects of the Final Solution.

Henry Morgan, a twenty-year-old Welshman, crossed the Atlantic in 1655, hell-bent on making his fortune. Over the next three decades, his exploits in the Caribbean in the service of the English became legendary. His daring attacks on the mighty Spanish Empire on land and at sea determined the fates of kings and queens, and his victories helped shape the destiny of the New World.

Absalom “Abbie” Kearney grew up an outsider in her own hometown. Even being the adopted daughter of a revered cop couldn’t keep Abbie’s troubled past from making her a misfit in the working-class Irish American enclave of South Buffalo. And now, despite a Harvard degree and a police detective’s badge, she still struggles to earn the respect and trust of those she’s sworn to protect. But all that may change, once the killing starts.

The remarkable true story of the miraculous journey that made the Dalai Lama into the man he is today and sparked the fight for Tibetan freedom. In the early weeks of 1959, a bloody uprising gripped the streets of the Tibetan capital of Lhasa as ragtag Tibetan rebels faced off against their Communist Chinese occupiers. Realizing that the impending battle would result in a bloodbath and his own capture, the young Dalai Lama began planning an audacious escape to India, a two-week journey.

In the final days of World War II, with the ravenous Red Army marching across Czechoslovakia, a wily band of American soldiers did the unexpected: They teamed up with the Nazis and went behind enemy lines to save the world's rarest horses from imminent extinction at the hands of the Russians - including the exquisite white Lipizzaner, whose bloodlines date back to Genghis Khan.

Hangman, Hangman, what do you see? Four little girls, as cute as can be. The eerie schoolyard chant still sends ripples of horror through North Buffalo. Not so long ago, serial killer Marcus Flynn preyed upon the community’s teenaged daughters—until he was cornered and shot in the head. But Flynn lived, carrying to prison the nickname “Hangman,” along with the secret of his last victim’s fate. Homicide cop Abbie Kearney wasn’t around during Hangman’s reign of terror. She hadn’t yet come home to wear her dad’s old badge in the tough Irish American stronghold known as “the County.”

It's the 1970s, and the fight for women's rights is gaining speed. In the sports world, Billie Jean King is breaking gender barriers on the tennis court. Janet Guthrie doesn't consider herself a "women's libber," but to racing's good ol' boys, she's a threat. When Guthrie makes a bid for Indy in 1976, the other drivers slam her mercilessly, even suggesting she's really a man. Fans heckle her, hoping she'll crash. Guthrie smiles through the pain and qualifies for Indy in 1978.

8th April 2009 was just an ordinary day for Richard Phillips, captain of the Maersk Alabama as it headed towards the port of Mombasa. Ordinary that is until, armed Somali pirates attacked and boarded the freighter. Captain Phillips offered himself as a hostage in exchange for the safety of his crew, and so began a tense five-day stand-off, which ended in a daring high-seas rescue by U.S. Navy SEALs.

As the snow drives down and the full force of a Buffalo winter makes itself felt, a man's body is found. Barely recognisable, the only clues the police have are the '1' carved into the victim's face and the killer's sinister calling card, a plastic toy monkey. This is 'The County' - the 27th county of Ireland - a city cocooned in secrets, suspicion and blood feuds, where the residents will do anything to protect their own. And for Detective Absalom Kearney, this case is her one chance to prove to a community more fiercely secretive than ever