The Ballad of the Whiskey Robber: A True Story of Bank Heists, Ice Hockey, Transylvanian Pelt Smuggling, Moonlighting Detectives and Broken Hearts - Couverture souple

Rubinstein, Julian

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0719563046 ISBN 13 : 9780719563041

Editeur : John Murray Publishers Ltd, 2005

A propos du livre

Revue de presse :

[The book] got fantastic reviews in the US on publication . . . I am sure it will have a similar success here. (Bookseller)

'The pace, ingenuity and comical sense of the absurd deployed to tell the story of ice hockey player and bank robber Attila Ambrus make this book read like a novel. But Attila Ambrus is real ... his extraordinary story is told here with a hint of Louis de Bernieres and a lot of panache.' (Daily Mail)

Punchy, hilarious, and apparently even true ... truth can be better than fiction (Gary Shteyngart, author of The Russian Debutante's Handbook)

A fast-paced and exquisitely detailed true-crime lark (Outside)

This stuff just can't be made up (Maxim)

An instant classic (Globe & Mail (Canada))

Outrageously entertaining (San Francisco Chronicle)

One of the quirkiest and most riveting narratives. Weirdness has never been so winning (Elle)

Rubinstein has found a story of the sort that would make even the most dry-mouthed journalist slobber. Sometimes sad, often hilarious and always absurd, Ambrus's tale microcomsically condenses the politico-historic oddities into one entertaining and fairly tidy narrative.With a keen eye for the ridiculous, fearlessly high-speed prose and an extraordinary wealth of reported detail, Rubinstein conducts the affair like an unusually thoughtful carnival barker. (New York Times)

'Those who shy away from the "true crime" section of the bookshop . . . may nevertheless like to try Ballad of the Whiskey Robber . . . I particularly enjoyed Rubinstein's descriptions of the hapless cops . . . funny . . . the book is entirely free of schmaltz, which allows some unexpectedly tender moments' (Daily Telegraph)

Présentation de l'éditeur :

After escaping grim Romania for more liberal Hungary in the late '80s Attila Ambrus found that living on his wits wasn't getting him very far. Becoming goalie/janitor for a third-division ice hockey team brought no fortune and little glory: he was the least successful player in the country's least successful squad. His moneymaking ruses - fur smuggling, gravedigging, roulette - fared little better. Then a night of whiskey drinking led him to holding a bank up with a plastic gun while wearing a fright wig - and the Robin Hood of Eastern Europe was born.

This is the extraordinary tale of 29 robberies as cackhandedly conducted by Attila and his ice-hockey henchmen as they were investigated by Lajos Varju, the Iron Curtain's answer to Inspector Clouseau. Varju's inspiration is Columbo; he is assisted by a ballet-teacher forensics expert who wears a top hat and tails on the job. Thus for 27 of his heists Attila gets away - and after a jail breakout still manages a couple more.

Stories abound of Eastern Europe slipping off its communist skin and slipping on leopard-skin hotpants, but it's a story like this that really screws in the lightbulbs. In Julian Rubinstein's tale anti-hero Attila is immortalized as the most charming outlaw since the Sundance Kid, and we're all invited to his zany party.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: John Murray Publishers Ltd
• Date d'édition: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0719563046
• ISBN 13: 9780719563041
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 336