The Birthday PartyThe Birthday Party
a Memoir of Survival
Title rated 3.85 out of 5 stars, based on 7 ratings(7 ratings)
Book, 2006
Current format, Book, 2006, , All copies in use.Book, 2006
Current format, Book, 2006, , All copies in use. Offered in 0 more formatsA federal prosecutor recounts his kidnapping in 1998 by a gang of thugs who decided to hold him when they realized that he had a large bank balance, and relates how he interacted with his abductors in order to stay alive and plot his escape.
A federal prosecutor recounts his harrowing experience of being kidnapped in 1998 on the eve of his thirty-eighth birthday by a gang of thugs who decided to hold him when they realized that he had a large bank balance, in a dramatic account that describes how he interacted with his abductors in order to stay alive and plot his escape.
On January 21, 1998, federal environmental prosecutor Stanley Alpert was grabbed on the street near his home and forced into a car at gunpoint. In this memoir, he recounts how he managed to keep his wits about him during the 25 hours that he was held by a gang of violent thugs bent on cleaning out his savings account. He describes how his captors alternated between such extremes as threatening to kill him and offering him the services of their prostitute girlfriends. He also explains how his careful memorization of details throughout his ordeal led to the eventual arrest and conviction of the kidnappers. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
On January 21, 1998, the night before his thirty-eighth birthday, federal prosecutor Stanley Alpert was kidnapped off the streets of Manhattan. This is the story of what happened next. . . .
Alpert was taken by a carful of gun-toting thugs looking to use his ATM card, but when they learned his bank balance the plan changed. They took him, blindfolded with his own scarf, to a Brooklyn apartment, with the idea of going to a bank the next day and withdrawing most of his money. But the later it got, the more the plan changed again . . . and again . . . as his captors alternately held guns to his head, threatened his family, engaged him in discussions of "gangsta" philosophy, sought his legal advice, and, once they learned it was his birthday, offered him sexual favors from their prostitute girlfriends as a "birthday present." All the while, Alpert, still blindfolded, talked with them, played on their attitudes and fears, tried to figure out where their mood swings would take them next, and memorized every detail he could in the event that he ever managed to get out of there alive.
In the meantime, his friends and law enforcement colleagues, worried that they hadn't heard from him, launched a major police and FBI investigation. It, too, would take many twists and turns before it was done-and some of them would be very strange indeed.
Filled with immediacy, drama, and extraordinary characters, told not only from Alpert's memory and notes but from police reports, interviews with NYPD detectives, FBI agents, and witnesses, videotaped confessions, and court records, The Birthday Party reads like a thriller-but every word is true.
A federal prosecutor recounts his harrowing experience of being kidnapped in 1998 on the eve of his thirty-eighth birthday by a gang of thugs who decided to hold him when they realized that he had a large bank balance, in a dramatic account that describes how he interacted with his abductors in order to stay alive and plot his escape.
On January 21, 1998, federal environmental prosecutor Stanley Alpert was grabbed on the street near his home and forced into a car at gunpoint. In this memoir, he recounts how he managed to keep his wits about him during the 25 hours that he was held by a gang of violent thugs bent on cleaning out his savings account. He describes how his captors alternated between such extremes as threatening to kill him and offering him the services of their prostitute girlfriends. He also explains how his careful memorization of details throughout his ordeal led to the eventual arrest and conviction of the kidnappers. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
On January 21, 1998, the night before his thirty-eighth birthday, federal prosecutor Stanley Alpert was kidnapped off the streets of Manhattan. This is the story of what happened next. . . .
Alpert was taken by a carful of gun-toting thugs looking to use his ATM card, but when they learned his bank balance the plan changed. They took him, blindfolded with his own scarf, to a Brooklyn apartment, with the idea of going to a bank the next day and withdrawing most of his money. But the later it got, the more the plan changed again . . . and again . . . as his captors alternately held guns to his head, threatened his family, engaged him in discussions of "gangsta" philosophy, sought his legal advice, and, once they learned it was his birthday, offered him sexual favors from their prostitute girlfriends as a "birthday present." All the while, Alpert, still blindfolded, talked with them, played on their attitudes and fears, tried to figure out where their mood swings would take them next, and memorized every detail he could in the event that he ever managed to get out of there alive.
In the meantime, his friends and law enforcement colleagues, worried that they hadn't heard from him, launched a major police and FBI investigation. It, too, would take many twists and turns before it was done-and some of them would be very strange indeed.
Filled with immediacy, drama, and extraordinary characters, told not only from Alpert's memory and notes but from police reports, interviews with NYPD detectives, FBI agents, and witnesses, videotaped confessions, and court records, The Birthday Party reads like a thriller-but every word is true.
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- New York : G.P. Putnam's Sons, [2006], ©2006
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