2 comments about Lost Cause: John Wesley Hardin, the Taylor Sutton Feud, and Reconstruction Texas.

1. Intriguing, romantic cover that captures the Westerner's imagination. Too bad the cover artist didn't write & illustrate this book (really a comic book as "graphic novel" would be a complimentary exaggeration). Text is apologist history, weak on facts, thick on excuses for Hardin's murderous tendencies. Hardin doesn't get to his infamous gunfighting career until page 86, so "Lost Cause" doesn't even work as a traditional Western romp. Artwork inside is crude featuring stiff, exaggerated characters that make "Pokemon" look like Rembrandt. "Lost Cause" doesn't work as history or entertainment. If you are interested in Hardin, check out Leon Metz's or Richard Marohn's bios or even Hardin's autobiography. As for "Lost Cause," save your money--the cover is the best part & you've already seen that.



2. ...when you are looking at the cover of this book by this veteran comix artist you may wonder whether he has gone out of his famous and remarkable style and beacme more mainstream. Well, rest assured, he did not. This fine volume of Jackson historical revisionism is every bit as good as his prior famous works, e.g. "Comanche Moon" and others. This time again it is Texas, but Texas of Reconstruction era, one period of our history that has not been fully explained and is usually taught very one-sided at the universities at al. Here, Mr. Jackson attempts and is successful in giving us a point of view that the conquered Confederate Texas might have held. Since these were times of sudden change and brutality, thus there is violence, more violence, rivalry, racial prejudice, social strife, medeival-like vendetta cycles, poverty - all told with astonishing and refreshing detail and precision of this veteran underground comix artist. Necessarily, this one is a very controversial angle of the Reconstruction era, the subject and theme being loaded with racial and social prejudices and hatred that Hardin and his kind might have had and it seems that they in fact had. This is not for the politically correct folks, but rather for those who seek to find out some reasonable explanation and to gain deeper foundation in order to gain the feel of what might have been like during those hard times in Texas. Finally, Mr. Jackson tells his story while maintaing the most amazing attention to every possible historical detail( as every personality, their guns, clothes and other period material culture items and pieces are acurately portrayed albeit drawn in his unique graphic style). One may ask what more is to ask about this work that is both the finest graphic storytelling and a fine example of reasonable yet passionate historical scholarship.

No comments about Sacco and Vanzetti - The Life and Execution of American Anarchists (Biography).

2 comments about Point Zero Bliss: A Prisoner's Quest for Freedom.

1. Point Zero Bliss speaks deeply to the heart about one mans plight through another world. Trapped in prison for a number of years, Mr. Legacy finds the peace he seeks through the use of his pen,(and sometimes pencil.) Legacy's writing spouts forth like prose, yet retains the thread of a non-realistic pattern of daily living that captures your attention. You will face life, demons, and death in it's true form...... A highly recommended reading from the Author himself, available by E-Mail at seanlegacy@msn.com



2. Everyone has a story...everyone wants to survive. I found out myself I could not drink and take care of my life too, so I gave it up. I think I see Sean's struggle to be a decent human being getting confused by the intoxicants that are available everywhere to waste our time and our lives. It is so difficult to deal with lifes boredom and interruptions (things going wrong) without trying to fill up that space with pleasure or distraction or whatever. I imagine it is 1000 times worse in prison. Sean's story puts a human face on that dark institution. I hope people listen to where he is coming from in his book, and I hope we get to hear from him again.

No comments about John Brown - American Abolitionist (Biography).

No comments about Insanity: My Mad Life.

No comments about The Guv'nor: Through the Eyes of Others.

4 comments about Contract Killer.

1. I love non-fiction books. Especially crime stories. I have read a lot of books about La Cosa Nostra and I can honestly admit that this is the best one I have ever read. I would like to thank "Tony The Greek" personally for the entertainment! The best point that this author made was to forget about writing a story and to just write the truth. If I am to read non-fiction, I want it to be 100% non-fiction. This is it!!! Great book.



2. Great account of a real-life tough guy and hitman. This book provides an insider's look into the mob and various prisons. Also, detailed accounts of murders and the planning that goes into them.



3. This book is totally lacking in credibility. It has been discredited by other more trustworthy sources. Frankos story on the Hoffa murder, for one, is a total fabrication. Please, do some research (read "The Westies," for instance, a much more jouranlistically credible source) and you will find that this book is FICTION disguised as fact. That is, if you care.



4. Alot of storys in this book are hard to belive. I read alot of other mob books and they all Have different versions to the same story. A good gangster book is WISEGUY or read the UNDERBOSS . it seems to me as if this guy just wants to be important. But overall its a good book.

1 comments about Rocco Perri: The Story of Canada's Most Notorious Bootlegger.

1. Everyone knows who Al Capone is. Not many recognize the name Rocco Perri. It's ironic, because they both ran multimillion dollar gambling, extortion, and prostitution rackets, inspired comparable heights of fear among their enemies and subordinates, and became so ominipotent that their respective governments were the only ones who succeeded in taking them down. But Perri never demolished the competition via Thompson-wielding firing squads, so his name has been lost to history and knowledge of his career is confined to Canadian historians and a handful of American researchers who rightly sensed that someone formidable was calling the shots north of the border during the Prohibition years.
   
   Rocco Perri was a Calabrian immigrant who came to Canada as the nineteenth century was yielding to the twentieth. He and his common-law wife, a financial genius named Bessie Starkman, built a criminal empire whose nucleus was in Hamilton, Ontario, but whose tentacles of influence reached all over the rest of Canada and into the United States. Al Capone and Joseph Kennedy were among their best customers.
   
   Antonio Nicaso had a tough act to follow when he took on the story of Canada's 'King of the Bootleggers'. Robin Rowland and James Dubro's 'King of the Mob', which was published in 1988, was the first book-length treatment of Rocco Perri's rise to power in post-World War One Canada, his carefully crafted alliances with Italian crime families in both Canada and the U.S., his profitable association with the indomitable Bessie Starkman and Annie Newman, and his gradual decline after Canadian authorities branded him a potential Fascist and put him in a internment camp. Perri disappeared from the public record in April 1944, when he left his cousin's Hamilton residence, and never returned. The conclusion that Rowland and Dubro came to is that professional killers working for Stefano Maggadino's Buffalo mob snatched Perri during his stroll and disposed of him. That's the theory that subsequent writers and researchers have been accepting... until now, when Nicaso comes forward with evidence that Perri survived until at least 1953.
   
   "Rocco Perri: The Story of Canada's Most Notorious Bootlegger" pays tribute to the research done by Rowland and Dubro, but also expands on it. Nicaso interviewed not only the surviving relatives of Rocco Perri but also his victims, which include a young woman who gave birth to his two daughters and then committed suicide when he refused to marry her. There's a powerful human element to this book that was absent from "King of the Mob", although Nicaso does not give in to sentiment.
   
   The only reason why I'm giving this book four stars instead of five is that Nicaso's writing style is solid but lacks depth. It's like reading one long magazine article. A well-researched one, mind you, but there's a sparseness there that is not to my personal taste. Other than this stylistic issue, I found "Rocco Perri: The Story of Canada's Most Notorious Bootlegger" to be an engaging read. Recommended!

No comments about Rage Within: The Autobiography of Britain's Most Infamous Black Armed Robber.

3 comments about Charles W. Colson: A Life Redeemed.

1. Nixon apologist and ex-con Jonathan Aitken serves up this loving tribute to his fellow ex-con Chuck Colson. Aitken serves on the board of Colson's prison ministry, so any expectation of objectivity flies out of the cell door. In Aitken's long-ago, forgotten biography of his hero Richard Nixon, he similarly soft-peddled Nixon's crimes. At least this time out the former Tory MP, who just got out of a British prison himself a couple of years ago, forgoes the ludicrous conspiracy theories that made his Tricky Dick biography such a joke. Unlike the unfortunate convicts unmercifully hounded and courted by Colson's ministry, Colson was preaching to the choir with Aitken, who returns the favors to Colson, with this way-too-thick inspirational sop.



2. Notorious as Richard Nixon's hatchet man, Charles (Chuck) Colson's involvement in the Watergate scandal sent him from the White House to "the big house." Today, this former felon is a respected Christian leader. He is the founder of the far-reaching Prison Fellowship, which is one of the most respected and productive Christian parachurch organizations in America, powerfully reflecting the resurrection and redeeming grace of Jesus Christ.
   
   Colson truly stands as a modern-day Paul, whose life was radically changed after an encounter with the Lord. This book is well documented and well written. On the one hand, it presents Colson as a man who has had a very positive impact on American culture and religion; yet, on the other hand, it does not downplay the bad choices he made earlier in his life that led him to prison. There is a brutal honesty in the presentation of Colson's political ambitions, his drive for power, and his insensitivity to people who got in his way. However, this makes the story of his redemption all the more astounding.
   
   Noted British researcher and author Jonathan Aitken was given full access to Colson's personal papers and private archives. Additionally, he did extensive interviews with Colson's wife, children, co-workers, and friends. The result is an intriguing study of this Hyde-turns-Jekyll individual. This book will be of interest not only to Christians but also to anyone interested in the machinations of politics or the events of American history. - Leilani Joy Wells, Christian Book Previews.com



3. Whatever your opinion of Chuck Colson, you can't deny his powerful impact on American society, as a groundbreaking political strategist in his first life and as a leading evangelical leader in his second life.
   
   Evangelical biographies aren't always thorough and honest. Unlike the Bible itself, they often gloss over the weaknesses of their subjects. But Jonathan Aitken's look at Chuck Colson escapes that trap and delivers a complete look at a man who has made a significant imprint on American life and culture.
   
   Rarely has a person impacted the world with two separate lives like Chuck Colson has. His days as a Nixon hatchetman are legendary, but Aitken fills in some of the blanks for the post-Watergate generation. Clearly Colson was a win-at-all costs political tactician who engineered many victories, most importantly the election of Richard Nixon. His actual involvment in Watergate is sketchy at best and it is likely he went to jail for a trumped up charge, handed down in the hysteria of Watergate.
   
   However, rather than spending a life embittered by political losses and an unfair jail sentence, Colson found a relationship with Jesus Christ and thus his life was turned around. The drive to succeed was channeled into ground-breaking prison ministry, which included reform, one-on-one evangelism, and a variety of think tanks and worldview programs. Now Prison Fellowship is one of the largest and most successful evangelical organizations in the world.
   
   Many evangelicals, including myself, have one beef with Colson, namely his work to disregard the wide theological chasm that exists between Catholics and Evangelicals in his attempt to bring the two together. Martin Luther and other reformers would find this naive at best and appalling at worst.
   
   Still, no one can dismiss the remarkable influence of the political hatchet man whose life was dramatically turned around by the grace of God. Many prisoners will be in the Kingdom because of Colson's life.
   
   Aitken's biography is spot-on, thorough, and brutally honest. I recommend it whole-heartedly.