An hour’s bus ride from Serbia’s capital Belgrade lies Novi Sad, Vojvodina. Unlike the capital’s brutalist, graffiti-covered apartment blocks, Novi Sad’s got a more baroque look thanks to its history as part of the old Austro-Hungarian empire. There, as the sun set over a gothic church on the main square I walked into a café…
The Year of Fear by Joe Urshel is a true-crime recap of the thrilling manhunt for Machine Gun Kelly (available September 8, 2015). It's 1933 and Prohibition has given rise to the American gangster—now infamous names like Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger. Bank robberies at gunpoint are commonplace and kidnapping for ransom is the…
“Well, that’s a bold choice.” Charlaine Harris, author of the Sookie Stackhouse novels from which True Blood was adapted, said that phrase was her most polite way of telling someone they were possibly a walking disaster; as the husband of a Southern woman, I’m not sure if that’s better or worse than “Bless your heart,”…
Not everyone is deserving of the nickname he or she receives, but for Boston mafioso Joseph Barboza, “The Animal” was quite apt. Linked to the murders of over 30 people, some for business and some for fun, Barboza was only one member of a fearsome mafia that terrorized people up and down the East Coast.…
The Friendship of Criminals by Robert Glinski is a mob-feuled thriller focused on Anton, an aging Polish crime boss in Philadelphia who refuses to let the Italians take his territory (available March 17, 2015). Polish crime boss Anton Bielakowski has been a fixture in Port Richmond for many years. No one has ever defied him…
Salma Hayek's character's trapped in her apartment, heavily-armed, and facing waves of Yakuza attacks. What more needs to be said? You already know if Everly's your cup of sake from that description. Oh, all right, here's the trailer: The film was apparently shot in chronological order so that the set would get riddled with bullets…
The Year I Died Seven Times by Eric Beetner is a 7-part serialized novel about Ridley Allen, who'll be punished by stubborn love, gnawing curiosity, and a perverse knack for survival after his Japanese girlfriend disappears (Book #7, the final installment, is available November 4, 2014). Being a fan of short fiction as I am,…
The Perfect Witness by Iris Johansen is a romatic thriller about the daughter of a mob boss whose visions into people's darkest mark her for death, until a dangerous man helps her bury her identity and her gifts to survive (available September 30, 2014). The latest romantic thriller from Iris Johansen delves into the supernatural…
Nine Days by Minerva Koenig is a debut mystery featuring Julia Kalas, a forty-something former mob wife who finds herself under witness protection in rural Texas and in the middle of murder (available September 9, 2014). Julia Kalas has had a rough couple of years. Not only did she witness her husband’s murder, endure gunshot…
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover is not the first film you're likely to come up with when thinking about British gangster movies. Filmmaker Peter Greenaway, who began his artistic endeavors as a painter, has made a name for himself as a creator of provocative and sometimes experimental works of greater or…
