• ISBN13: 9780824948283
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The remarkable true story of a couple on the brink of separation who finds love again while spending a year in Italy with their family now including an update five years later.

Tired, empty, and disillusioned with married life, Susan Pohlman was ready to call it quits. As soon as she and her husband, Tim, completed their business trip to Italy, she planned to break the news that she wanted to end their eighteen-year marriage.

During their last day as they walked along the Italian Rivera, Tim fantasized aloud that, perhaps, they could live there. After initially dismissing the idea, Susan realized that she wanted to give their marriage another try and that maybe life in such a beautiful place could bring them back to each other.

Together with their fourteen-year-old daughter and eleven-year-old son, they leave the hectic life in Los Angeles for a more intimate lifestyle in Italy.

Susan's funny, touching story reveals how stepping out of their normal day-to-day lives truly united her family in a whole new way. In this expanded paperback edition of Halfway to Each Other, readers will be able to enjoy the original story of their adventures -- no cars, no television -- and find out where they are today. When they returned to the United States, they went not to California, but to Arizona -- and to a brand-new life.

In this riveting and relentless nonfiction thriller, award-winning investigative reporter William C. Rempel tells the harrowing story of former Cali cartel insider Jorge Salcedo, an ordinary man facing an extraordinary dilemma—a man forced to risk everything to escape the powerful and treacherous Cali crime syndicate.

Colombia in the 1990s is a country in chaos, as a weak government battles guerrilla movements and narco-traffickers, including the notorious Pablo Escobar and his rivals in the Cali cartel. Enter Jorge Salcedo, a part-time soldier, a gifted engineer, a respected businessman and family man—and a man who despises Pablo Escobar for patriotic and deeply personal reasons. He is introduced to the godfathers of the Cali cartel, who are at war with Escobar and desperately want their foe dead. With mixed feelings, Jorge agrees to help them.

Once inside, Jorge rises to become head of security for Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela, principal godfather of the $7-billion-a-year Cali drug cartel. Jorge tries to turn a blind eye to the violence, corruption, and brutality that surround him, and he struggles privately to preserve his integrity even as he is drawn deeper into the web of cartel operations. Then comes an order from the godfathers that he can’t obey—but can’t refuse. Jorge realizes that his only way out is to bring down the biggest, richest crime syndicate of all time.

Thus begins a heart-pumping roller-coaster ride of intensifying peril. Secretly aided by a pair of young American DEA agents, Jorge races time and cartel assassins to extract damaging evidence, help capture the fugitive godfather, and save the life of a witness targeted for murder. Through it all, death lurks a single misstep away.

William C. Rempel is the only reporter with access to this story and to Jorge, who remains in hiding somewhere in the United States—even the author doesn’t know where—but has revealed his experience in gripping detail. Salcedo’s is the story of one extraordinary ordinary man forced to risk everything to end a nightmare of his own making.

The untold story of a heroic band of Caribbean pirates whose defiance of imperial rule inspired revolt in colonial outposts across the world

In the early eighteenth century, the Pirate Republic was home to some of the great pirate captains, including Blackbeard, "Black Sam" Bellamy, and Charles Vane. Along with their fellow pirates—former sailors, indentured servants, and runaway slaves—this "Flying Gang" established a crude but distinctive democracy in the Bahamas, carving out their own zone of freedom in which servants were free, blacks could be equal citizens, and leaders were chosen or deposed by a vote. They cut off trade routes, sacked slave ships, and severed Europe from its New World empires, and for a brief, glorious period the Republic was a success.

One Saturday morning in February 1972, an impoundment dam owned by the Pittston Coal Company burst, sending a 130 million gallon, 25 foot tidal wave of water, sludge, and debris crashing into southern West Virginia's Buffalo Creek hollow. It was one of the deadliest floods in U.S. history. 125 people were killed instantly, more than 1,000 were injured, and over 4,000 were suddenly homeless. Instead of accepting the small settlements offered by the coal company's insurance offices, a few hundred of the survivors banded together to sue. This is the story of their triumph over incredible odds and corporate irresponsibility, as told by Gerald M. Stern, who as a young lawyer and took on the case and won.

Operation Family Secrets is the chilling true story of how the son of the most violent mobster in Chicago made the unprecedented decision to work with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office to incriminate his own father and to help bring down the last great American crime syndicate—the one-hundred-year-old Chicago Outfit.

The Calabrese family of Chicago is a close-knit, middle-class, multi-generational Italian-Irish-American clan. They operate family businesses. They work day and night striving for the American Dream. All three sons forge a bond with their controlling father, Frank Sr., and their soft-spoken favorite uncle, Nick. As a boy, the oldest son, Frank Jr., realizes that his father and uncle are also “made” members of another close-knit family: the outfit.
     In Operation Family Secrets Frank Calabrese, Jr., tells the turbulent tale of a family dominated by a violent patriarch who breaks a longstanding unwritten outfit code and “brings the street into his home” by enlisting two of his sons into the outfit’s 26th Street/Chinatown crew. Frank Jr. reveals for the first time the outfit’s “made” ceremony and describes being put to work alongside his father and uncle in loan sharking, gambling, labor racketeering, and extortion, and plotting the slaying of a fellow gangster, while they commit the bombing murder of a trucking executive, the gangland execution of two mobsters whose burial in an Indiana cornfield was reenacted in Martin Scorsese’s blockbuster film Casino, and numerous other hits.
     The Calabrese Crew’s colossal earnings and extreme ruthlessness make them both a dreaded criminal gang and the object of an intense FBi inquiry. Eventually Frank Jr., his father, and Uncle Nick are convicted on racketeering violations, and “Junior” and “Senior” are sent to the same federal penitentiary in Michigan. Upon arrival, Frank Jr. makes a life-changing decision: to go straight rather than agree to his father’s plans to resume crew activities after serving his sentence. But he needs to keep his father behind bars in order to regain control of his life and save his family. Frank Jr. makes a secret deal with prosecutors, and for six months—unmonitored and unprotected—he wears a wire as his father recounts decades of hideous crimes. Frank Jr.’s cooperation with the FBi for virtually no monetary gain or special privileges helps create the government’s “operation Family Secrets” campaign against the Chicago outfit. The case reopens eighteen unsolved murders and also implicates twelve La Cosa Nostra soldiers and two outfit bosses. it becomes one of the largest organized crime cases in U.S. history.
     Operation Family Secrets intimately portrays how organized crime rots a family from the inside out while detailing Frank Jr.’s deadly prison-yard mission, the FBI’s landmark investigation, and the U.S. attorney’s office’s daring prosecution of america’s most dangerous criminal organization.


From the Hardcover edition.

Retiring in Pickax, actress Thelma Thackeray has decided to start a film club and organize a fundraiser revue, starring Koko the cat. But Thelma's celebrated arrival takes an unpleasant turn when the strange circumstances of her twin brother's recent death seem suspicious to Jim Qwilleran. Qwill needs a helping paw in this case. But will Koko deign to take time from his stage debut?

Boots to Asses: How 'The Rock' Brought Team Bring It (and The WWE Back To Life) chronicles Dwayne Johnson's controversial departure from and triumphant return to World Wrestling Entertainment in 2011.

Best selling author Michael Essany takes wrestling fans behind the scenes of WWE to explore what really motivated The Rock's return, how the John Cena feud will likely end, Vince McMahon's original plans for Sting (not The Rock), WWE's rumored "back-up" main event if The Rock or John Cena is injured before WM28, and what the WWE will do when The Rock is gone... again.

Featuring exclusive reports, interviews, and a few memorable excerpts from "The Rock vs. John Cena: The Real Story Behind The WWE Rivalry," this unauthorized eBook is a must read for The Rock's fans, WWE fanatics, and anyone who puts boots to asses on "Team Bring It."

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Chapter 1: The Rocky Road to Greatness
Chapter 2: Written in The Stars
Chapter 3: The Birth of ‘Team Bring It’
Chapter 4: Rocking a ‘Jealous’ Locker Room
Chapter 5: Headlining WrestleMania 28
Chapter 6: The Rock in Rare Form
Chapter 7: The Rock Wants Cena to Win?
Chapter 8: Rocking The Future of WWE

BOOK EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER 2

"Written in The Stars" - the epic, chart-topping rap from Tinie Tempah - not only served as the memorable anthem for WrestleMania 27, it also stands as a fitting theme for the career of Dwayne Johnson - "The Rock."

In early 2011, after a seven year absence from the industry that made him an icon, Dwayne Johnson returned to WWE. And while his comeback drew international media attention - and, correspondingly, big bucks for the WWE - few outside observers had any true knowledge of how Johnson's return may have done significantly more than just electrify the masses. It may have also saved the WWE from what some called the beginning of a precipitous creative decline capable of potentially crippling the lone superpower of pro wrestling in short order.

BOOK EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER 6

The Rock, in his first match back since heading for Hollywood seven years earlier, was in rare form at the Survivor Series. He showed little, if any, signs of ring rust. And, arguably, he proved himself to be one of the most athletic and technically sound wrestlers currently on the WWE roster.

With 17,000 New Yorkers chanting “You still got it” within the contest’s opening minutes, it was obvious that The Rock’s natural athletic talent wouldn’t skip a beat no matter how much time he had spent away from the squared circle.

And on that night, the unlikely tag team of John Cena and The Rock defeated (trounced, in fact) R-Truth and The Miz, all while the Madison Square Garden faithful booed Cena out of the building when not chanting “Rocky! Rocky!”

You Can Read More In The eBook!

Boots to Asses: How 'The Rock' Brought Team Bring It (and The WWE Back To Life) chronicles Dwayne Johnson's controversial departure from and triumphant return to World Wrestling Entertainment in 2011.

Best selling author Michael Essany takes wrestling fans behind the scenes of WWE to explore what really motivated The Rock's return, how the John Cena feud will likely end, Vince McMahon's original plans for Sting (not The Rock), WWE's rumored "back-up" main event if The Rock or John Cena is injured before WM28, and what the WWE will do when The Rock is gone... again.

Featuring exclusive reports, interviews, and a few memorable excerpts from "The Rock vs. John Cena: The Real Story Behind The WWE Rivalry," this unauthorized eBook is a must read for The Rock's fans, WWE fanatics, and anyone who puts boots to asses on "Team Bring It."

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Chapter 1: The Rocky Road to Greatness
Chapter 2: Written in The Stars
Chapter 3: The Birth of ‘Team Bring It’
Chapter 4: Rocking a ‘Jealous’ Locker Room
Chapter 5: Headlining WrestleMania 28
Chapter 6: The Rock in Rare Form
Chapter 7: The Rock Wants Cena to Win?
Chapter 8: Rocking The Future of WWE

BOOK EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER 2

"Written in The Stars" - the epic, chart-topping rap from Tinie Tempah - not only served as the memorable anthem for WrestleMania 27, it also stands as a fitting theme for the career of Dwayne Johnson - "The Rock."

In early 2011, after a seven year absence from the industry that made him an icon, Dwayne Johnson returned to WWE. And while his comeback drew international media attention - and, correspondingly, big bucks for the WWE - few outside observers had any true knowledge of how Johnson's return may have done significantly more than just electrify the masses. It may have also saved the WWE from what some called the beginning of a precipitous creative decline capable of potentially crippling the lone superpower of pro wrestling in short order.

BOOK EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER 6

The Rock, in his first match back since heading for Hollywood seven years earlier, was in rare form at the Survivor Series. He showed little, if any, signs of ring rust. And, arguably, he proved himself to be one of the most athletic and technically sound wrestlers currently on the WWE roster.

With 17,000 New Yorkers chanting “You still got it” within the contest’s opening minutes, it was obvious that The Rock’s natural athletic talent wouldn’t skip a beat no matter how much time he had spent away from the squared circle.

And on that night, the unlikely tag team of John Cena and The Rock defeated (trounced, in fact) R-Truth and The Miz, all while the Madison Square Garden faithful booed Cena out of the building when not chanting “Rocky! Rocky!”

You Can Read More In The eBook!