Download or read book Philadelphia True Noir written by George Anastasia and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The stories presented here are true slices of life taken from an underworld where people don't play by the rules and where the good guys don't always win. These are real-life stories about wiseguys and drug dealers, con men and murders. In these pages, you'll find the true noir stories that have bubbled up under the magnifying glass of a 30-year veteran reporter at the The Philadelphia Inquirer. It's a fascinating look into the minds, crimes, fates, and lives of Philadelphia's most intriguing criminals. So sit back and enjoy this illuminating look into the dark world of Philadelphia True Noir.

Download or read book Philadelphia Noir written by Carlin Romano and published by Akashic Books. This book was released on 2010 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "It's a collection enhanced by an unerring sense of place . . . that will please the most discriminating lovers of the dark side." --Kirkus Reviews "It took long enough for Akashic's noir series to get to Philly. Now that it has, compiled under the shadowy auspices of Inquirer literary critic/West Philly native Carlin Romano, the fun begins." --Philadelphia City Paper Includes brand-new stories by: Diane Ayres, Cordelia Frances Biddle, Keith Gilman, Cary Holladay, Solomon Jones, Gerald Kolpan, Aimee LaBrie, Halimah Marcus, Carlin Romano, Asali Solomon, Laura Spagnoli, Duane Swierczynski, Dennis Tafoya, and Jim Zervanos. Carlin Romano, critic-at-large of the Chronicle of Higher Education and literary critic of The Philadelphia Inquirer for twenty-five years, teaches philosophy and media theory at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2006 he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, cited by the Pulitzer Board for "bringing new vitality to the classic essay across a formidable array of topics." He lives in University City, Philadelphia, in the only house on his block.

Download or read book Pipe Dream written by Solomon Jones and published by Villard. This book was released on 2001-09-04 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The lawyer turned on the tape recorder, handed his client a cigarette, and lit it for him. Black drew hard, squinting as the smoke rushed into his lungs. "Where do you want to start?"the lawyer said, lighting a cigarette of his own. "I guess there’s only one place to start; at Broad and Erie." Johnny Podres, a politician whose record against corruption had been propelling him straight to the mayor’s office, is found murdered in a North Philly crack house. Enter Samuel Jackson, a.k.a. Black, a drug addict who knows better, a man embittered by the fact that he can’t seem to escape from his addiction to crack cocaine or, for that matter, from himself. Though he was once a family man with a wife and son, Black’s only concern these days is getting his next high, that is, until he stumbles across a friend and fellow addict, Leroy, and both become prime suspects in the Podres murder. Black and Leroy hook up with two female pipers: Clarisse, a registered nurse who is slowly losing to crack any semblance of a respectable life, and Pookie, who already has lost it. Soon the hunt is on for all four as they try to stay one step ahead of a police department under tremendous pressure to solve the case—because if a killer isn’t found soon, this could blow up into one of the biggest scandals in Philadelphia history. Solomon Jones weaves a suspenseful story against the backdrop of corruption in the Philadelphia police department and centers it on a group of drug addicts who, in the process of fleeing the law, come to terms with their own addiction, leading to some devastating consequences.

Download or read book A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Film Noir written by John Grant and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-09-21 with total page 830 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Featuring rumpled PIs, shyster lawyers, corrupt politicians, double-crossers, femmes fatales, and, of course, losers who find themselves down on their luck yet again, film noir is a perennially popular cinematic genre. This extensive encyclopedia describes movies from noir's earliest days – and even before, looking at some of noir's ancestors in US and European cinema – as well as noir's more recent offshoots, from neonoirs to erotic thrillers. Entries are arranged alphabetically, covering movies from all over the world – from every continent save Antarctica – with briefer details provided for several hundred additional movies within those entries. A copious appendix contains filmographies of prominent directors, actors, and writers. With coverage of blockbusters and program fillers from Going Straight (US 1916) to Broken City (US 2013) via Nora Inu (Japan 1949), O Anthropos tou Trainou (Greece 1958), El Less Wal Kilab (Egypt 1962), Reportaje a la Muerte (Peru 1993), Zift (Bulgaria 2008), and thousands more, A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Film Noir is an engrossing and essential reference work that should be on the shelves of every cinephile.

Download or read book Busted written by Wendy Ruderman and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-03-11 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the vein of Erin Brockovich, The Departed, and T. J. English's Savage City comes Busted, the shocking true story of the biggest police corruption scandal in Philadelphia history, a tale of drugs, power, and abuse involving a rogue narcotics squad, a confidential informant, and two veteran journalists whose reporting drove a full-scale FBI probe, rocked the City of Brotherly Love, and earned a Pulitzer Prize . In 2003, Benny Martinez became a Confidential Informant for a member of the Philadelphia Police Department's narcotics squad, helping arrest nearly 200 drug and gun dealers over seven years. But that success masked a dark and dangerous reality: the cops were as corrupt as the criminals they targeted. In addition to fabricating busts, the squad systematically looted mom-and-pop stores, terrorizing hardworking immigrant owners. One squad member also sexually assaulted three women during raids. Frightened for his life, Martinez turned to Philadelphia Daily News reporters Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker. Busted chronicles how these two journalists—both middle-class working mothers—formed an unlikely bond with a convicted street dealer to uncover the secrets of ruthless kingpins and dirty cops. Professionals in an industry shrinking from severe financial cutbacks, Ruderman and Laker had few resources—besides their own grit and tenacity—to break a dangerous, complex story that would expose the rotten underbelly of a modern American city and earn them a Pulitzer Prize. A page-turning thriller based on superb reportage, illustrated with eight pages of photos, Busted is modern true crime at its finest.

Download or read book Black Fire written by Robert Graysmith and published by Crown. This book was released on 2013-10-29 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first biography of the little-known real-life Tom Sawyer, told through a harrowing account of Sawyer's involvement in the hunt for a serial arsonist who terrorized mid-nineteenth century San Francisco. When San Francisco Daily Morning Call reporter Mark Twain met Tom Sawyer in 1863, he was seeking a subject for his first novel. He learned that Sawyer was a volunteer firefighter, local hero, and a former “Torch Boy,” racing ahead of hand-drawn fire engines at night carrying torches to light the way. When a mysterious serial arsonist known as “The Lightkeeper” was in the process of burning San Francisco to the ground, Sawyer played a key role in stopping him, helping to contain what is now considered the most disastrous and costly series of fires ever experienced by an American metropolis. By chronicling how Sawyer took it upon himself to investigate, expose, and stop the arsonist, Black Fire details Sawyer’s remarkable life and illustrates why Twain would later feel compelled to name his iconic character after him when writing The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. A vivid portrayal of the gritty, corrupt, and violent world of the Gold Rush-era West, Black Fire is the most vibrant and thorough account of Sawyer’s relationship with Mark Twain, and of the devastating fires that baptized San Francisco.

Download or read book True Crime Philadelphia written by Kathryn Canavan and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-11-15 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Serial killer H.H. Holmes built his murder castle in Chicago, but he met the hangman in Philadelphia. Al Capone served his first prison sentence here. The real-life killers who inspired HBO’s Boardwalk Empire lived and died here. America’s first bank robbery was pulled off here in 1798. The country’s first kidnapping for ransom came off without a hitch in 1874. A South Philadelphia man hatched the largest mass murder plot in U.S. history in the 1930s. His partners in crime were unhappy housewives. Catholics and Protestants aimed cannon at each other in city streets in 1844. Civil rights hero Octavius V. Catto was gunned down on South Street in 1871. Take a walk with us through city history. Would you pass Eastern State Penitentiary on April 3, 1945, just as famed bank robber Willie Sutton popped out of an escape tunnel in broad daylight? Or you might have been one of the invited guests at H.H. Holmes’ hanging at Moyamensing Prison on a gray morning in May 1896. It still ranks as one of the most bizarre executions in city history. Or, if you walked down Washington Lane on July 1, 1874, would you have been alert enough to stop the two men who lured little blond Charley Ross away with candy? You might have stopped America’s first kidnapping for ransom, the one that gave rise to the admonition, “Never take candy from a stranger.” The case inspired the Leopold and Loeb kidnapping. Then there was the bank robber whose funeral drew thousands of spectators and the burglary defendant so alluring that conversation would stop whenever she entered the courtroom. Mix in murderous maids, bumbling burglars, and unflinching local heroes and you have True Crime Philadelphia.

Download or read book Swampoodle written by D. P. Curran and published by . This book was released on 2017-01-29 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our story begins leading up to the Easter Rising in Ireland. Seamus O' Suileabhain, having Americanized his name to James Sullivan, escapes to America with an English bounty on his head. Aided and mentored by Anegus O'Boyle, a master of disguise and the most feared man in Ireland and the British Isles. James takes up a life of crime, under the protection of the O' Boyles, who are shielded by politicians at the highest level, including in Center City, Philadelphia. Marriage to Bridget O'Boyle leads to raising a familly in the Irish section of North Philadelphia, known as Swampoodle, where James works for his "American Sponser," Liam Donnelly. And under the guise of a construction foreman, James emerges as one of the most brutal and effective enforcers of the underworld in Philadelphia and Atlantic City. Our novel then focuses on a power shift during the beginning of what would be the boon of Prohibition. This saga plays out with the understanding of James Sullivan's eventual return to Ireland, to settle a personal score with the English Captain, known as, "The Lion". A story of assimilation, crime, loyalty, and the power of an unshakable bond between husband and wife, James and Bridget Sullivan...

Download or read book The Killers written by George Lippard and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2014-08-08 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Killers is a tale of gang violence, revenge, kidnapping, racial and ethnic conflict, international intrigue, and working-class triumph. Based on the real-life events of a Philadelphia race riot, this long-out-of-print sensational novella showcases the political and literary interests of its author, bestselling novelist George Lippard.

Download or read book Philadelphia Noir written by Carlin Romano and published by Akashic Books. This book was released on 2010-10-19 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A collection enhanced by an unerring sense of place, with no clinkers . . . that will please the most discriminating lovers of the dark side.” —Kirkus Reviews From its posh Main Line to its blue-collar enclaves, Philadelphia is a city of contrasts. History has shown that brotherly love and murderous intentions can exist, if not side-by-side, then at least on the same block. Its this dichotomy that gives local writers their inspiration in this gritty collection of stories from Meredith Anthony, Diane Ayres, Cordelia Frances Biddle, Keith Gilman, Cary Holladay, Solomon Jones, Gerald Kolpan, Aimee LaBrie, Halimah Marcus, Carlin Romano, Asali Solomon, Laura Spagnoli, Duane Swierczynski, Dennis Tafoya, and Jim Zervanos. “It took long enough for Akashic’s noir series to get to Philly. Now that it has, compiled under the shadowy auspices of Inquirer literary critic/West Philly native Carlin Romano, the fun begins.” —Philadelphia City Paper “One of the US’s oldest, and darkest cities has a collection of its own . . . Overall, this collection was excellent, but left me wanting more.” —MostlyFiction Book Reviews

Download or read book The Philadelphia Quarry written by Howard Owen and published by Permanent Press (NY). This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hardly anyone doubts that Richard Slade did it. Who could blame him? But Willie has his doubts. When the full weight of the city's old money falls on him, trying to crush the story, he only becomes more determined to chase the things that always seems to get him in trouble - the truth. The fact that Richard Slade is his cousin, a link to his long-dead African-American father, only makes Willie more tenacious.

Download or read book Race Gender and Comparative Black Modernism written by Jennifer M. Wilks and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2008-12-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Race, Gender, and Comparative Black Modernism revives and critiques four African American and Francophone Caribbean women writers sometimes overlooked in discussions of early-twentieth-century literature: Guadeloupean Suzanne Lacascade (dates unknown), African American Marita Bonner (1899--1971), Martinican Suzanne Césaire (1913--1966), and African American Dorothy West (1907--1998). Reexamining their most significant work, Jennifer M. Wilks demonstrates how their writing challenges prevailing racial archetypes -- such as the New Negro and the Negritude hero -- of the period from the 1920s to the 1940s, and explores how these writers tapped into modernist currents from expressionism to surrealism to produce progressive treatments of race, gender, and nation that differed from those of currently canonized black writers of the era, the great majority of whom are men. Wilks begins with Lacascade, whom she deems "best known for being unknown," reading Lacascade's novel Claire-Solange, âme africaine (1924) as a protofeminist, proto-Negritude articulation of Caribbean identity. She then examines the fissures left unexplored in New Negro visions of African American community by showing the ways in which Bonner's essays, plays, and short stories highlight issues of economic class. Césaire applied the ideas and techniques of surrealism to the French language, and Wilks reveals how her writings in the journal Tropiques (1941-45) directly and insightfully engage the intellectual influences that informed the work of canonical Negritude. Wilks' close reading of West's The Living Is Easy (1948) provides a retrospective critique of the forces that continued to circumscribe women's lives in the midst of the social and cultural awakening presumably embodied in the New Negro. To show how the black literary tradition has continued to confront the conflation of gender roles with social and literary conventions, Wilks examines these writers alongside the late twentieth-century writings of Maryse Condé and Toni Morrison. Unlike many literary analysts, Wilks does not bring together the four writers based on geography. Lacascade and Césaire came from different Caribbean islands, and though Bonner and West were from the United States, they never crossed paths. In considering this eclectic group of women writers together, Wilks reveals the analytical possibilities opened up by comparing works influenced by multiple intellectual traditions.

Download or read book Dark as Night written by Mark T. Conard and published by . This book was released on 2003-12-01 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A man, trying to help his brother stay out of trouble, is drawn into the violent and unforgiving world of the Philadelphia mob in this noir thriller. Morris White is the sous-chef at a first-rate Philadelphia restaurant, Le Tour de Cochon. All he wants is to leave behind his past and open his own spot. His dream comes one step closer to reality when the affair he's having with Vicky Ward heats up. Not only is she the manager of the restaurant he's working at, she also comes from money and a privileged background. She wants to make his dream come true, and the only thing that could stop them from doing it together is the one thing Morris hasn't told her about: his half-brother, Vince Kramer, is about to get out of Graterford Prison. Morris is finding it harder and harder to escape his hometown roots, which unlike the crisp, white linens of La Tour, are black as hell and dark as night.

Download or read book Temple Made written by Ronnyjane Goldsmith and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2021-10-18 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 1884, Temple University alumni have overcome poverty, hardship and disappointment to achieve greatness. Daniel Aaron, a refugee from Nazi Germany, grew up in foster care and went on to co-found Comcast Cable, the largest cable television provider in the United States. Theo-Ben Guriab was born in apartheid Namibia and became president of the United Nations General Assembly. Edith Windsor, a daughter of immigrants, brought a case before the Supreme Court at the age of seventy-seven ensuring that all gay people in the United States receive equal protection under the law. Author Ronnyjane Goldsmith, who received her BA, MA and PhD from Temple, presents thirty inspiring profiles of what it means to be Temple Made. The author's proceeds from the book are dedicated to the Temple University Alumni Scholarship Fund established by the author to assist future alumni.

Download or read book Literary and Sociopolitical Writings of the Black Diaspora in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries written by Kersuze Simeon-Jones and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2010-06-22 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Literary and Sociopolitical Writings of the Black Diaspora in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries traces the historiography of literary and sociopolitical movements of the Black Diaspora in the writings of key political figures. It comparatively and dialogically examines such movements as Pan-Africanism, Garveyism, IndigZnisme, New Negro Renaissance, NZgritude, and Afrocriollo. To study the key ideologies that emerged as collective black thought within the Diaspora, particular attention is given to the philosophies of Black Nationalism, Black Internationalism, and Universal Humanism. Each leader and writer helped establish new dimensions to evolving movements; thus, the text discerns the temporal, spatial, and conceptual development of each literary and sociopolitical movement. To probe the comparative and transnational trajectories of the movements while concurrently examining the geopolitical distinctions, the text focuses on leaders who psychologically, culturally, and/or physically traveled throughout Africa, the Americas, and Europe, and whose ideas were disseminated and influenced a number of contemporaries and successors. Such approach dismantles geographic, language, and generation barriers, for a comprehensive analysis. Indeed, it was through the works transmitted from one generation to the next that leaders learned the lessons of history, particularly the lessons of organizational strategies, which are indispensable to sustained and successful liberation movements.

Download or read book The Black Hood 6 written by Duane Swierczynski and published by Archie Comic Publications, Inc.. This book was released on 2015-10-28 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE ACCLAIMED DARK CIRCLE SERIES RETURNS! “Flor de Muerto” After the soul-crushing events of “Bullet’s Kiss,” disfigured cop Greg Hettinger leaves Philly and checks into a Southern California rehab clinic. But a plane ride can’t separate Greg from his troubles. A fellow patient believes her former drug dealer (and lover) has sent someone to kill her, and it’s up to Greg to figure out which member of their circle is preparing to pull the trigger... New to the dark, twisted world of The Black Hood? Then check yourself in for this thrilling one-shot from novelist Duane Swierczynski and superstar artist Howard Chaykin.

Download or read book Being Oscar written by Oscar Goodman and published by Weinstein Books. This book was released on 2013-05-21 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Being Oscar,one of America’s most celebrated criminal defense attorneys recounts the stories and cases of his epic life. The Mafia’s go-to defender, he has tried an estimated 300 criminal cases, and won most of them. His roster of clients reads like a history of organized crime: Meyer Lansky, Nicky Scarfo, and “Lefty” Rosenthal, as well as Mike Tyson and boxing promoter Don King, along with a midget, a dentist, and a federal judge. After thirty-five years as a defender, he ran for mayor of Las Vegas, and America’s greatest Mob lawyer became the mayor of its sexiest city. He was so popular his image appeared on the 5, 25, and 100 chips. While mayor of Vegas, he starred on the screen in Rush Hour 2 and CSI. He is as large a character in the history of organized crime as any of his clients and as legendary a figure in the history of Las Vegas as the entrepreneurs (his friends and clients) who built the city. This is his astonishing story—the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.