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  • Published: 1 September 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407006727
  • Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 368

Kidnapped

A Story of Survival



The remarkable account of a federal prosecutor's kidnapping, the psychological duel and investigation that followed - a riveting story of human resilience: vivid, funny, terrifying, profane, true.

On the night before his thirty-eighth birthday, federal prosecutor Stanley Alpert was kidnapped by a car-full of gun-toting thugs. They were looking to use his ATM card, but when they learned his bank balance, the plan changed. They took him, blindfolded, to a Brooklyn apartment, with the idea of going to a bank the next day and withdrawing most of his money. His captors alternately held guns to his head, threatened his family, engaged him in discussions of gangsta philosophy and sought his legal advice before eventually releasing him in a manner which has to be one of the most bizarre occurrences in the history of crime.

Told from Alpert's memory and notes; interviews with NYPD detectives, FBI agents and witnesses; videotaped confessions; and court records, Kidnapped reads like a thriller - but every word is true.

  • Published: 1 September 2010
  • ISBN: 9781407006727
  • Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 368

About the author

Stanley N Alpert

Stanley N. Alpert served for thirteen years with the U.S. Department of Justice, as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, where he was Chief of Environmental Litigation. There, Alpert investigated, prosecuted and supervised many complex civil and criminal cases, some resulting in multi-million-dollar awards. He now runs The Alpert Firm in New York City, where he lives.

Praise for Kidnapped

Stanley Alpert's memoir is so wild that it could never be fictionalized. The movie should be directed by Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen working in tandem!

Joseph Wambaugh

Forget about all the crime shows you've seen on television, this is what a real crime is like. Alpert nails the language, the motivations, the personalities of his kidnappers. And all through the story we see Alpert's own intelligence at work, picking up and remembering clues that'll bring the roof down on the bad guys. I read it in one big gulp.

John Sandford

Harrowing, often hilarious ... One of the most exhilarating, improbable New York stories ever told.

New York Times

An extraordinary work of fact that could top the fiction lists

Daily Sport

Throughout, Alpert wins over the reader the same way he did the kidnappers, with the force of his canny, self-assured, bighearted personality

New York Times Sunday Book Review

In accounting his ordeal, Alpert deftly weaves in family history, reflections on close friends, concerns both professional and personal, and the colors, smells and textures of New York City

Bookpage

Alpert delivers an unflinching look at the humiliating, terrifying role of the victim, lacing his plight with commentary on contemporary crime ... An effective, one-two punch of a memoir

Booklist

Like watching a slow motion train wreck - difficult to look at but impossible to turn away from

New York Newsday

Alpert's firstperson account is cool and laconic, with moments of sledgehammer certainty of death balanced by a lack of self-pity and histrionics.

Sunday Express