q1903 On June 23, 1986, a farmer named Michael Kins was walking his soybean rows outside Enos, Indiana, when his foot sank into soft earth. He assumed he had found a dead deer and kept digging. What he pulled from the dirt was far worse: two human bodies stripped to their underwear, faces beaten beyond recognition, … Read more
Just before dawn on April 9, 1984, FBI agents took up positions outside pizzerias in New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois. Every team moved at the same minute, because a single phone call between the parlors would have ended everything. To the neighbors, these were slice counters and family restaurants in towns where … Read more
In 1980, the FBI sent Dennis Arnoldy to Las Vegas and handed him one man. Anthony Spilotro was the Chicago Outfit's enforcer in Nevada, and he had beaten so many cases that Arnoldy's own description of the job was a war with a new battle every day. He would spend the rest of the decade … Read more
Le jour du mariage de ma fille, quand elle m’a regardée droit dans les yeux et m’a dit qu’elle aurait préféré que je ne sois pas sa mère, je ne me suis pas effondrée. Je n’ai pas pleuré. En soixante-quatre ans, j’avais appris une seule chose qui comptait vraiment : quand tout s’écroule autour de … Read more
On November 22, 1963, Air Force One landed at Love Field in Dallas. A small number of people knew that President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, surrounded by roaring crowds, had only a few hours left to live. As the presidential motorcade moved toward Dealey Plaza, the killers were already in position. At exactly 12:30 p.m., several … Read more
Ne va jamais dans ce ranch, Ellen. Promets-le-moi. Ces mots, prononcés avec une intensité inhabituelle, furent l’une des rares exigences que mon mari Frank m’ait jamais faites durant nos vingt-quatre ans de mariage. J’avais toujours honoré sa demande, même quand la curiosité me rongeait lors des rares moments où il évoquait son enfance sur une … Read more
On the evening of November 7, 1965, Dorothy Kilgallen sat at the writing desk in the third-floor bedroom of her East 68th Street townhouse in Manhattan. It was 11:20 p.m. She had been working since nine. A Manila folder lay open in front of her. Inside, according to the account that has emerged over decades … Read more
On January 23, 1963, Nicholas Elliot sat in a Beirut apartment reading an MI6 interrogation file that made his hands shake. Harold "Kim" Philby, Britain's former head of Soviet counterintelligence, had just been confronted with evidence of treason. Philby had passed over 900 classified documents to KGB handlers during World War II. If Elliot didn't … Read more
Harry Truman was in his private library in Independence, Missouri, reading the Kansas City Star when his phone rang at 1:45 p.m. on November 22, 1963. The caller was a Secret Service agent with news that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. Truman gripped the receiver until his knuckles turned white and asked a … Read more
Mijn zus en ik zijn al jaren aan het vechten. Niet zozeer om grote dingen, maar om kleine dingen die zich in de loop van de tijd hebben opgestapeld tot iets dat ons hele gezin uit elkaar heeft gescheurd. Onlangs kwam het tot een hoogtepunt toen mijn zus mij eruit sneed nadat ze in het … Read more