Stanley N. Alpert

"Every one of our days on earth contains a series of small adventures, or small threads that, when woven together, make up the fabric of our lives." (p. 164)
A day in the life of Stanley N. Alpert, federal attorney, accounted in this book, was, to say the least, more remarkable and adventurous than most. He was abducted at gunpoint by, to say the least, a bumbling gang that "could not shoot straight", the "Bad News Bears" of crime. That is not to say that it was not a psychologically horrifying experience. He was ultimately released, unharmed after 25 hours of captivity.
During that time, he kept his wits about him, and, as he recalls, "I was responding to their inquiries, a trial lawyer and street-smart kid giving the best performance of his life." (p. 58) He used his skills as a lawyer and negotiator to keep his dignity and form a bond of humanity with his captors...and a little comic relief helped him as well. "All my friendliness and respect were paying off... the comedy approach worked." (p.117)
Eventually his captors laughingly ask him to join their gang... in order to recommend enemies of his that they can kidnap and rob. They even mock themselves saying... "what's going on here? we give you food...we offer you weed...what kind of robbery is this anyway?!" (p.122)
Thank God that no harm came to Stanley. The unimaginable events deserved better telling. The book reads like a rejected Seinfeld script, and is about 100 pages too long. Alpert includes unnecessary descriptions of the accomplishments of minor characters and reminisces about events that have no bearing on the story. As a reader, I found them a distraction and therefore skipped over these passages.
2.5 stars rounded to 3 due to some memorable quotes, several good laughs and sincere admiration for Mr. Alpert's grace under pressure.… (mais)

Stanley Alpert, an Assistant US Attorney in New York City, was grabbed on the street on the night before his thirty-eighth birthday by three guys who shoved him into a car at gunpoint and demanded his ATM card and his PIN. Frustrated by the daily withdrawal limits on the card, they kept Stanley captive for more than twenty-four hours while they worked on plans to get more cash out of his accounts. Then, somewhat surprisingly, they let him go.

In this book, Alpert describes his ordeal, with a particular focus on his attempts to remain calm and rational and make the best choices for getting out of the situation alive. To that end, he made an effort to be polite and accommodating towards his captors -- at one point, he had them asking him for legal advice! -- and to gather as many clues as possible to the criminals' identities and the location of the house they were holding him in. There turned out to be quite a lot of those; these were not exactly the most skilled and savvy kidnappers in the history of crime. He also talks about the police investigation afterward and how the experience affected him, and intersperses the story of the kidnapping with various digressions about his experiences growing up in Brooklyn, the details of his career in environmental law, and his opinions on crime and race relations in New York.

Alpert sometimes comes across as a bit of a lech when he's talking about women, which is a bit annoying, but I do have to admire his ability to properly handle a situation that would have undoubtedly turned me into a gibbering wreck. His writing sometimes feels like he's trying a little too hard to mimic the style of a thriller or gangster novel, but it's still an interesting read about an interesting experience, with a few moments that are unexpectedly, darkly funny.… (mais)

A very interesting memoir about the 26 hours Stan Alpert spent as a kidnapping victim and the investigation and aftermath. He was incredibly fortunate that they did not murder him. Certainly Alpert had substantially better survival skills than I do (and, I suspect, better than most of us). For me, the weakest part of the book was the final 1/3, which followed the investigation, probably because I worked as a legal assistant in a criminal defense firm for 14 years and it was all very familiar to me. Otherwise, I enjoyed Stanley's story.… (mais)