History
The Dalton Gang’s Final, Doomed Heists in the Twilight of the Old West
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In February 1891, hoping to help his brothers find steady work, Bill Dalton wrote a letter to the superintendent of the nearby Muller and Lux Ranch, having heard it was hiring. After that was confirmed, Bill borrowed a horse and saddle from one of his hired men for Grat and two saddles from his neighbors…
How a German Spy Chief Built a Smuggling Network out of a Mission to Install a Nazi King in Britain
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Walter Schellenberg had few redeeming personal attributes and could easily be characterized as just another career Nazi. He owed his lofty position as head of German intelligence to the patronage of Heinrich Himmler, and he remained personally loyal to the Reichsführer until the end. Schellenberg was not a thinker. He was an enforcer, career gossip,…
How Much Do We Really Know About Charles Dickens?
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The weather has been exceptionally mild of late but in this Christmas season every party demands a good blaze and good cheer. What with the fire and the punch bowl and mounting excitement, they are all already too warm; the children pink-cheeked, the ladies, both young and older, hectically flushed. Mrs Dickens, so near her…
The Secret History of John le Carré’s Career in the Intelligence Services
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‘People believe what they want to believe,’ wrote David to one of his lovers. ‘ALWAYS.’ he was referring to the ‘revelation’ that Graham Greene had continued working for British intelligence into his seventies. ‘No good me telling them that GG was far too drunk to remember anything, & that his residual connections with the Brit…
The Political Assassination That Transformed Africa, the UN, and the CIA
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Nothing much happens in Mélin, a picturesque village of little over a thousand people about an hour’s drive from Brussels. If the sleepy town has a claim to fame, it is that many of its buildings — farmhouses, the church and the vicarage, the restaurant —are built from a chalky sandstone unique to the region….
A Country Road, in the Dead of Night: On The Historical Hauntings of Irish Folklore
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First published in 1936, On Another Man’s Wound was written by Earnán Ó Máille and recounts his time as a guerrilla fighter during the Irish War of Independence in the nineteen twenties. It is generally considered to be the one bona-fide piece of literature to arise from that conflict. No dry military memoir, Ó Máille…
Freak On: Black Strip Clubs in the 1990s
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(some names and dates have been changed) From Sin City to Hustlers to Zola, more than a few of my favorite neo-noirs feature strip clubs as part of their narrative. My interest in these naughty places began when I was a kid growing-up in New York City. Whenever mom took me through raunchy Times Square…
The Cowboy Detective, Undercover and in Danger Among the Texas Desperados
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The following is an excerpt from Nathan Ward’s new book about Charlie Siringo: Son of the Old West, now available from Atlantic Monthly Press. ___________________________________ Along the snowy road from Cheyenne toward Fort Douglas, the roundup season was well finished. This was the time of year when the Round-up Number 5 saloon held on to…
The Cowboy as Detective: Finding Charlie Siringo’s West
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When Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid finally came to my boyhood mall, I saw it three times, wondering in the dark about the unnamed lawmen chasing the Wild Bunch outlaws around the West, the drumbeat of their horses’ hooves drawing Butch’s exasperated line, “Who are those guys?” One who chased the gang, I would…