The Bluegrass Conspiracy

The Bluegrass Conspiracy PDF Author: Sally Denton
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 9780595196661
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
When Kentucky Blueblood Drew Thornton parachuted to his death in September 1985—carrying thousands in cash and 150 pounds of cocaine—the gruesome end of his startling life blew open a scandal that reached to the most secret circles of the U.S. government. The story of Thornton and “The Company” he served, and the lone heroic fight of State Policeman Ralph Ross against an international web of corruption is one of the most portentous tales of the 20th century.

The Bluegrass Conspiracy

The Bluegrass Conspiracy PDF Author: Sally Denton
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 9780595196661
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 412

Get Book Here

Book Description
When Kentucky Blueblood Drew Thornton parachuted to his death in September 1985—carrying thousands in cash and 150 pounds of cocaine—the gruesome end of his startling life blew open a scandal that reached to the most secret circles of the U.S. government. The story of Thornton and “The Company” he served, and the lone heroic fight of State Policeman Ralph Ross against an international web of corruption is one of the most portentous tales of the 20th century.

The Bluegrass Conspiracy

The Bluegrass Conspiracy PDF Author: Sally Denton
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1450283780
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
When Kentucky Blueblood Drew Thornton parachuted to his death in September 1985—carrying thousands in cash and 150 pounds of cocaine—the gruesome end of his startling life blew open a scandal that reached to the most secret circles of the U.S. government. The story of Thornton and “The Company” he served, and the lone heroic fight of State Policeman Ralph Ross against an international web of corruption is one of the most portentous tales of the 20th century.

A Dark and Bloody Ground

A Dark and Bloody Ground PDF Author: Darcy O'Brien
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1497658535
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
An Edgar Award–winning author’s true crime account of a grisly string of killings in Kentucky—and the shocking spectacle of greed that followed. Kentucky never deserved its Indian appellation “A Dark and Bloody Ground” more than when a small-town physician, seventy-seven-year-old Roscoe Acker, called in an emergency on a sweltering evening in August 1985. Acker’s own life hung in the balance, but it was already too late for his college-age daughter, Tammy, savagely stabbed eleven times and pinned by a kitchen knife to her bedroom floor. Three men had breached Dr. Acker’s alarm and security systems and made off with the fortune he had stashed away over his lifetime. The killers—part of a three-man, two-woman gang of the sort not seen since the Barkers—stopped counting the moldy bills when they reached $1.9 million. The cash came in handy soon after when they were caught and needed to lure Kentucky’s most flamboyant lawyer, the celebrated and corrupt Lester Burns, into representing them. Full of colorful characters and desperate deeds, A Dark and Bloody Ground is a “first-rate” true crime chronicle from the author of Murder in Little Egypt (Kirkus Reviews). “An arresting look into the troubled psyches of these criminals and into the depressed Kentucky economy that became fertile territory for narcotics dealers, theft rings and bootleggers.” —Publishers Weekly “The smell of wet, coal-laden earth, white lightning, and cocaine-driven sweat arises from these marvelously atmospheric—and compelling—pages.” —Kirkus Reviews “A fascinating portrait of the mountain way of life and thought that forged the lives of these criminals.” —Library Journal

The Cornbread Mafia

The Cornbread Mafia PDF Author: James Higdon
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493038508
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
In the summer of 1987, Johnny Boone set out to grow and harvest one of the greatest outdoor marijuana crops in modern times. In doing so, he set into motion a series of events that defined him and his associates as the largest homegrown marijuana syndicate in American history, also known as the Cornbread Mafia. Author James Higdon—whose relationship with Johnny Boone, currently a federal fugitive, made him the first journalist subpoenaed under the Obama administration—takes readers back to the 1970s and ’80s and the clash between federal and local law enforcement and a band of Kentucky farmers with moonshine and pride in their bloodlines. By 1989 the task force assigned to take down men like Johnny Boone had arrested sixty-nine men and one woman from busts on twenty-nine farms in ten states, and seized two hundred tons of pot. Of the seventy individuals arrested, zero talked. How it all went down is a tale of Mafia-style storylines emanating from the Bluegrass State, and populated by Vietnam veterans and weed-loving characters caught up in Tarantino-level violence and heart-breaking altruism. Accompanied by a soundtrack of rock-and-roll and rhythm-and-blues, this work of dogged investigative journalism and history is told by Higdon in action-packed, colorful and riveting detail.

The Money and the Power

The Money and the Power PDF Author: Sally Denton
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0375414444
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
Las Vegas—the name evokes images of divorce and dice, gangsters and glitz. But beneath it all is a sordid history that is much more insidious and far-reaching than ever imagined. The Money and the Power is the most comprehensive look yet at Las Vegas and its breadth of influence. Based on five years of intensive research and interviewing, Sally Denton and Roger Morris reveal the city’s historic network of links to Wall Street, international drug traffickers, and the CIA. In doing so, they expose the disturbing connections amongst politicians, businessmen, and the criminals that harness these illegal activities. Through this lucid and gripping indictment of Las Vegas, Morris and Denton uncover a national ethic of exploitation, violence, and greed, and provide a provocative reinterpretation of twentieth-century American history. Now this neon maelstrom of ruthlessness and greed stands to not as an aberrant “sin city,” but as a natural outgrowth of the corruption and worship of money that have come to permeate American life.

Kentucky's Domain of Power, Greed and Corruption

Kentucky's Domain of Power, Greed and Corruption PDF Author: Betty Boles Ellison
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595159915
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
Referring to college athletics as amateur sports is as archaic as football’s flying wedge that was outlawed almost a century ago. College athletics are all about multi-million-dollar programs, billion-dollar television contracts, corporate control and cronyism. Power greed and corruption have turned the top athletic programs into money-making machines controlled as much by people outside the program as university presidents and athletics directors. Few, if any, books written about college athletics closely examine the behind the scenes deal making, how lucrative contracts are awarded and the favored few who benefit. This book reveals how and why sports decisions were made at the University of Kentucky, one of the nation’s top programs, how they were influenced by powerful elements who profited, sometimes by questionable legal and ethical tactics from these actions. Six years of solid academic research stands behind the facts revealed in this book.

The Plots Against the President

The Plots Against the President PDF Author: Sally Denton
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1608190897
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
An assessment of the political and physical dangers faced by the newly elected President Roosevelt in 1933 profiles such adversaries as would-be assassin Giuseppe Zangara and populist demagogues Huey Long and Charles Coughlin.

American Massacre

American Massacre PDF Author: Sally Denton
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307424723
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
In September 1857, a wagon train passing through Utah laden with gold was attacked. Approximately 140 people were slaughtered; only 17 children under the age of eight were spared. This incident in an open field called Mountain Meadows has ever since been the focus of passionate debate: Is it possible that official Mormon dignitaries were responsible for the massacre? In her riveting book, Sally Denton makes a fiercely convincing argument that they were. The author–herself of Mormon descent–first traces the extraordinary emergence of the Mormons and the little-known nineteenth-century intrigues and tensions between their leaders and the U.S. government, fueled by the Mormons’ zealotry and exclusionary practices. We see how by 1857 they were unique as a religious group in ruling an entire American territory, Utah, and commanding their own exclusive government and army. Denton makes clear that in the immediate aftermath of the massacre, the church began placing the blame on a discredited Mormon, John D. Lee, and on various Native Americans. She cites contemporaneous records and newly discovered documents to support her argument that, in fact, the Mormon leader, Brigham Young, bore significant responsibility–that Young, impelled by the church’s financial crises, facing increasingly intense scrutiny and condemnation by the federal government, incited the crime by both word and deed. Finally, Denton explains how the rapidly expanding and enormously rich Mormon church of today still struggles to absolve itself of responsibility for what may well be an act of religious fanaticism unparalleled in the annals of American history. American Massacre is totally absorbing in its narrative as it brings to life a tragic moment in our history.

Innocence Turned Deadly

Innocence Turned Deadly PDF Author: Robert Duncan O'Finioan
Publisher: Grey Wanderer Publishing
ISBN: 9780615582344
Category : Paramilitary forces
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
A young man is quietly invited to join the Unicorns, a shadowy paramilitary group claiming to work for the Department of Justice. Between the nightmare raids, take-downs and targeted assassinations he performs, Duncan soon realizes the corruption lies not only on the street but beneath the veil of the law and justice itself. He is ridding the world of corruption and drugs, one operation at a time but who does he really work for? And will the answer endanger his teammates who include both his best friend and the woman he loves?

Lexington

Lexington PDF Author: Fiona Young-Brown
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 9780738554471
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 100

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Book Description
Situated in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region, Lexington is known as a cultural center throughout the state. The city, with its strong sense of history, education, and commerce, has undergone dramatic change, making way for development and progress with each new decade.