Ballad of the Whiskey Robber

What do you get when you add together a bottle of whiskey, a bad gambler, a flea-market wig, a plastic gun and a Hungarian bank? $5,900. And what do you get twenty-nine of these robberies later? The legend of the Whiskey Robber. When the Eastern bloc thawed, some extraordinary stories were revealed. But none is as entertaining as this. Attila Ambrus escaped late-eighties Romania for Hungary -- but soon found that living on his wits wasn't getting him very far. Becoming goalie for a third-division ice hockey team brought no fortune and little glory, and his procession of moneymaking ruses fared little better -- until he discovered robbery. With a supporting cast of car-wash owners, exotic dancers, drunk army generals and cocaine-snorting Hungarian rappers, Julian Rubinstein's tale is a spectacular debut, immortalizing the most charming outlaw since the Sundance Kid.

ISBN 0719563054   Pages 336 ISBN13 9780719563058 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 240 Publisher John Murray General Publishing Division   Published in London Imprint John Murray Publishers Ltd   Height (mm) 197 Format Paperback   Width (mm) 128 Publication date 05 Jun 2006   Spine width (mm) 21 DEWEY 364.1552092   Academic level General DEWEY edition DC22

'(A) punchy, preposterous tale of a cut-price Sundance Kid of the Eastern bloc ... Rubinstein relishes every misstep taken by his anti-hero on the way to a long sentence.' -- The Times 'Those who shy away from the "true crime" section of the bookshop ... may nevertheless like to try Ballad of the Whiskey Robber ... I particularly enjoyed Rubinstein's descriptions of the hapless cops ... funny ... the book is entirely free of schmaltz, which allows some unexpectedly tender moments' -- Daily Telegraph 20051008 'A funny and thrilling slice of modern history, told with all the charm of Butch and Sundance's flamboyant escapades.' -- Independent 20051008 'An extraordinary story ... told here with a hint of Louis de Bernieres and a lot of panache.' -- Daily Mail 20051104 'An hilarious, absurd parable for our times' -- Word 20051104 'A true caper of burglaries and broken hearts in the Eastern bloc' -- Wanderlust 20051201 'This stuff just can't be made up' -- Maxim 20051201 'One of the quirkiest and most riveting narratives. Weirdness has never been so winning' -- Elle 20051201 'Rubinstein has found a story of the sort that would make even the most dry-mouthed journalist slobber. Sometimes sad, often hilarious and always absurd, Ambrus's tale microcomsically condenses the politico-historic oddities into one entertaining and fairly tidy narrative.With a keen eye for the ridiculous, fearlessly high-speed prose and an extraordinary wealth of reported detail, Rubinstein conducts the affair like an unusually thoughtful carnival barker.' -- New York Times 20051201 '[The book] got fantastic reviews in the US on publication ... I am sure it will have a similar success here.' -- Bookseller 20050722 'Outrageously entertaining' -- San Francisco Chronicle 20050722 'An instant classic' -- Globe & Mail (Canada) 20050722 'A fast-paced and exquisitely detailed true-crime lark' -- Outside 20050722 'Punchy, hilarious, and apparently even true ! truth can be better than fiction' -- Gary Shteyngart, author of The Russian Debutant 20050722 'Fabulous stuff.' -- The Times, Ross Leckie 20060610 'Stories abound of Eastern Europe slipping off its communist skin and slipping on leopard-skin hot pants, but it's a story like this that really screws in the light bulbs.' -- tangled-web.co.uk 20060621 'Forget girlie pony stories -- this is the passionate adventure of taming a wild horse in the red dust and rugged terrain of the Australian outback.' -- Good Housekeeping 20060701

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