Word: ransoms
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...much an act of journalism as it is of fiction writing,” he said. “Just hanging out in these small post-Soviet countries, I’ve never seen such corruption in my life. One man in Azerbaijan wanted to kidnap me and ransom Random House. People just don’t realize how crazy it is over there.” But as much as it is an exploration of culture, Shteyngart’s novel is also deeply reflective of his own life.“I write primarily from the point...
...fizzles when there's no new order to fill the post-Saddam vacuum. By 2005, the women are all but trapped in their own homes, depressed, often without electricity, scared of random violence and of violence targeted at foreigners, and terrified that their family members will be kidnapped for ransom. Pauline's days, writes O'Donnell, "were punctuated with the constant phone calls she demanded from [her son] Jamal - when he got to college, as he moved from class to class, as he chose a taxi for the short trip home." She tells the author: "There is nothing...
...increasing volumes of gas. At least 1,000 people a year are killed in battles on land and sea between the 50-odd militias who fight the authorities as well as each other for opportunities to steal oil and kidnap oil workers for ransom...
...third novel (Hannibal) know, Lecter grew up a pampered aristocrat in Lithuania, fond of his parents, immensely devoted to his younger sister Mischa. In the last months of World War II, his parents were killed in a Nazi air strike and he and Mischa were held for possible ransom by looters. Near starvation and desperate for food, the looters killed, cooked and devoured the girl. The suggestion is that Lecter's life became a twisted mission to punish all malefactors and dispose of them exactly as his sister...
...whose revenues came from a naval protection racket they had been running in the eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean since the late 16th century. They seized foreign ships and enslaved the crews. If you paid them tribute in advance, they would leave you alone. Otherwise, you would have to ransom captives on an ad hoc basis. Their most famous prisoner was Miguel de Cervantes, who fictionalized his ordeal in Don Quixote. Roman Catholic religious orders (Trinitarians, Order of Mercy) devoted themselves to the business of ransoming Christian captives...