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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.
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.
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Reviews
'The pace, ingenuity and comical sense of the absurd deployed to tell the story of ice hockey player and bank robber Attila Ambrus make this book read like a novel. But Attila Ambrus is real ... his extraordinary story is told here with a hint of Louis de Bernieres and a lot of panache.'
'(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.'
'More than a hint of Wild West in the cops-and-robbers tale adds pace to this thoroughly researched book.'
'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'
'A funny and thrilling slice of modern history, told with all the charm of Butch and Sundance's flamboyant escapades.'
'An extraordinary story ... told here with a hint of Louis de Bernieres and a lot of panache.'
'An hilarious, absurd parable for our times'
'A true caper of burglaries and broken hearts in the Eastern bloc'
This stuff just can't be made up
One of the quirkiest and most riveting narratives. Weirdness has never been so winning
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.
[The book] got fantastic reviews in the US on publication . . . I am sure it will have a similar success here.
Outrageously entertaining
An instant classic
A fast-paced and exquisitely detailed true-crime lark
Punchy, hilarious, and apparently even true ... truth can be better than fiction
'Fabulous stuff.'
'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.'
'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.'