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The Jolly Roger Social Club Nick Foster

The Jolly Roger Social Club By Nick Foster

The Jolly Roger Social Club by Nick Foster


$19.49
Condition - Like New
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Summary

The true story of a series of audacious killings by 'Wild Bill' Holbert, currently in prison and awaiting trial, that shook the often distinctly shadowy ex-pat community in Panama.

The Jolly Roger Social Club Summary

The Jolly Roger Social Club: A True Story of a Killer in Paradise by Nick Foster

Languishing in a Panamanian prison cell, William Holbert - known as 'Wild Bill' - is waiting to be tried for the murder of five fellow American expats. His first victims were the mysterious Brown family, who lived a deliberately quiet life in Panama's remote province of Bocas del Toro. After killing the Browns, he turned their house into the Jolly Roger Social Club with the motto 'Over 90% of our members survive'. He appointed himself Minister of the First Church of the Inebriation, and used drink- and drug-fuelled parties to get close to others who, like him, had fled to Panama's Caribbean coast in desperation to leave their past behind, assumed new identities and disappeared into a blissful loophole... The Jolly Roger Social Club is Nick Foster's astonishing and vivid account of a man who may be the world's first 'capitalist' serial killer. In the process of piecing together what happened he sheds light on the bigger questions raised by Wild Bill's actions: what was it that made Bocas del Toro such a fertile hunting ground for the murderer, and why did it take the expats so long to raise the alarm? It quickly becomes clear that the answer lies in the paradox of Panama itself: a seeming paradise, but with a sinister underbelly.

The Jolly Roger Social Club Reviews

Nick Foster follows a twisted path into a tropical paradise or is it a tropical Hades? where no one goes by his real name, pasts are forgotten, and identities are as shifty as the tides. The Jolly Roger Social Club is noir reporting at its best, a true crime tale for our age, a deftly guided tour into a shadowy netherworld where the phrase 'last call' can be taken quite literally. -- Susan Casey, author of Voices in the Ocean, The Wave, and The Devil s Teeth
The world has never seen a killer quite like William Dathan Holbert. Nick Foster's shrewdly told, rum-soaked, all-too-true tale of serial murder in the tropics is simply stunning. -- Robert Kolker, author of Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery
The Jolly Roger Social Club is a gripping, enervating read sharply written, excellently observed and assiduously researched. In William 'Wild Bill' Cortez, Foster has found not only a larger-than-life character, but a back door into an expat island community. What emerges is a fascinating portrait of an under-reported corner of the world that balances the best of crime writing and pavement-pounding reportage. Keeping so many plates spinning is no easy task, yet Foster carries it off with enviable expertise. A Panamanian Cocaine Nights, only grounded in fact. -- Oliver Balch, author of Viva South America
If you've ever yearned to flee civilization for a tropical Caribbean hideaway, pick up Nick Foster s frightening The Jolly Roger Social Club before you do. It s like a nightmare version of 'House Hunters International'--a lovely Panamanian resort town, happy American expats, and one crazed murderer who seemingly wants to kill them all. -- Bryan Burrough, author of Days of Rage and Public Enemies
William 'Wild Bill' Holbert could be a character drawn straight out of fiction: a diabolical killer who comes to the beaches of Panama, one of the most beautiful settings in the world, to wreak his special brand of havoc. What s especially amazing is that he was able to go for so long before other expats realized just what kind of man he was. The Jolly Roger Social Club is a fascinating tale of terror and madness. -- Skip Hollandsworth, author of The MidnightAssassin

About Nick Foster

Nick Foster was born in Liverpool, UK in 1966, and educated at University College London. He worked for several years as a European Union diplomat, and as a stringer working out of Caracas, Venezuela, filing news stories and research to the UK s broadsheets. He now writes features for the Financial Times and the International New York Times, among other outlets. He is also producing a documentary film on France's highest-profile cold case. Foster is married with two young sons and lives in Belgium

Additional information

GOR008386987
9780715651353
0715651358
The Jolly Roger Social Club: A True Story of a Killer in Paradise by Nick Foster
Used - Like New
Paperback
Overlook Press
20160714
288
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
The book has been read, but looks new. The book cover has no visible wear, and the dust jacket is included if applicable. No missing or damaged pages, no tears, possible very minimal creasing, no underlining or highlighting of text, and no writing in the margins

Customer Reviews - The Jolly Roger Social Club