num_pages: 324
description: On January 21, 1998, the night before his thirty-eighth birthday, federal prosecutor Stanley N. Alpert was kidnapped off the streets of Manhattan by a car full of gun-toting thugs looking to use his ATM card. He ended up blindfolded in a Brooklyn apartment as his captors changed their plans, alternately threatening him and his family, seeking legal advice, expounding on the "gangsta" life, and offering him the services of their prostitute girlfriends as a birthday present. All the while, Alpert, still blindfolded, talked with them, played on their attitudes and fears, and memorized every detail he could in the event that he ever managed to get out of there alive.Filled with immediacy, drama, and extraordinary characters, The Birthday Party reads like a thriller-but every word is true.
language: English
title: The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival
titlecomplete: The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival
genres: Memoir, True Crime, New York, Nonfiction, Mystery, Biography Memoir, Biography, Crime
ratings_count: 694
awards: awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: Edgar Award
category: Best Fact Crime
publisher: Berkley