An award-wining and "outrageously entertaining" true crime story ( San Francisco Chronicle ) about the professional hockey player-turned-bank robber whose bizarre and audacious crime spree galvanized Hungary in the decade after the fall of the Iron Curtain. During the 1990s, while playing for the biggest hockey team in Budapest, Attila Ambrus took up bank robbery to make ends meet. Arrayed against him was perhaps the most incompetent team of crime investigators the Eastern Bloc had ever seen: a robbery chief who had learned how to be a detective by watching dubbed Columbo episodes; a forensics man who wore top hat and tails on the job; and a driver so inept he was known only by a Hungarian word that translates to Mound of Ass-Head. Ballad of the Whiskey Robber is the completely bizarre and hysterical story of the crime spree that made a nobody into a somebody, and told a forlorn nation that sometimes the brightest stars come from the blackest holes. Like The Professor and the Madman and The Orchid Thief , Julian Rubinstein's bizarre crime story is so odd and so wicked that it is completely irresistible. "A whiz-bang read...Hilarious and oddly touching...Rubinstein writes in a guns-ablazing style that perfectly fits the whiskey robber's tale." -- Salon Awards: Winner, Borders 2005 “Original Voices” Nonfiction Book of the Year Finalist, 2005 Edgar Allan Poe Award, Best Fact Crime Finalist, 2005 Anthony Award, Best Non-fiction Book Finalist, 2007 Audie Award, Best Audio Book National Geographic “Best 5 Books about Budapest” Film rights purchased by Johnnie Depp Reviews “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 microcosmically condenses the politico-historic oddities of his place and era into one entertaining and 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 Sunday Book Review (Editors’ Choice) “An instant classic…. At once sad and funny, Ballad of the Whiskey Robber, a rollicking tale of the Wild East, also has a deeply compelling political purpose.” Canada’s Globe and Mail (A Best Book of the Year pick) “Outrageously entertaining… An essential absurdism is never far from the surface… This fast-moving story is a rip-roaring cops and robbers saga with a Mitteleuropean heart.” —San Francisco Chronicle “One of the best non-fiction books I’ve ever read. Ever. In fact it’s one of the best non-fiction books I will ever read. It’s that good.” Harvard Bookstore Staff Pick “Marvelous. This book will stand as a vivid memento of modern Budapest’s formative years.” —The Budapest Times “If all the world loves a romantic thief, the world will fall head over heels for Attila Ambrus. Fast paced and exquisitely detailed.” —Outside “Rubinstein has a knack for vividly portraying his stranger-than-fiction characters… By turns hilarious and incredible, this stuff just can’t be made up.” —Maxim (5 out of 5 stars.) “Offers that simple pleasure, a great story.” —Esquire “Its hard to imagine what journalist Julian Rubinstein thought when he stumbled across the twisted tale of Attila Ambrus, but his fascination finds riveting realization in Ballad of the Whiskey Robber, a nonfiction account of a story that must be read to be believed… Set against a rich backdrop of hope and despair, the book is a heartrending study of a character whose bungling tells the story of a world much bigger than his own.” —The Onion, AV Club “A whiz-bang read, hilarious and oddly touching… Rubinstein writes in a guns-ablazing style that perfectly fits the Whiskey Robber’s tale.” —Salon.com “Julian Rubinstein has found what every writer craves: a larger-than-life character whose adventures veer from rollicking to comical to heartbreaking… Ambrus’s arc and all of its attendant absurdity tends to parallel that of Eastern Europe itself: the desperation, the sense of opportunity after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Wild West euphoria, the deep-seated corruption, and finally, the brutal hangover after the long bender. Studs Terkel eat your heart out.” —Boldtype “The antagonistic protagonist of Julian Rubinstein’s picaresque romp is a real person who defies belief… Rubinstein rides the momentum in appropriately riotous fashion, but he wisely never lets his vivid style overshadow a tale that burns up the pages on its own momentum. Nor does he succumb to sentimentality when exploring the tale’s pathos—and believe it or not, there’s as much of that as there is burlesque. A memorable tragicomedy.” —Boston Globe “Rubinstein’s chronicle is performance art, a madcap joyride alongside one of the most endearing figures in the annals of bad behavior.” —Men’s Journal “Truth is still stranger than fiction… This is a Hollywood film waiti