A federal prosecutor recounts his harrowing experience of being kidnapped in 1998 on the eve of his thirty-eighth birthday by a gang of thugs who decided to hold him when they realized that he had a large bank balance, in a dramatic account that describes how he interacted with his abductors in order to stay alive and plot his escape. The view from inside the trunk of a car is delivered in this harrowing, first-person account of kidnapping, robbery, and revenge. Alpert, who now heads his own law firm, worked for 13 years as an assistant U. S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. On January 21, 1988, the eve of Alpert's thirty-eighth birthday, he was snatched from a Greenwich Village sidewalk by a carful of thugs, blindfolded and held at gunpoint, and taken to a Brooklyn apartment where his captors tried to figure out how to profit from their big catch. This story is told in two parts, effectively giving a satisfying narrative arc to Alpert's complex ordeal: the first part is "Mouse," recounting Alpert's victimization; the second part is "Cat," in which Alpert pursues his former captors. A street-smart prosecutor, Alpert delivers an unflinching look at the humiliating, terrifying role of the victim, lacing his plight with commentary on contemporary crime and the creaking judicial system. The second part reads as compellingly as the first and with every bit as much suspense. An effective, one-two punch of a memoir. Connie Fletcher Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved The Birthday Party [is] one of the most exhilarating, improbable New York stories ever told. -- New York Times , January 24, 2007 Alpert wins over the reader the same way he did the kidnappers, with the force of his canny, self-assured, bighearted personality. -- New York Times Book Review , April 22, 2007 Favorite Books of 2007 Nonfiction: Alpert was kidnapped in 1998 in Manhattan after his 38th birthday party; his memoir of the experience is "like watching a slow-motion train wreck -- difficult to look at but impossible to turn away from." -- Los Angeles Times Book Review, December 9, 2007 On Jan. 21, 1998, Assistant U.S. Attorney Stanley Alpert is about to celebrate his 38th birthday. Coming home to his Greenwich Village apartment after a disappointing blind date, he becomes the target of a hapless gang of stupidly vicious punks who kidnap him, hoping to use his ATM card to gain access to his bank account. "The Birthday Party: A Memoir of Survival" is not a funny book, although some of what happens in the course of the harrowing next 26 hours is funny. It may be hard to remember that in 1998 cell phones were far from ubiquitous and the horrors of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks hadn't happened. Despite the passage of time, however, I have no doubt that Alpert's recollection of those events and conversations, including the lame jokes, are entirely accurate. Life-changing experiences are often seared into memory, complete with details of sound, smell and taste that defy ordinary recall. And even though he eventually escapes from his captors and sees his assailants brought to justice, it is clear that Alpert continues to grapple with the disturbing effects of that violation. Contrast is everything: We see Alpert's $70 Florsheims as opposed to the thugs' $130 Air Jordans. The punks drive a black Lexus. The lawyer doesn't own a car. Alpert and his captors are products of New York's mean streets. Alpert grew up as a nice Jewish kid in Brooklyn just as the safe, working-class neighborhood was changing to a gang- and drug-infested one. His parents divorced. His family was poor, and he grew up dealing with routine muggings. Ultimately, this impoverished childhood served as the catalyst to a desire to succeed and sent him in search of an education. His attackers see their backgrounds, ironically not all that different from Alpert's, as excuses for turning to lives of crime and drugs and as a justification for their stealing what Alpert has legitimately earned. "Hey, you have an education. You can always earn it back," one said. In the face of his captors' terrifying threats, Alpert forces himself to remain calm. When the thugs threaten to harm his elderly father, the blindfolded hostage engages in a life-and-death game of mental chess to protect his family without inflaming his captors. Throughout the ordeal, he is faced with the very real understanding that his assailants have nothing to lose and that these may be his last few precious hours on this earth. Anyone who has ever watched "Cops" knows that most crooks aren't geniuses. These bad guys here are no exception. Their schemes are violent, overblown and essentially stupid, but what's truly chilling is how young these perpetrators are, how devoid of any moral compass and how ignorant they are of how the world works. Their behavior is ultimately so bizarre (including offering their captive sex with one of their group's female members) and so pu