Great Lakes Crime

From Books Back Cover: Great Lakes Crime: murder, mayhem, booze & broads. -- It may not have been the "Spanish Main" but pirates did sail the Great Lakes as did all manner of thieves and murderers. The great Sweetwater Seas had their fair share of criminal activity. Captains sunk their ships to collect the insurance and honest light keepers were "done in" for their meager savings! Throughout prohibition the great Lakes were the back door into America's heartland. Hundreds of boats hauled millions of gallons of illegal booze over the Lakes to wet the dry throats of honest citizens. Although bribes were often paid to assure a safe passage, sometimes bullets flew wild as bootleggers and government agents fought it out on the Inland Seas. On shore, a different kind of vice was practiced where the old saying the "a sailor has a girl in every port" often meant the "girl" insisted on a cash payment. Relive stories of murder, rum running, prostitution and more in this latest book from respected Great Lakes historian Frederick Stonehouse.

"This book is a collection of true stories of some of the most horrific crimes to occur in the Great Lakes Region. The text includes graphic descriptions of murder, rape, mutiliation and sexual depravity"--P. [4] of cover.

The author of Michigan's Haunted Lighthouses shares tales of disaster and misfortune on the Great Lakes. Losing one's life while tending to a Great Lakes lighthouse sadly wasn't such an unusual occurrence. Death by murder, suicide or other tragic causes--while rare--were not unheard of. Two keepers on Lake Superior's Grand Island disappeared one early summer day in 1908, their decomposed remains found weeks later. A newly hired and some say depressed keeper on Pilot Island in Wisconsin's Door County slit his own throat after a consultation with a local butcher about the location of the jugular vein. A smallpox outbreak in the late 1890s led to the tragic death of a lighthouse hired hand on South Bass Island in Lake Erie. Join author Dianna Stampfler as she uncovers the facts (and debunks some fiction) behind some of the Great Lakes' darkest lighthouse tales.

This odyssey is about my life experiences as a Chief Engineer on board Canadian Lakers , as they were called. It is also an expose into the inside workings of a Shipping company, namely Canada Steamship Lines inc. where I gave my blood, sweat and tears to make a living as a new immigrant in a so called first world country. This book is written to expose the inside workings of a Shipping company during the years that I toiled to make a living as a man seeking to make a livelihood in supposedly a great country. It is not the country that is to blame but people like Mr. Martin who are so twisted that they lose sight of the common man and use them and abuse them for their personal gain. The book gives a true account as to how one large corporation hounded one individual who spoke the truth and who sought justice and who wanted to make a change and to make the scenery better for future generations of Sea going personnel. The book also gives you page-by-page description of how a corporation self-destructs. Surely there must be a lesson in all this. Experiences included in the book are mind-boggling. They include Shipping accidents, shipboard assaults, battery, Companys BLACKLIST, which includes a list of so called undesirables, pollution, environmental and ecological damage. Mergers and acquisitions, dismissals and corporate lynching, witch hunt, Human Rights issues, illegal constitutional changes, changing pension laws and the Canada Shipping act illegally to suit the ship owner, Corporate Corruption and greed. There is one chapter solely on Shipboard assaults and a list of undesirables that sailed the Lakers. It gives me great satisfaction to know that I could share my experiences with a wide variety of Human Beings and I am sure people who read my book would be flabbergasted when they get to know as to what goes on behind the scenes of a Maritime Industry of a G-8 Country. How soon one forgets that we sailors help to build the wealth of a nation by carrying goods that helps to grow the nations economy and that we sailors have also helped fight the enemy during the first and second world wars and also make a major contribution in feeding an entire nation. It is also a book about vengeance and Revenge-an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.. Just like Edmond Dantes In the Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas. To pray sometimes for a man, who like Satan thought himself for an instant equal to God, but who now acknowledges with Christian humility that God alone possesses supreme power and infinite wisdom. There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of living. "Live then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget that until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words, - `Wait and hope. Your friend, "Edmond Dantes, Count of Monte Cristo." Above all it is one mans search for truth and justice, and a triumph of adversity--a true Sailors Odyssey.

This book is a comparative study of organized crime groups from five different parts of the world: Europe; North America; Central America/South America/Caribbean basin; Africa; and Asia/Western Pacific. Each part contains two case studies and a shorter essay, a vignette. From Europe the case studies focus on the Italian mafias and the Russian mafia; the vignette, on the Albanian mafia. From North America the case studies highlight the US Mafia and the Mexican drug cartels; the vignette, organized crime in Canada. From Central America/South America/Caribbean basin the case studies concentrate on the Colombian drug cartels and gangs of the Caribbean; the vignette, on organized crime in Cuba. From Africa the case studies examine resource wars and Somali piracy; the vignette, relations among international drugs trafficking, organized crime, and terrorism in North and West Africa. And from Asia/Western Pacific the case studies spotlight the Chinese Triads and Japanese Yakuza; the vignette, relations among international drugs trafficking, organized crime, and terrorism in Afghanistan. Written in non-specialist language, An Economic History of Organized Crime provides an original overview of a crucial problem of our times: the growing scourge of global organized crime. This book can be read with profit by the general public, but it also has value for academic specialists and professionals in law enforcement.