The Dynamite Fiend

[AnnLarabee]

Hi all,

I'm so glad to find a Civil War books dicussion on line! People who love books, especially in this period, might like my new book, The Dynamite Fiend: The Chilling Tale of a Confederate Spy, Con Artist, and Mass Murderer. It's a really fascinating story about the consequences of war and the shaping of a terrorist.

Thanks for listening,

Ann Larabee

FROM THE PUBLISHER: Palgrave Macmillan

"Alexander "Sandy" Keith was one of the most devious criminals of the nineteenth century, orchestrating the most infamous terrorist plots of the Civil War. But Ann Larabee shows us that Sandy's criminal career didn't stop at domestic terrorism." In peacetime, dogged by creditors and victims of his frauds, Sandy kept on the move, leaving an increasing number of scams, schemes, and cheated women in his wake. As his situation became more desperate, his obsession with explosives and violence intensified. Finally, in 1875, while posing as a prosperous American businessman living in Germany, Sandy's obsessive machinations proved deadly and earned him the nickname of the "Dynamite Fiend." The horrifying plot ultimately unfolded on a dock when a bomb - designed by Sandy - exploded, killing eighty people and injuring fifty more. The Dynamite Fiend is a tale of hidden identity, technological obsession, and an unparalleled lust for profit and power in nineteenth-century history.