The Birthday Party--Stanley N. Alpert

In The Birthday Party former federal prosecutor Stanley N. Alpert recounts his random kidnapping in 1998, in which he was held for 24 hours and then released; his abductors wanted only to withdraw money from his bank account. They targeted him because of his expensive-looking trench coat. He was treated well, as far as these things go, and released unharmed, but the experience was still harrowing. That much of the story is interesting. I'll give him that. But this is not a good book. It is poorly written, very poorly, and Alpert comes off as a whiny, chauvanistic, elitist snob, frequently mentioning the cost of personal items he owns and the large amount of money he made as a law-firm lawyer, neither of which were relevant to his abduction. Further, he spent a great deal of time talking about how important he was as a federal prosecutor. If I didn't work with federal judges and prosecutors on a regular basis, I might have bought that, but I do, and most of them are not as egomanical as Alpert comes off in the book. If Alpert would have stuck to the details of the crime and later the investigation without the personal details that appear only to self-aggrandize, it would have been a better book. Avoid this one.