The seamy side of life in Minnesota is revealed in an account of ten murders that profoundly affected the state, including the O'Kasick brothers' killing spree during the 1950s, the Congdon mansion murders, and a series of random killings that terrorized northeast Minnesota in 1998.

Greed, Rage, and Love Gone Wrong: Murder In Minnesota

History

Rubenstein, Bruce

Americas

Univ. of Minnesota Press

Writing about murder mysteries for over twenty-five years, Bruce Rubenstein gives us a collection of Minnesota crimes in Greed, Rage, and Love Gone Wrong. Whether the killer is greedy and devoid of human compassion, desperate about money or love, or simply filled with bottled-up rage, this book puts the reader at the scene of the most notorious murders in the state.Bruce Rubenstein is a writer who specializes in true crime and legal stories. His work has appeared in many publications, including City Pages, Mpls/St. Paul Magazine, and Chicago Magazine. He is the recipient of the Chicago Bar Association’s Herman Kogan Media Award.

Greed, Rage, and Love Gone Wrong: Murder in Minnesota

The Rockwell Heist: The extraordinary theft of seven Norman Rockwell paintings and a phony Renoir―and the 20-year chase for their recovery from the Midwest through Europe and South America

In 1978 seven Norman Rockwell paintings and a supposed Renoir, later discovered to be a forgery, were stolen from Elayne Galleries in St. Louis Park. It is still the biggest theft in Minnesota history, and no one was ever convicted for the crime. This is the story of the theft, the investigation, and the twenty-year quest to return the art to its rightful owners. The FBI suspected an inside job. Was it the scrappy working mother who owned the gallery? The owner of one of the paintings, who had a checkered past? Was a band of well-known and very talented Minneapolis burglars involved? And what about organized crime, which had the channels and expertise to fence the works or to hold them hostage? Tantalizing threads tied the case to the theft of another stolen forgery in New York City. But a sting operation fell short, and the trail for recovering the works ran cold. The bureau's search for the paintings stopped, and it closed the case in 1987. Gallery owner Elayne Lindberg and her daughter Bonnie, motivated in part by their desire to clear Elayne's name, continued the hunt. Their story moves to shady connections and the international trade in stolen art, through Portugal, Argentina, Las Vegas, and Brazil, before its final dramatic resolution.

Borealis Books

★★★★★ "I loved this book! Why? Because Bruce Rubenstein got it. He got it! He got the voice and he held it, faultlessly. He got the vocabulary of the time, the place, the story, the characters." ★★★★★        HannaJeane (Amazon review)★★★★★ "I have to say I could not get Mike Hammer out of my mind during this book. PI Martin McDonough is written with some similarities to Mike. This is a fast read and I liked it very much." ★★★★★       Dorothy "DottieH", Jersey City (Amazon review)★★★★★ "If you like Humphrey Bogart, murder mysteries, snappy dialogue and great characters, you will love this book." ★★★★★       BEC (Amazon review) It's 1934, the depth of the Great Depression, but business is good for Martin McDonough, a private eye who is in the right place at the right time. There are plenty of unsolved murders in St. Paul, a city with such a corrupt police force that it has become a haven for trigger-happy gangsters. McDonough is used to solving crimes the easy way, by persuading his copper pals to give him the low down. But when a newspaperman becomes the victim of a gang hit, and his pretty widow wants to know why, things get complicated. McDonough might end up dead, or worse yet, married. ★★★★★ "Smoke is set in 1934, the year Samuel Dashiell Hammett wrote his final novel, "The Thin Man." Why make this connection? Well...Hammett is hard-boiled detective fiction, and gumshoe Martin McDonough IS St. Paul's version of Sam Spade. Even without the cameos by John Dillinger, Bugsy Siegel, and Baby Face Nelson, there is such attention to detail and such authenticity -- albeit politically and socially incorrect -- to Rubenstein's tale that I couldn't put it down and pushed straight through to the nd." ★★★★★       Charles Locks       Award-winning author of Low Jinks on the High Seas

Smoke

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Calumet Editions

In 1978 seven Norman Rockwell paintings and a supposed Renoir, later discovered to be a forgery, were stolen from Elayne Galleries in St. Louis Park. It is still the biggest theft in Minnesota history, and no one was ever convicted for the crime. This is the story of the theft, the investigation, and the twenty-year quest to return the art to its rightful owners. The FBI suspected an inside job. Was it the scrappy working mother who owned the gallery? The owner of one of the paintings, who had a checkered past? Was a band of well-known and very talented Minneapolis burglars involved? And what about organized crime, which had the channels and expertise to fence the works or to hold them hostage? Tantalizing threads tied the case to the theft of another stolen forgery in New York City. But a sting operation fell short, and the trail for recovering the works ran cold. The bureau's search for the paintings stopped, and it closed the case in 1987. Gallery owner Elayne Lindberg and her daughter Bonnie, motivated in part by their desire to clear Elayne's name, continued the hunt. Their story moves to shady connections and the international trade in stolen art, through Portugal, Argentina, Las Vegas, and Brazil, before its final dramatic resolution.

Minnesota Historical Society Press

The Family That Couldn't Sleep At Night

Biographies & Memoirs

True Crime

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Rubenstein, Bruce. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Rubenstein, Bruce

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Rubenstein, Bruce. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Greed, Rage, and Love Gone Wrong: Murder In Minnesota

Greed, Rage, and Love Gone Wrong: Murder in Minnesota

The Rockwell Heist: The extraordinary theft of seven Norman Rockwell paintings and a phony Renoir―and the 20-year chase for their recovery from the Midwest through Europe and South America

Smoke

The Rockwell Heist: The extraordinary theft of seven Norman Rockwell paintings and a phony Renoir―and the 20-year chase for their recovery from the Midwest through Europe and South America

The Family That Couldn't Sleep At Night