{"product_id":"a-terrible-thunder-the-story-of-the-new-orleans-sniper-9781891053481","title":"A Terrible Thunder: The Story of the New Orleans Sniper","description":"\u003cp\u003e • Author(s): Peter Hernon\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher: Garrett County Press\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher Imprint: Garrett County Press\u003cbr\u003e • BISAC: Murder - General\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eWhen Terror Came to New Orleans: A City Under Siege\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eOn New Year's Eve 1972, Mark James Robert Essex, a 23-year-old former Navy seaman, began a calculated assault on the New Orleans police that would leave nine dead, ten wounded, and a city forever changed. What drove this quiet young man from small-town Kansas to wage a one-man war against an entire police force? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ePeter Hernon, who covered the siege as an Associated Press reporter, spent over a year investigating this shocking story. Through extensive interviews and previously unpublished material, he reconstructs both the terrifying 11-hour hotel siege and the tragic transformation of Mark Essex--from a \"happy-go-lucky\" youth in Emporia, Kansas, to an embittered gunman consumed by rage. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe book alternates between the chaos of that January week--when hundreds of police officers, Marine helicopters, and volunteer gunmen battled a lone sniper while the Howard Johnson hotel burned around him--and Essex's journey through systematic racism in the U.S. Navy that left him, in Hernon's words, \"a casualty of history.\" \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis is more than a true crime narrative. It's a powerful examination of how persistent injustice can transform an ordinary person into an instrument of violence, and a sobering meditation on alienation in America. As \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times \u003c\/i\u003enoted, Hernon's account \"reads as fluently as a novel\" while raising profound questions about society's responsibility for those it pushes to the breaking point. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA meticulously researched, compellingly written account of one of the most violent attacks on police in American history--and the broken system that created a killer.","brand":"Atlantic Books","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":46319238217879,"sku":"9781891053481","price":1947.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0666\/3471\/1191\/files\/9781891053481.webp?v=1767713096","url":"https:\/\/atlanticbooks.com\/products\/a-terrible-thunder-the-story-of-the-new-orleans-sniper-9781891053481","provider":"Atlantic Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}