Books

Item Description

Palast's first new book since the bestsellers The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Armed Madhouse.

VULTURES' PICNIC

In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High-Finance Carnivores

A tale of Big Oil, Sex, Shoes, Radiation and Investigative Reporting

Greg Palast is known to Democracy Now listeners as the reporter who busted open the story of the purge of Black voters in Florida in 2000.

Katherine Harris calls BBC reporter Greg Palast "twisted and maniacal," but Noam Chomsky says Greg Palast "Upsets all the right people. In Britain, the Guardian calls him, "The most important investigative reporter of our time."

Palast is donating a stack of hardbound copies of his new book, Vultures' Picnic for our on-line auction.

In Vultures' Picnic, Greg Palast's crew of journalist-detectives chase down British Petroleum bag men, CIA operatives, nuclear power con men—and “The Vultures,” billionaire financial speculators who, through bribery, flim-flam and political muscle, take entire nations hostage for mega-profits.

The action begins when the Deepwater Horizon explodes in the Gulf of Mexico and a confidential cable arrives on Miss Badpenny’s desk from a terrified insider. He has the real, hushed-up facts of the disaster––which can only be found hidden in the files of a Central Asian dictatorship.

Palast sets off for Baku to investigate the whereabouts of millions of dollars in a brown valise, a bribe by BP? Or MI-6? Or both? (Answer: all three, if you include the CIA). Then he jumps the globe to an Eskimo village after receiving an extraordinary note from the Chief of Intelligence of the Free Republic of the Arctic.

Along the way, Palast gets drunk, gets sober, gets laid, gets arrested. It’s a tale of oil company hit men, nuclear con-men and financial jackals.

It’s pulp non-fiction. Columbo with marital issues and a dying father.

“Reads like a spy thriller. [Palast is] the last of the great investigative reporters.” Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“Doggedly independent, undaunted by power. Palast’s stories bite, they're so relevant they threaten to alter history” -Chicago Tribune

“A cross between Sam Spade and Sherlock Holmes” (Jim Hightower, The Nation).

Item Special Note

If the winning bidder is a New Mexico resident, this item can be picked up at drop points in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, or Socorro after the auction closes. There will be no shipping charge for those who can pick up their winnings.

After the auction close, winning bidders who cannot pick up their item(s) at one of the New Mexico drop points will be contacted for preferred shipping method, and the actual additional shipping cost, including packaging, insurance, and postage, will be charged in addition to the winning bid amount.