Satellite Boy
Satellite Boy
The International Manhunt for a Master Thief That Launched the Modern Communication Age

“As with Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City, Amelinckx develops his two narratives suspensefully and in excellent historical detail before braiding them together with the skill of a master weaver. No account of the technocratic 1960s is complete without this thrilling tale.” —Booklist

Spanning the hemisphere from the underworld haunts of Montreal to Havana and Miami in the early days of the Cold War, Satellite Boy reveals the unlikely connection between an audacious bank heist and the other Space Race that gave birth to the modern communication age.

On April 6, 1965, Georges Lemay was relaxing on his yacht in a south Florida marina following one of the largest and most daring bank heists in Canadian history. For four years, the roguishly handsome criminal mastermind hid in plain sight, eluding capture and the combined efforts of the FBI, Interpol, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. His future appeared secure.

What Lemay didn’t know was that less than two hundred miles away at Cape Canaveral, a brilliant engineer named Harold Rosen was about to usher in the age of global live television with the launch of the world’s first twenty-four-hour commercial communications satellite, Intelsat I, nicknamed Early Bird. Rosen’s extraordinary accomplishment would not only derail Lemay’s cushy life but change the world forever.

Brimming with criminal panache and technological intrigue, and set against a turbulent and iconic period that includes the moon landing and the Civil Rights movement, Satellite Boy tells the largely forgotten, high-stakes story of the two equally driven men who inadvertently launched the modern era.

Order a signed copy of Satellite Boy from Oblong Books.

Order Satellite Boy via Penguin Random House.

Exquisite Wickedness

Exquisite Wickedness

“The Tell-Tale Heart,” one of Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous short stories, has inspired artists, filmmakers, and writers since its first publication in 1843. But it was two murders a decade apart that helped inspire Poe to write his macabre masterwork of psychological fiction.

In Salem, Massachusetts, in April 1830, the ruthless murder of an old and wealthy sea captain rattled the city’s rich, sullied Salem’s reputation, and helped launch America’s obsession with true crime.

A decade later, in December 1840, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, a wealthy banker mysteriously disappeared. The discovery of his mangled corpse and the demeanor of his alleged killer made for great headlines in New York’s new Penny Press and planted the seeds for Poe’s masterpiece.

Poe’s life during the period of these murders went from idealistic poet to soldier to struggling writer, set adrift by family rifts and his stubborn nature.

Exquisite Wickedness examines these two crimes, Poe’s life during this period, the circumstances of the writing of his famous story, and an unbelievable betrayal whose effects have lasted far beyond the grave.

Published by America Through Time (March 29, 2021).

Available through Amazon, Arcadia Publishing, Barnes & Noble, Target

Hudson Valley Murder & Mayhem

Hudson Valley Murder & Mayhem

“Billy, I’ve killed your mother.” – Albert Devine, to his son—1925. The Hudson Valley is drenched in history, culture and blood. In the fall of 1893, Lizzie Halliday left a trail of bodies in her wake, slaughtering two strangers and her husband before stabbing a nurse to death at the asylum housing her. A Jazz Age politician, tired of fighting with his overbearing wife, murdered her and buried the body under the front porch. In 1882, a cantankerous old miner, dubbed the “Austerlitz Cannibal” by the press, chopped up his partner before he himself swung from the end of a rope. Author Andrew Amelinckx dredges up the Hudson Valley’s dark past, from Prohibition-era shootouts to unsolved murders, in eleven heart-pounding true stories.

Published by  The History Press June 26, 2017

Available through: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Little City Books, Powells

Gilded Age Murder & Mayhem in the Berkshires

Gilded Age Murder & Mayhem in the Berkshires

Murder and dark deeds shadowed the extravagance of the Gilded Age in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. In the summer of 1893, a tall and well-dressed burglar plundered the massive summer mansions of the upper crust. A visit from President Teddy Roosevelt in 1902 ended in tragedy when a trolley car smashed into the presidential carriage, killing a Secret Service agent. Shocking the nation, a psychotic millworker opened fire on a packed streetcar, leaving three dead and five wounded. From axe murders to botched bank jobs, author Andrew Amelinckx dredges up the forgotten underbelly of the Berkshires with unforgettable stories of greed, jealousy and madness from the Gilded Age.

Published by The History Press (October 12, 2015)

Available through: Amazon, Arcadia Publishing, Barnes and Noble, Little City Books, Powells

© 2024 Andrew Amelinkcx