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The Fast Life and Violent Death of the Balkans' Most Dangerous Man
Thomas Dunne Books
February 2008
On Sale: January 28, 2008
336 pages
ISBN: 0312356064
EAN: 9780312356064
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
A gripping investigation into the extraordinary career of
Serbia's legendary warlord.Zeljko 'Arkan' Raznatovic began
his life as a petty criminal, a juvenile delinquent adrift
in the floundering state of Yugoslavia. He would eventually
become famous throughout Western Europe: as the 'smiling
bank robber'; as a Houdini-like fugitive from multiple
prisons; and even as a state-sponsored assassin. Stories of
motorboat robberies and daylight bank heists would follow
him from country to country. Yet however impressive his
criminal reputation seemed at first, it was only the
beginning of his path to infamy.Following Yugoslavia's
chaotic descent into madness in the 1990s, Arkan would
become not only a gangster but one of Serbian President
Slobodan Milosevic's most valued henchmen in the country's
civil war. He rallied Belgrade's notoriously violent soccer
hooligans, paired them with inmates from Serbia's prisons,
among other brutal street thugs, and trained them to become
his ruthless foot soldiers, known as the 'Tigers.' During
the war, the men rampaged through Croatia and
Bosnia---killing, raping, burning, and looting. As they
earned a reputation as Serbia's most feared death squad
(accused of genocide by The Hague tribunal), Arkan became
one of the region's wealthiest men. A national hero, he
married the country's greatest pop star---the so-called
'Madonna of the Balkans'---in a ceremony that was compared
to that of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. His fame and
good fortune, however, could not last. In 1999, as NATO
bombs fell on Belgrade, The Hague's International War Crimes
Tribunal indicted Arkan for crimes against humanity, the
United States called for his arrest, the world media chased
him, and mobster rivals wanted him dead. His days were
numbered, and just after the Serbian New Year, he was
shockingly assassinated in the crowded lobby of a
high-profile Belgrade hotel.In Hunting the Tiger, journalist
Christopher S. Stewart tells the spectacular, bloody, and
often nebulous story of a man who was equal parts James
Bond, James Dean, Billy the Kid, and Al Capone. In a region
still in the throes of sectarian conflict and wracked by the
aftermath of decades of violence, Stewart gives us an
engaging first-person look at one man who became a symbol of
an intensely combustible and illicit age, and who played
both villain and hero at a profound historical moment.
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