Category Archives: Crime

Passing Through Cologne

Published Dec 25, 2011 Back in December 1982 a Paris-bound train approached the Rhine Bridge into Koln. A dark dawn sky shod the winter morning sky. Building lights rimmed the overflowing river. I sat on the left side of the DeutscheBahn passenger car. The six-seat compartment was all mine. Few people took the midnight milk […]

GOOD AS IT GETS FOR GERMANS by Peter Nolan Smith

Back in 2007 I had a friend in Pattaya. Fabo had heart of gold and the young Belgian oil explorer was happiest with a Heineken in his hand and his eye on Gai, the Rubenesque beauty of the Buffalo Bar. He had loved her forever. She loved him too in her own way, whenever she […]

An Old Man’s Crime

Last summer My friend drove to Great Barrington. I told Michael to pull over into a derelict county fair grounds. Rusty no trespassing signs On sagging chain link fences. I shushed his fears of an arrest. “You are not involved.” His dog wanted to join me. I shook my head. “Sorry, girl.” A leap Over […]

Duch Choi Cha’ kai Anh

Written on Jun 11, 2017 In 1975 the Khmer Rouge converted the Tuol Svay Prey High School on the outskirts of Phnom Penh into the murderous Tuol Sleng or S-21 prison. An estimated 17,000 prisoners were subjected to the following code of behavior enforced by Comrade Duch and his killers. 1. You must answer accordingly […]

Bomb Them To The Stone Age

Written Mar 22, 2012 On March 18, 1969 President Richard Nixon ordered American B-52s to bomb Cambodia, thus kicking off a deadly air campaign supposedly directed against North Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge targets. 540,000 tons of high-ordinance bombs resulted in the deaths of anywhere from 150,000 to 500,000 civilians and countless wounded in the agrarian […]