Deaths by Defenestration: Defenestrations of Prague, Bohumil Hrabal, Andrew Balfour, Jezebel, Abe Reles, Jan Masaryk, Ana Mendieta

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Defenestrations of Prague, Bohumil Hrabal, Andrew Balfour, Jezebel, Abe Reles, Jan Masaryk, Ana Mendieta, Stella Kübler, Miguel de Vasconcelos, Eutychus. Excerpt: Abraham Reles Abe "Kid Twist" Reles (1906 12 November 1941) was a New York mobster who was widely considered the most feared hit man for Murder, Inc. , the enforcement contractor for the National Crime Syndicate . Reles later turned government witness and sent several members of Murder, Inc. to the electric chair . Early years Abraham Reles, the son of Austrian Jewish immigrants, was born in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn , New York, around 1906. His father worked in one of the garment trades until some time during the Great Depression . His father's last known occupation was peddling knishes on the streets of Brownsville. Reles attended school through the 8th grade. After leaving school, Reles began hanging out at pool rooms and candy stores in and around Brownsville. He soon teamed up with two of his childhood friends who would eventually rise to power with him in the Murder Inc., Martin Goldstein and Harry Strauss . His first arrest came in 1921 for stealing $2 worth of gum from a vending machine, and he was sent to the children's village at Dobbs Ferry, New York , for four months. Physically, Reles was short, but he had long arms and hands with short, stubby fingers. His small physical size did not deter him from committing ruthless acts of violence. When carrying out murders, his weapon of choice was an ice pick, which he would ram through his victim's ear right into the brain. Reles became so adept at using the ice pick that many of his murder victims were thought to have died of cerebral hemorrhages . Reles became known as a particularly cold-blooded and psychopathic murderer. On one occasion, in broad day...