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Published Aug 2020
304 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
The definitive account of the bizarre hostage drama that gave rise to the term "Stockholm syndrome."
On the morning of August 23, 1973, a man wearing a wig, makeup, and a pair of sunglasses walked into the main branch of Sveriges Kreditbank, a prominent bank in central Stockholm. He ripped out a submachine gun, fired it into the ceiling, and shouted, "The party starts!" This was the beginning of a six-day hostage crisis―and media circus―that would mesmerize the world, drawing into its grip everyone from Sweden's most notorious outlaw to the prime minister himself.
As policemen and reporters encircled the bank, the crime-in-progress turned into a high-stakes thriller broadcast on live television. Inside the building, meanwhile, complicated emotional relationships developed between captors and captives that would launch a remarkable new concept into the realm of psychology, hostage negotiation, and popular culture.
Based on a wealth of previously unpublished sources, including rare film footage and unprecedented access to the main participants, Six Days in August captures the surreal events in their entirety, on an almost minute-by-minute basis. It is a rich human drama that blurs the lines between loyalty and betrayal, obedience and defiance, fear and attraction―and a groundbreaking work of nonfiction that forces us to consider "Stockholm syndrome" in an entirely new light.
8 pages of photographs
"A true-crime page-turner about one of the more notorious bank heists of the past half century." - Kirkus Reviews
"[A]n entertaining, minute-by-minute account of the 1973 Swedish bank robbery and hostage crisis that gave rise to the term 'Stockholm syndrome'...True crime fans will love this engrossing and exhaustive account." - Publishers Weekly
"[R]eaders will feel the tension as they stand outside with police and journalists, as they are drawn into the bank vault along with the hostages, and as they witness the confusing resolution that followed. Engrossing, well researched, and tailor-made for true crime enthusiasts." - Library Journal
"From its opening scene, in which a gun-toting man in a wig, makeup, and sunglasses bursts into a bank in central Stockholm and shouts 'The party starts!,' Six Days in August reads like a movie…[King] is adept at teasing out the humanity of the criminals as well as their victims, helping the reader to understand the unlikely and psychologically complex bonds that develop between victim and oppressor." - Dan Bilefsky, staff writer for the New York Times and author of The Last Job: The "Bad Grandpas" and the Hatton Garden Heist
"A mesmerizing account, not only of the first bank heist to become a global media sensation as it was happening, but of how our understanding of 'Stockholm Syndrome' is all wrong. Six Days in August is impeccably researched, with characters out of central casting and riveting dialogue. Black humor, Scandinavian noir, and it's all true." - Kirk Wallace Johnson, author of The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century
This information about Six Days in August was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Dave Huntsman
A Fulbright scholar with a master's degree from Cambridge University, David King is the author of the acclaimed Finding Atlantis, Vienna 1814, and Death in the City of Light. He lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with his wife and children.
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