Gone In 9 Minutes: How A Celtic Gold

Heist Unfolded Last Week In Germany

Thieves who broke into a southern German museum last Tuesday and stole hundreds of ancient gold coins got in and out in nine minutes. Guido Limmer, the deputy head of Bavaria’s State Criminal Police Office, said thieves entered the Celtic and Roman Museum in Manching, Bavaria, in the middle of the night after cables were cut at a telecommunications hub less than a mile away, knocking out telephone and internet networks in the region. They then sabotaged the alarm system, preventing a signal from being triggered when a door was opened. The museum’s internal server recorded that a door was pried open at 1:26 am, and then was closed at 1:35 am, indicating that the heist took only nine minutes. Employees discovered shattered glass on the museum floor and the coins missing from their display case the next morning; a second display case also was broken into, and three larger coins were removed from it. Limmer said there were “parallels” between the heist in Manching and the theft of priceless jewels in Dresden and a large gold coin in Berlin in recent years. All are being blamed on a Berlin-based crime family. Police have launched an international hunt for the thieves and the 483 Celtic coins, as well as a lump of unworked gold that were discovered during an archeological dig near the present-day town of Manching in 1999. The value of the haul was placed at close to $2 million. Rupert Gebhard, Head of Collections at the State Archaeological Collection, mourned the loss saying “it feels like losing an old friend.”

How 19-Year-Old Taylor Swift

Came To Play A Dead Body On CSI

By March of 2009, 19-year-old Taylor Swift was already on the rise of what would become a meteoric career. She’d already been on the cover of Rolling Stone, clutching a guitar and defiantly gazing at the camera through a puff of blonde hair. She had been the musical guest on NBC’s Saturday Night Live, singing two songs from her newly released album Fearless, and had celebrated the release of that same album in a special on Ellen. And millions of fans had purchased tickets to her upcoming 52-city North American tour, which was to kick off in April. Imagine the surprise of “Swifties” who were flipping through the remote control on the evening of Thursday, March 5, when they paused on CBS to watch the new episode of CSI…and saw Taylor Swift playing a dead body. As noted by Olivia Rutigliano in Vulture last week, “In the second scene of the 16th episode of season nine—'Turn, Turn, Turn’—there she is, sprawled on the ground in a rain-soaked motel parking lot. She looks 2000s emo, in a black wig with a white stripe in it, a sparkly stud in her nose. Swift’s guest spot was not random; in fact, it had a promotional tie-in, since her new song “You’re Not Sorry” plays in a moody remix when her character looks dejectedly at a Polaroid during a flashback later in the episode. She also was a huge fan of CSI, and told MTV, “All my friends know that my dream is to die on CSI. I’ve always wanted to be one of the characters on there that they’re trying to figure out what happened to.”

Reconnaissance, Spies, And Counter-

Surveillance: Top Cold War Thrillers

The Cold War—the geopolitical rivalry that developed after World War II between the United States and the Soviet Union—led to more than four decades of high-stakes reconnaissance, espionage, and counter-surveillance incidents. Ideologically, the two countries—and their respective allies—were at direct odds, as their respective war machines rolled out thousands of intercontinental missiles that could deliver instant annihilation anywhere on the planet. The threat was very real, particularly if nuclear secrets were to fall into the wrong hands, or if some psychotic politician accidentally or intentionally hit the button. One positive upshot of this “deep freeze” was the sheer number of action-adventure films that revolved around the game of chicken between the U.S. and U.S.S.R., and this week BunzelGram offers two lists of some of the most notable spy books and films from that era. The first reviews some of the best reconnaissance, espionage, and counter-surveillance novels of that era, courtesy of Novel Suspects; the second offers 15 of the best cold war movies ever made, compiled by Slash Film. From spies who came in from the cold, or hunted for Red October (pictured left), or learned to stop worrying and love the bomb, the period that ranged from summer of 1945 to the fall of the Berlin Wall inspired some of the best suspense stories of all time.

Four Times Casey Anthony's Story

Didn’t Match Up With The Facts

Anyone In the U.S. with a pulse remembers the case: On June 16, 2008, Casey Anthony left the Orlando home of her parents with her daughter Casey, who was never seen alive again. Much of the firestorm surrounding the toddler’s disappearance and death was inflamed by the reported falsehoods and fabrications of Casey herself, who eventually stood trial for the girl’s murder. Even though jurors found her not guilty, police and prosecutors repeatedly seemed to catch Casey Anthony engaged in some sort of deception or outright lie—before, during, and after the verdict was read. Even if Casey didn’t kill Caylee, her path to freedom was reportedly not one built on honesty; to that end, Investigation And Discovery has produced a TV documentary identifying four crucial incidents wherein Casey Anthony’s claims did not match up with reality.

• Casey claimed she spoke to Caylee, after the little girl had died;

• Casey blamed it on her babysitter…who wasn't her babysitter;

• Casey said she worked at Universal Studios when she was unemployed; and

• Casey lied about not lying.

To learn more, read the full article here, or stream Casey Anthony: An American Murder Mystery on discovery+.

If Looks Gouda Kill: Eight Cozy

Mysteries Involving Cheese

Nothing quite fills out a holiday spread like a cheeseboard. Brie, camembert, and chunks of Gruyere with jams and nuts as sides bring smiles to people’s faces. Naturally, a lot of mystery writers—notably cozy writers—have found joy in writing their mysteries around cheese, whether set at a cheese shop, restaurant, or farm. Of course, two of the requisite characteristics of cozies are a cheesy title and a focus on food (even recipes), and Murder-Mayhem’s Elisa Shoenberger came up with this list of eight murder mysteries revolving around the wonderful world of fromage, wherein the killer could be a cold-blooded muenster, and the solution is not necessarily a feta accompli. (See what I did there?) For the record, my favorite titles are Cheddar Off Dead, by Korina Moss; Up to No Gouda, by Linda Reilly, and The Long Quiche Goodbye, by Avery Aames.

Coming January 10, 2023:

Greenwich Mean Time

“A globe-spanning, mind-spinning thriller that will delight fans of Jason Bourne. Rōnin Phythian, an assassin with extraordinary powers and a code of his own, deserves a sequel. Make that sequels.” —Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling author of House on Fire

“Greenwich Mean Time is a rollicking good time of thrills and skills.” —New York Times bestselling author Steve Berry

When photojournalist Monica Cross literally stumbles into the site of an old airplane crash at the edge of a Himalayan glacier, she is exposed to a dark and deadly secret that was meant to remain hidden forever. Unaware that her life is in grave danger, she attempts to get home to New York while the Greenwich Global Group—a dark-web, murder-for-hire outfit—pulls out all stops to make sure she never gets there. Spanning ten time zones, nine countries, and four continents, Greenwich Mean Time is a tightly spun thriller that plays out against a sinister plot designed to change the course of history for all time.