The fringes of knowledge Amok publishers specializes in collecting the finest of esoterica. Back before the Internet had everything, people with deviant tastes would have to rely on mail order catalogs such as Amok. It has published a compendium of bizarre books known as Dispatches since the 80s. [more inside]
posted by bodywithoutorgans on Oct 9, 2008 - 26 comments

Krystian Bala has been convicted of murder in Wroclaw. Bala, the author of the grisly 2000 crime novel Amok, claimed to have taken his book's plot from news reports about the killing of a local businessman. Police were skeptical after learning that the novel contained details known only to the investigators and the killer himself. Bala was arrested in 2005, interrogated, and eventually released for lack of convincing evidence; he finally went on trial this past summer. His lawyer claims the case against him was circumstantial, but e-mail sent from Indonesia and South Korea gave Bala away.
posted by GrammarMoses on Sep 6, 2007 - 25 comments