COMING SOON: "A Mangled Marathon" by Tom Ramstack

“To victims of terrorism whose innocence was ripped out of them with the unseeing heartlessness of bomb shrapnel.”

         A Mangled Marathon takes reports of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings a step beyond the terrorist blasts that killed three persons and injured more than 260.

It reports on the legal defense of the prime suspect, how victims are coping and the broader social implications of the bombings.

In a note to the reader, the author writes, “Although this book focuses on the April 15, 2013 bombings at the Boston Marathon, its victims and the prosecution of the prime suspect, it is equally about “lone wolf” terrorists. Lone wolves refer to terrorists who plot their attacks alone, usually with no organization to support them and no official links to violent groups. There is almost no way to know their next target until they strike. U.S. intelligence agencies call them perhaps the biggest terrorist threat to the United States and its allies.”

“But before the race was over, few people cared who won or lost. Boston’s Patriots Day, a day of festivities to celebrate the American Revolution, was about to become the latest nightmare in America’s ongoing war on terrorism…”

“The pungent smell of gunpowder hung in the air while shrapnel, ball bearings and nails littered the streets near the blast sites. Spectators left behind backpacks, cell phones and handmade signs with runners’ names. Doctors at Brigham and Women’s Hospital later treated one patient whose body had been pierced by 12 carpenter’s nails.”

A Mangled Marathon was written by veteran journalist and Washington, D.C., lawyer Tom Ramstack. He has reported on court cases for much of his three decades career as a journalist as well as defended a few criminal defendants. He comes into the situation as a witness to a similar event. On July 27, 1996, he stood outside Atlanta’s Centennial Park as a different terrorist bomb ripped into a crowd of people watching a concert during the Summer Olympics.