"In the pages of Adirondack Outlaws: Bad Boys and Lawless Ladies, local author and Adirondack historian Niki Kourofsky exposes the North Country's shadowy past of crime and dark deeds. Her wry, lively storytelling puts readers right in the thick of shootouts, jewel heists, bank robberies, manhunts, and unsolved murders. Spanning eight decades of Adirondack history and ranging from Glens Falls to the Canadian border, Adirondack Outlaws is a rollicking page-turner, rich in chilling details and amply illustrated with historical photographs.

History truly comes alive under the impressive storytelling talents of Niki Kourofsky in Adirondack Outlaws: Bad Boys and Lawless Ladies. As entertaining as it is informative, Adirondack Outlaws is a great read and very highly recommended for personal, community, and academic library Regional American History collections."

-Midwest Book Review

"Adirondack Outlaws by Niki Kourofsky is the kind of book a person can enjoy in pieces.

It's written in a lighthearted manner, and each chapter is a story in itself so it's easy to read a chapter one night and then pick the book up again a few days later and read another. But it's so endearing that sporadic reading isn't necessarily what a person will want to do.

Each chapter is a mini-biography of an outlaw, researched through the periodicals of the time. The author uses contemporary newspaper and magazine articles to piece together stories about what crime was committed, what the motive might have been and what punishment was meted out.

The stories are engaging and entertaining, so once one outlaw's tale comes to an end (in the gallows in the case of Henry Debosnys) or doesn't (for Orrando P. Dexter's killer) it's tempting to turn the next page. Often the reader will become sympathetic to an outlaw-of course, Mother Johnson should serve the fish that 'is a good deal like trout,' even though the season is over, and the tongue in cheek comment of Cal Woods to his executioners, 'Don't hurry, boys,' makes the reader almost feel bad for a man who shot his wife's father.

Another fun part of the book are the callouts-stand-alone sections within the chapters that explain how to crack a safe, or what happened to bootleggers after prohibition ended. But perhaps the most enjoyable features are the quotes from the local newspapers that transport a reader back in time. There's the description of a criminal who 'wept bitterly,' or another on the run who 'deserted his old haunts with suspicious haste.'

Perhaps to match the dialogue of the time, the author works (sometimes too hard, it seems) to come up with terms that describe the outlaws and their activities. Roughnecks, criminals, gangs, professionals, scofflaws and red-handed robbers engage in jigs, jobs, break-ins and monkeyshines to get upstanding citizens to give up the goods. And that's only in the first chapter. There is also a bit of a problem with mixed metaphors, which is distracting at the beginning, but in the callouts, and in later chapters, the author settles down to what is clearly her strength: turning historical facts into engaging stories.

The introduction itself is a gem of consolidated history, explaining how the Adirondack Park was created and the different forces at work: politics, economies and Mother Nature herself. All in all, Adirondack Outlaws is a piece of regional history that is worth the read."

-Heidi Moore, Special to the Enterprise, Adirondack Daily Enterprise

"I just finished reading the new book by Niki Kourofsky; Adirondack Outlaws: Bad Boys and Lawless Ladies. What a timely read, what with all the recent troubles in the North Country. The book is sixteen short stories on nefarious characters that roamed the Adirondacks. This was perfect for my short attention span as it's broken out into several chapters on Safe Crackers, Gangs, Manhunts & Murders. There's even a short chapter on female outlaws.

Most of the stories are culled from old newspapers and press reports and the writing style reflects the times. The author did a good job synthesizing the old data into a readable format that gave a good synopsis of the events. I loved the use of the "olde" words; yeggs, canary, bootleggers and Black Hand.

I never realized that there were so many scofflaws back in the day. There were some downright bad people around who did some really bad things. Who knew the Adirondacks had all these safes that got "cracked". The stories on bootlegging and rum running during prohibition were especially interesting.

Good read. [thumbs up]

-online review by user "Tick Magnet," ADKHighpeaks Foundation Adirondack Forum