The Jolly Roger Social Club

June 1, 2016
A juicy, disturbing account of "the world's first capitalist serial killer," who wreaked havoc among unsuspecting expatriates in a remote, hedonistic Panama archipelago. Former diplomat and South American correspondent Foster (Financial Times) was researching the circa-2011 real estate boom in Panama when he became fascinated by the grisly case against William "Wild Bill" Holbert, accused of murdering several fellow Americans in the pristine, remote Bocas del Toro region, a destination for both adventurous retirees and younger wayfarers wishing to lie low. In Bocas, small-time criminal Holbert, along with his silent, moody wife, Jane, reinvented himself as a boisterous partier, opening a ramshackle bar on the property of a retired drug dealer who'd seemingly vanished. Holbert had discovered an intriguing loophole, in that most expats purchased their homes via Panamanian shell corporations: "the person physically holding the paper was the owner." Remarkably, Holbert "flipped" several properties, foisting his presence upon the expats' druggy social scene, in which he was largely accepted, until he killed a woman with sufficient presence that "people were now figuring out that [she] wasn't the only expat who had disappeared." Foster writes attentively, delivering a keen sense of place, in terms of Panama's rugged, seductive natural beauty as well as the seedy quality of the self-segregating "gringo" community, where middle-age expats were too busy partying to notice the predator in their midst. Wild Bill makes a grotesque yet compelling central character, a cross between an obnoxious beach bum and the literary psychopath Tom Ripley. Laconic yet detail-oriented prose adds readability to a sordid tale, although digressive narratives detailing the development of the Panama Canal and the rise and fall of dictator Manuel Noriega as additional examples of predatory capitalism don't quite gel with the humbler malice of Wild Bill. An engrossing, well-developed true-crime tale, unsettling in its portrayal of the underbelly of its tropical setting.

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Starred review from May 1, 2016
Journalist Foster, who writes features for the international edition of the New York Times, turns in solid research and gripping writing on the familiar theme of there's always a snake in Paradise. In this case, paradise is the village of Bocas del Toro, Panama, which became an incredible draw for American expatriates and also for scam artists when real-estate prices went cheap in the early years of this century. The most poisonous of the snakes in Bocas del Toro, according to Foster's research and interviews, was a man now awaiting sentencing in a Panama jail: William Holbert, formerly of the U.S., who occupied a string of Bocas dream houses after he murdered their owners. Holbert and his wife and accomplice ran a bar that jutted over the sea, the Jolly Roger Social Club, whose motto was Over 90 percent of our customers survive. (This motto turns out to be sociopathologically audacious, since Holbert used the club to meet, woo, and sometimes murder people who owned enviable properties.) Foster's eerie account of a serial killer operating until a few years ago is set against the backdrop of the history of Panama. A completely riveting true-crime tale.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)