Despite its considerable flaws, the book is valuable as a rare insider’s account from an agency that does not value...
San Francisco–based FBI administrator Freeman chronicles the agency’s two-decade quest to identify and arrest the notorious homegrown terrorist.
Although the book lists three authors, the text is a first-person narrative by Freeman, who was given the difficult task of heading a large team charged with cracking the Unabomber case after years of frustration within the agency. (Freeman mentions co-authors Turchie and Noel frequently, but there is no sign that either wrote any of the chapters.) Between the explosion of the first bomb in 1978 and Ted Kaczynski's arrest in 1996, his homemade devices killed three and injured 23 more. Kaczynski mailed the bombs to private homes, university offices and commercial establishments; a few times, he physically placed them near such locales. In 1979, he arranged for a bomb-laden package to be hauled in the cargo bay of a commercial airliner heading for Washington, D.C.; it damaged the aircraft, but the pilots managed an emergency landing without fatalities. Freeman emphasizes throughout the impressive resources of the FBI but also includes criticism of the bureaucratic methods that initially hindered the investigation. He and his task force had to determine how to bypass FBI protocols without getting fired and without publicly besmirching the agency's image. Although the result of the investigation is cause for celebration, Freeman is painfully aware that the Unabomber might have remained at large if Kaczynski hadn’t anonymously written a manifesto and insisted it be published in the mass media. That led to a tip that sent Freeman's team to his isolated Montana cabin and resulted in a life sentence for Kaczynski. Regrettably, his account is poorly written and organized. Characters from inside and outside the FBI appear, disappear and reappear with mind-bending rapidity.
Despite its considerable flaws, the book is valuable as a rare insider’s account from an agency that does not value transparency.Pub Date: June 17, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-940773-06-3
Page Count: 380
Publisher: History Publishing Company
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
Startling, at times pretentious in its self-regard, but ultimately breathtaking: The Lost Weekend for the under-25 set.
Frey’s lacerating, intimate debut chronicles his recovery from multiple addictions with adrenal rage and sprawling prose.
After ten years of alcoholism and three years of crack addiction, the 23-year-old author awakens from a blackout aboard a Chicago-bound airplane, “covered with a colorful mixture of spit, snot, urine, vomit and blood.” While intoxicated, he learns, he had fallen from a fire escape and damaged his teeth and face. His family persuades him to enter a Minnesota clinic, described as “the oldest Residential Drug and Alcohol Facility in the World.” Frey’s enormous alcohol habit, combined with his use of “Cocaine . . . Pills, acid, mushrooms, meth, PCP and glue,” make this a very rough ride, with the DTs quickly setting in: “The bugs crawl onto my skin and they start biting me and I try to kill them.” Frey captures with often discomforting acuity the daily grind and painful reacquaintance with human sensation that occur in long-term detox; for example, he must undergo reconstructive dental surgery without anesthetic, an ordeal rendered in excruciating detail. Very gradually, he confronts the “demons” that compelled him towards epic chemical abuse, although it takes him longer to recognize his own culpability in self-destructive acts. He effectively portrays the volatile yet loyal relationships of people in recovery as he forms bonds with a damaged young woman, an addicted mobster, and an alcoholic judge. Although he rejects the familiar 12-step program of AA, he finds strength in the principles of Taoism and (somewhat to his surprise) in the unflinching support of family, friends, and therapists, who help him avoid a relapse. Our acerbic narrator conveys urgency and youthful spirit with an angry, clinical tone and some initially off-putting prose tics—irregular paragraph breaks, unpunctuated dialogue, scattered capitalization, few commas—that ultimately create striking accruals of verisimilitude and plausible human portraits.
Startling, at times pretentious in its self-regard, but ultimately breathtaking: The Lost Weekend for the under-25 set.Pub Date: April 15, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-50775-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2003
BOOK TO SCREEN
4 Book Adaptations to Check Out In December
Bryson is a real traveler, the kind of guy who can be entertained by (and be entertaining about) a featureless landscape...
Just in time for Sydney’s upcoming Olympic games, this travel narrative from veteran wanderer Bryson (I’m a Stranger Here Myself, 1999, etc.) provides an appreciative, informative, and hilarious portrait of the land Down Under.
“And so once more to the wandering road,” declares Bryson—which is music to the ears of his many deserving fans. This time it is Australia, a country tailor-made to surrender just the kind of amusing facts Bryson loves. It was here, after all, that the Prime Minister dove into the surf of Victoria one day and simply disappeared—the prime minister, mind you. There are more things here to kill you than anywhere else in the world: all of the ten most poisonous snakes, sharks and crocodiles in abundance, the paralytic tick, and venomous seashells that will “not just sting you but actually sometimes go for you.” A place harsh and hostile to life, “staggeringly empty yet packed with stuff. Interesting stuff, ancient stuff, stuff not readily explained.” And Bryson finds it everywhere: in the Aborigines (who evidently invented and mastered oceangoing craft 30,000 years before anyone else, then promptly forgot all about the sea), in the Outback (“where men are men and sheep are nervous”), in stories from the days of early European exploration (of such horrific proportions they can be appreciated only as farce), and in the numerous rural pubs (where Bryson learns the true meaning of a hangover). Bryson is still open to wonder at the end of his pilgrimage: the grand and noble Uluru (once known as Ayer’s Rock) reaches right down into his primordial memory and gives it a stir. “I’m just observing that if I were looking for an ancient starship this is where I would start digging. That’s all I'm saying.”
Bryson is a real traveler, the kind of guy who can be entertained by (and be entertaining about) a featureless landscape scattered with “rocks the color of bad teeth.” Fortunately for him and for us, there’s a lot more to Australia than that.Pub Date: June 6, 2000
ISBN: 0-7679-0385-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2000
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