by Melvin R. Gudknecht ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 2017
True-crime fans will particularly enjoy this busy, riveting remembrance, crafted with authenticity and intensity.
A debut memoir that relates the dangerous career of an undercover detective assigned to expose and apprehend members of mob-controlled unions.
Gudknecht, a veteran federal agent with 26 years of experience, vividly depicts his experience of infiltrating and apprehending members of a notorious crime family in this book. He worked with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Philadelphia Strike Force on Organized Crime, sleuthing his way through the shape-shifting criminal projects of the Philadelphia mob. The author tells of being discreetly commissioned by an “adjunct boss” for an assignment that begins with a drive to a city correctional facility, where an inmate smugly announces that Gudknecht’s boss has been targeted for a hit. Thankfully, the author later reveals that the prison visit was secretly an “interview and prequalification test” to determine his nerve and agility in a precarious situation. Then he’s thrown headfirst into an investigation into corrupt labor-union members. His job—which includes assembling an intelligence network of informants and witnesses—quickly becomes an all-consuming endeavor; he even looks into suspects in the disappearance of labor leader Jimmy Hoffa. Along the way, he assesses the moral conundrum of disclosing the hazardous nature of his assignment to his wife. Overall, this story is indeed a “roller-coaster ride” of research, subpoenas, and endangered informants, and Gudknecht makes the narrative uniquely personal with moments of witty humor among the tales of intrigue. For example, he shares his love of rock, jazz, and classical music and the work of philosopher Sun Tzu, whose principles guide him in times of uncertainty. He also details his involvement in other, earlier investigations, including one involving a prominent high-stakes betting operation, which helped him to develop the necessary toughness to take on the mob. In addition, he provides back stories of Hoffa and a villainous cast of mobsters and con men. The book’s choppy structure takes some getting used to, but it provides a breezy and thrilling take on dogged police work.
True-crime fans will particularly enjoy this busy, riveting remembrance, crafted with authenticity and intensity.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5434-4479-7
Page Count: 209
Publisher: XlibrisUS
Review Posted Online: Dec. 7, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Sidney Powell ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2014
The author brings the case for judicial redress before the court of public opinion.
A former Justice Department lawyer, who now devotes her private practice to federal appeals, dissects some of the most politically contentious prosecutions of the last 15 years.
Powell assembles a stunning argument for the old adage, “nothing succeeds like failure,” as she traces the careers of a group of prosecutors who were part of the Enron Task Force. The Supreme Court overturned their most dramatic court victories, and some were even accused of systematic prosecutorial misconduct. Yet former task force members such as Kathryn Ruemmler, Matthew Friedrich and Andrew Weissman continued to climb upward through the ranks and currently hold high positions in the Justice Department, FBI and even the White House. Powell took up the appeal of a Merrill Lynch employee who was convicted in one of the subsidiary Enron cases, fighting for six years to clear his name. The pattern of abuse she found was repeated in other cases brought by the task force. Prosecutors of the accounting firm Arthur Andersen pieced together parts of different statutes to concoct a crime and eliminated criminal intent from the jury instructions, which required the Supreme Court to reverse the Andersen conviction 9-0; the company was forcibly closed with the loss of 85,000 jobs. In the corruption trial of former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, a key witness was intimidated into presenting false testimony, and as in the Merrill Lynch case, the prosecutors concealed exculpatory evidence from the defense, a violation of due process under the Supreme court’s 1963 Brady v. Maryland decision. Stevens’ conviction, which led to a narrow loss in his 2008 re-election campaign and impacted the majority makeup of the Senate, seems to have been the straw that broke the camel's back; the presiding judge appointed a special prosecutor to investigate abuses. Confronted with the need to clean house as he came into office, writes Powell, Attorney General Eric Holder has yet to take action.
The author brings the case for judicial redress before the court of public opinion.Pub Date: May 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61254-149-5
Page Count: 456
Publisher: Brown Books
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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by Elizabeth Smart with Chris Stewart ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 7, 2013
Smart hopes that sharing her story might help heal the scars of others, though the book is focused on what she suffered...
The inspirational and ultimately redemptive story of a teenage girl’s descent into hell, framed as a parable of faith.
The disappearance of 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart in 2002 made national headlines, turning an entire country into a search party; it seemed like something of a miracle when she reappeared, rescued almost by happenstance, nine months later. As the author suggests, it was something of a mystery that her ordeal lasted that long, since there were many times when she was close to being discovered. Her captors, a self-proclaimed religious prophet whose sacraments included alcohol, pornography and promiscuous sex, and his wife and accomplice, jealous of this “second wife” he had taken, weren’t exactly criminal masterminds. In fact, his master plan was for similar kidnappings to give him seven wives in all, though Elizabeth’s abduction was the only successful one. She didn’t write her account for another nine years, at which point she had a more mature perspective on the ordeal, and with what one suspects was considerable assistance from co-author Stewart, who helps frame her story and fill in some gaps. Though the account thankfully spares readers the graphic details, Smart tells of the abuse and degradation she suffered, of the fear for her family’s safety that kept her from escaping and of the faith that fueled her determination to survive. “Anyone who suggests that I became a victim of Stockholm syndrome by developing any feelings of sympathy for my captors simply has no idea what was going on inside my head,” she writes. “I never once—not for a single moment—developed a shred of affection or empathy for either of them….The only thing there ever was was fear.”
Smart hopes that sharing her story might help heal the scars of others, though the book is focused on what she suffered rather than how she recovered.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-250-04015-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2013
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