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THE CBS MURDERS by Richard Hammer

THE CBS MURDERS

By

Pub Date: June 24th, 1987
Publisher: Morrow

Taut recounting of the April 1982 killings in New York City that came to be known as the ""CBS murders"" after the two network employees who had the tragic misfortune to be in a West Side parking lot at the wrong time. Hammer (The Vatican Connection, The Court Martial of Lieutenant Calley, The last Testament of Lucky Luciano) here has woven an engrossing tale of contract killings and million-dollar swindles by a small-time diamond dealer. He lays out Irwin Margolies' complicated fraud schemes clearly and explains how a bookkeeper who was willing to go along with the scams, even help concoct a few, ended up the target of an assassin's bullet as she went to her car one evening. What makes the book really gripping, however, is the police story, a fact-filled, fast-paced description of how good, solid police work helped the cops nab Margolies, his wife, and the hired gun. Hammer follows the detectives from the first call they get about dead bodies to the FBI stakeout of the killer's home in New Jersey (had the agents arrived 15 minutes later than they did, they would have missed the hired assassin and might have lost his trail for good) to the trials of Margolies, his wife and the killer. A gripping police procedural.