Detective first grade McKenna has seen firsthand many of the most notorious cases in recent Manhattan history and reports the facts in the streetwise patois of a seasoned gumshoe. McKenna joined the force in 1965 and quickly climbed through the ranks until he became a detective and a member of the elite Hostage Negotiating Team. He was directly involved in the Preppie Murder case, the investigation of the Central Park ``wilding'' in which a female jogger was beaten senseless by a gang of youths, and countless sordid crimes of passion and stupidity. He also recounts cases involving the odd, bleakly comic misadventures of the drug-addled, and he opens a fascinating window onto the riotous days of the late '60s in New York. But it's the most infamous crimes in Manhattan that form the backbone of this book. McKenna was often the first detective on the scene, and he ably describes the initial, depressing look at the crime and what may have happened. The Preppie Murder (in which a teenager from Manhattan's upper-class Upper East Side was killed by a former lover after what he described as ``rough sex'') is particularly well discussed, and McKenna's compassion for the victim rings true. It is unfortunate, however, that the detective offers no fresh insights into these crimes or into the criminal character. It is also unfortunate that the narrative foregrounds the ``as told to'' element by frequently mentioning cowriter Harrington, and McKenna's repeated refrain that all races and genders are welcome on the police force borders on harping. Written in a shorthand reminiscent of police reports, this is nevertheless an entertaining and attractive read.
Pub Date: April 10, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-14010-X
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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