The Chicago Syndicate: Books
The Mission Impossible Backpack

Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Books. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Check Out "The World According to Fannie Davis: My Mother's Life in the Detroit Numbers" by @BridgettMDavis #Books

Set against the dramatic backdrop of 1960s and 70s Detroit, novelist Bridgett M. Davis’s stirring memoir tells the story of how her larger-than-life mother used Detroit’s illegal lottery to support her family.

In 1958, the very same year that an unknown songwriter named Berry Gordy borrowed $800 to found Motown Records, a pretty young mother from Nashville, Tennessee borrowed $100 from her brother to run a Numbers racket out of her tattered apartment on Delaware Street, in one of Detroit’s worst sections. That woman was Fannie Davis, Bridgett M. Davis’ mother. Part bookie, part banker, mother, wife, granddaughter of slaves, Fannie became more than a numbers runner: she was a kind of Ulysses, guiding both her husbands, five children and a grandson through the decimation of a once-proud city using her wit, style, guts, and even gun. She ran her numbers business for 34 years, doing what it took to survive in a legitimate business that just happened to be illegal. She created a loving, joyful home, sent her children to the best schools, bought them the best clothes, mothered them to the highest standard, and when the tragedy of urban life struck, soldiered on with her stated belief: “Dying is easy. Living takes guts.”

A daughter’s moving homage to an extraordinary parent, The World According to Fannie Davis: My Mother's Life in the Detroit Numbers, is also the suspenseful, unforgettable story about the lengths to which a mother will go to “make a way out of no way” to provide a prosperous life for her family — and how those sacrifices resonate over time. This original, timely, and deeply relatable portrait of one American family is essential reading.

A celebration of Detroit in its heyday, an inside look at how The Numbers powered African-American communities, and a daughter’s homage to a beloved parent, The World According to Fannie Davis is a moving, suspenseful story about the lengths to which a mother will go to provide for her family — and the way those sacrifices resonate over time. This original, timely, and deeply relatable portrait of one American family is essential reading.


Friday, September 27, 2019

Mr. Untouchable - The Rise, Fall, and Resurection of Heroin's Teflon Don Nicky Barnes

From inside the Federal Witness Protection Program, the "Black Godfather" chronicles the 1970s New York City underworld and the most devastating urban crime wave in history.

1962: Leroy "Nicky Barnes walks out of Green Haven State Prison. There are an estimated 153,000 heroin abusers in the United States.

1977: Two million junkies score $100 million worth of Barnes's smack a year. Sporting flashy suits, riding in a Citroën with a Maserati engine and satisfying a wife while pleasuring a harem of mistresses, Barnes presides over a staggering multinational dealership that pushes dope and launders money with the efficiency of a Fortune 500 company. Despite President Nixon's creation of the Drug Enforcement Administration and New York State's adoption of the no tolerance Rockefeller drug laws, Barnes's operation seems impregnable.

How does a small-time hustler and heroin addict end up on the cover of the New York Times Magazine as "Mr. Untouchable", the one gangster the Feds can't touch? And how is the future Mayor of New York City Rudolf Giuliani involved? With Machiavellian pragmatism matched with biblical fury, Barnes lays bare his life's remarkable trajectory--a rise, fall and resurrection defined by brutality, brotherhood and betrayal.


Monday, September 23, 2019

"Boxing and the Mob" will be the Topic when Author @JeffreySussman Speaks at the Rogers Memorial Library This Week

Organized crime and the world of professional boxing are intertwined with absorbing detail in Boxing and the Mob, the first book to cover the mob’s involvement in the “sweet science” throughout the entire 20th century.

Join Jeffrey Sussman, at Rogers Memorial Library, at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, September 25th, for a talk about this notorious piece of American history filled with fast-paced stories of fixed fights, paid-off referees, greedy managers, and the champion boxers who either caved in to the mob, or stood firm against them.

Rogers Memorial Library is at 91 Coopers Farm Lane in Southampton.

For reservations call 631-283-0774 ext. 523 or email programs@myrml.org.

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Boxing and the Mob: The Notorious History of the Sweet Science

More than any other sport, boxing has a history of being easy to rig. There are only two athletes and one or both may be induced to accept a bribe; if not the fighters, then the judges or referee might be swayed. In such inviting circumstances, the mob moved into boxing in the 1930s and profited by corrupting a sport ripe for exploitation.

Boxing and the Mob: The Notorious History of the Sweet Science, Jeffrey Sussman tells the story of the coercive and criminal underside of boxing, covering nearly the entire twentieth century. He profiles some of its most infamous characters, such as Owney Madden, Frankie Carbo, and Frank Palermo, and details many of the fixed matches in boxing’s storied history. In addition, Sussman examines the influence of the mob on legendary boxers—including Primo Carnera, Sugar Ray Robinson, Max Baer, Carmen Basilio, Sonny Liston, and Jake LaMotta—and whether they caved to the mobsters’ threats or refused to throw their fights.

Boxing and the Mob: The Notorious History of the Sweet Science, is the first book to cover a century of fixed fights, paid-off referees, greedy managers, misused boxers, and the mobsters who controlled it all. True crime and the world of boxing are intertwined with absorbing detail in this notorious piece of American history.


Tuesday, September 10, 2019

The Life and Times of Frank Balistrieri: The Last, Most Powerful Godfather of Milwaukee

Who was Frank Peter Balistrieri, the last and most power Godfather of the Milwaukee Mafia?

Based on hundreds of FBI documents obtained by a Freedom of Information request (as well as substantiating research), Wayne Clingman and Zack Long lay out a timeline of Frank 'The Mad Bomber' Balistrieri's rise through the ranks of the Italian-American criminal underground and through his time controlling Milwaukee. From car bombs to the fabled Las Vegas casino skim, Balistrieri's little known story is sure to prove a captivating one.

The Life and Times of Frank Balistrieri: The Last, Most Powerful Godfather of Milwaukee.


Friday, September 06, 2019

I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa - Inspiration for the @Netflix Fiilm #TheIrishman

Soon to be a NETFLIX film directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel, and written by Steven Zaillian.

I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa, is updated with a 57-page Conclusion by the author that features new, independent corroboration of Frank Sheeran's revelations about the killing of Jimmy Hoffa, the killing of Joey Gallo and the murder of JFK, along with stories that could not be told before.

"I heard you paint houses" are he first words Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke to Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran. To paint a house is to kill a man. The paint is the blood that splatters on the walls and floors. In the course of nearly five years of recorded interviews Frank Sheeran confessed to Charles Brandt that he handled more than twenty-five hits for the mob, and for his friend Hoffa.

Sheeran learned to kill in the U.S. Army, where he saw an astonishing 411 days of active combat duty in Italy during World War II. After returning home he became a hustler and hit man, working for legendary crime boss Russell Bufalino. Eventually Sheeran would rise to a position of such prominence that in a RICO suit then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani would name him as one of only two non-Italians on a list of 26 top mob figures.

When Bufalino ordered Sheeran to kill Hoffa, the Irishman did the deed, knowing that if he had refused he would have been killed himself.

Sheeran's important and fascinating story includes new information on other famous murders including those of Joey Gallo and JFK, and provides rare insight to a chapter in American history. Charles Brandt has written a page-turner that has become a true crime classic.


Monday, August 19, 2019

Organized Crime in the United States 1865-1941


  • Why do Americans alternately celebrate and condemn gangsters, outlaws and corrupt politicians?
  • Why do they immortalize Al Capone while forgetting his more successful contemporaries George Remus or Roy Olmstead?
  • Why are some public figures repudiated for their connections to the mob while others gain celebrity status?


Drawing on historical accounts, in Organized Crime in the United States 1865-1941, author Kristofer Allerfeldt analyzes the public’s understanding of organized crime and questions some of our most deeply held assumptions about crime and its role in society.

Allerfeldt is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter. He has published extensively on American history, with a special interest in the history of American crime and its interpretation. He lives in the United Kingdom.


Monday, July 29, 2019

Martin Scorsese's Latest Mob Movie #TheIrishman Set for World Premiere at @TheNYFF

Film at Lincoln Center announces Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman as Opening Night of the 57th New York Film Festival (September 27 – October 13), making its World Premiere at Alice Tully Hall on Friday, September 27, 2019. The Irishman will be released in select theaters and on Netflix later this year.



The Irishman is a richly textured epic of American crime, a dense, complex story told with astonishing fluidity. Based on Charles Brandt’s nonfiction book I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank 'The Irishman' Sheeran and Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa, it is a film about friendship and loyalty between men who commit unspeakable acts and turn on a dime against each other, and the possibility of redemption in a world where it seems as distant as the moon. The roster of talent behind and in front of the camera is astonishing, and at the core of The Irishman are four great artists collectively hitting a new peak: Joe Pesci as Pennsylvania mob boss Russell Bufalino, Al Pacino as Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa, and Robert De Niro as their right-hand man, Frank Sheeran, each working in the closest harmony imaginable with the film’s incomparable creator, Martin Scorsese.

“The Irishman is so many things: rich, funny, troubling, entertaining and, like all great movies, absolutely singular,” said New York Film Festival Director and Selection Committee Chair Kent Jones. “It’s the work of masters, made with a command of the art of cinema that I’ve seen very rarely in my lifetime, and it plays out at a level of subtlety and human intimacy that truly stunned me. All I can say is that the minute it was over my immediate reaction was that I wanted to watch it all over again.”

“It’s an incredible honor that The Irishman has been selected as the Opening Night of the New York Film Festival. I greatly admire the bold and visionary selections that the festival presents to audiences year after year,” said Martin Scorsese. “The festival is critical to bringing awareness to cinema from around the world. I am grateful to have the opportunity to premiere my new picture in New York alongside my wonderful cast and crew.”

Campari is the exclusive spirits partner for the 57th New York Film Festival and the presenting partner of Opening Night, extending its long-standing commitment to the world of film and art.

Presented by Film at Lincoln Center, the 17-day New York Film Festival highlights the best in world cinema, featuring works from celebrated filmmakers as well as fresh new talent. The selection committee, chaired by Jones, also includes Dennis Lim, FLC Director of Programming, and Florence Almozini, FLC Associate Director of Programming.

Tickets for the 57th New York Film Festival will go on sale to the general public on September 8. Festival and VIP passes are on sale now and offer one of the earliest opportunities to purchase tickets and secure seats at some of the festival’s biggest events, including Opening Night. Support for Opening Night of the New York Film Festival benefits Film at Lincoln Center in its non-profit mission to support the art and craft of cinema.

Wednesday, July 17, 2019

LBJ: The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination

The explosive true story of how a deranged Lyndon Johnson conspired to murder the President of the United States.

LBJ: The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination, aims to prove that Vice President Johnson played an active role in the assassination of President Kennedy and that he began planning his takeover of the US presidency even before being named the vice-presidential nominee in 1960. Lyndon B. Johnson’s flawed personality and character traits, formed as a child, grew unchecked for the rest of his life as he suffered severe bouts of manic-depressive illness. He successfully hid this disorder from the public as he bartered, stole, and finessed his way through the corridors of power on Capitol Hill, though it’s recorded that some of his aides knew of his struggle with bipolar disorder.

After years of researching Johnson and the JFK assassination, Phillip F. Nelson conclusively shows that LBJ had an active role in JFK’s assassination, and he includes newly-uncovered photographic evidence proving that Johnson knew when and where Kennedy’s assassination would take place. Nelson’s careful and meticulous research has led him to uncover secrets from one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in our country’s history.


Friday, July 12, 2019

Bleeding Out: The Devastating Consequences of Urban Violence--and a Bold New Plan for Peace in the Streets by @Abt_Thomas

From a Harvard scholar and a Senior Fellow at the Kennedy School, a powerful proposal for curtailing violent crime in America

Urban violence is one of the most divisive and allegedly intractable issues of our time. But as Harvard scholar Thomas Abt shows in Bleeding Out: The Devastating Consequences of Urban Violence--and a Bold New Plan for Peace in the Streets, we actually possess all the tools necessary to stem violence in our cities.

Coupling the latest social science with firsthand experience as a crime-fighter, Abt proposes a relentless focus on violence itself -- not drugs, gangs, or guns. Because violence is "sticky," clustering among small groups of people and places, it can be predicted and prevented using a series of smart-on-crime strategies that do not require new laws or big budgets. Bringing these strategies together, Abt offers a concrete, cost-effective plan to reduce homicides by over 50 percent in eight years, saving more than 12,000 lives nationally. Violence acts as a linchpin for urban poverty, so curbing such crime can unlock the untapped potential of our cities' most disadvantaged communities and help us to bridge the nation's larger economic and social divides.

Urgent yet hopeful, Bleeding Out offers practical solutions to the national emergency of urban violence -- and challenges readers to demand action.


Wednesday, June 26, 2019

The Mob and the City: The Hidden History of How the Mafia Captured New York

Forget what you think you know about the Mafia. After reading this The Mob and the City: The Hidden History of How the Mafia Captured New York, even life-long mob aficionados will have a new perspective on organized crime.

Informative, authoritative, and eye-opening, this is the first full-length book devoted exclusively to uncovering the hidden history of how the Mafia came to dominate organized crime in New York City during the 1930s through 1950s.  Based on exhaustive research of archives and secret files obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, author and attorney C. Alexander Hortis draws on the deepest collection of primary sources, many newly discovered, of any history of the modern mob.

Shattering myths, Hortis reveals how Cosa Nostra actually obtained power at the inception.  The author goes beyond conventional who-shot-who mob stories, providing answers to fresh questions such as:   

* Why did the Sicilian gangs come out on top of the criminal underworld? 
* Can economics explain how the Mafia families operated? 
* What was the Mafia's real role in the drug trade? 
* Why was Cosa Nostra involved in gay bars in New York since the 1930s?

Drawing on an unprecedented array of primary sources, The Mob and the City is the most thorough and authentic history of the Mafia's rise to power in the early-to-mid twentieth century.


Monday, June 24, 2019

Crook County: Racism and Injustice in America’s Largest Criminal Court

Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve’s "Crook County: Racism and Injustice in America's Largest Criminal Court" offers new insight into the processes of everyday “colorblind racism” within one of the largest court systems in the United States. This well-written and engaging book offers a remarkably relevant and important analysis of the U.S. criminal justice system by focusing on attorneys, judges, and the courtrooms in which they practice and adjudicate the law. While more attention has been focused on race and policing, criminal courts are a central actor in perpetuating the racialized outcomes evident in U.S. jails and prisons. Gonzalez Van Cleve documents and analyzes how powerful, disproportionately white male decisionmakers create and shape an extraordinarily corrupt and systemically racist system.

Crook County is based on over 1,000 hours of ethnographic observations of court proceedings, as well as interviews with judges and lawyers, giving the reader a truly original and path-breaking sense of how racism is embedded in the “inside” of the criminal justice system. The findings reveal a frankly heartbreaking account of a complicated habitus where race and class are continually reinforced in the negative assumptions about the poor and people of color that lawyers and judges make, and how the treatment of these accused individuals affirms “racialized rules” and color-blind racism.

What sets Gonzalez Van Cleve’s work apart from numerous accounts of racial inequality in arrests, sentencing, and treatment of the poor and people of color is her analysis of the everyday workings of the criminal justice system. Her research reveals everyday racial microaggressions articulated and practiced by lawyers and judges before a judgement is even rendered through racialized rules and scripts that routinely disorient and subjugate low-income people of color. Throughout the book, Gonzalez Van Cleve cracks open the door not only of courtrooms, but also of judge’s chambers and attorney’s offices, to show how prosecutors, judges, and public defendants regularly engage in racist practices that abuse both defendants and their families.

Beginning with her entrance into the Gang Crimes Unit where the white state attorneys bore such names as “Beast-Man Miller,” the author entered a world that denies the humanity of African American and Latinos through racialized cultural practices that demean the defendants and facilitate wrongful convictions. The ethnography provides numerous examples of how this system operates, such as when an elderly African American woman, leaning on her oxygen tank for support appeared before the judge to plead for her life saying she did not mean to kill her husband who had abused her for years. She was berated by the judge for being a “bad person” with little reference to the crime for which she was charged. Using Garfinkel’s work as a point of departure alongside of research on colorblind racism, Gonzalez Van Cleve argues this is but one example of racial degradation ceremonies pervasive in the courtroom that focus on judgments of immorality directed at defendants of color and the poor.

Such stories are analyzed in dialogue with relevant research but with a level of detail that is rarely found in other work on the topic and reflects the countless hours of ethnographic observation and interviews she and her research assistants undertook. Throughout this book, Gonzalez Van Cleve gives additional breadth and depth to Malcolm Feeley's notion that the “process is the punishment.” This book is impressive for the rigor of the data collection and analysis, poignancy of the narratives, and beautifully written observations that deepen our understanding of the ways in which racialized punishment operates in our legal system.


Monday, June 10, 2019

Cullotta: The Life of a Chicago Criminal, Las Vegas Mobster, and Government Witness

From burglary to armed robbery and murder, infamous bad guy Frank Cullotta not only did it all, in Cullotta: The Life of a Chicago Criminal, Las Vegas Mobster, and Government Witness, he admits to it--and in graphic detail.

This no-holds-barred biography chronicles the life of a career criminal who started out as a thug on the streets of Chicago and became a trusted lieutenant in Tony Spilotro's gang of organized lawbreakers in Las Vegas. Cullotta's was a world of high-profile heists, street muscle, and information--lots of it--about many of the FBI's most wanted. In the end, that information was his ticket out of crime, as he turned government witness and became one of a handful of mob insiders to enter the Witness Protection Program.

"Frank Cullotta is the real thing," says Nicholas Pileggi in the book's Foreword, and in these pages, Cullotta sets the record straight on organized crime, witness protection, and life and death in mobbed-up Las Vegas.

Thursday, June 06, 2019

Check out True Crime Addict by @JamesRenner

When an eleven year old James Renner fell in love with Amy Mihaljevic, the missing girl seen on posters all over his neighborhood, it was the beginning of a lifelong obsession with true crime. That obsession leads James to a successful career as an investigative journalist. It also gave him PTSD. In 2011, James began researching the strange disappearance of Maura Murray, a UMass student who went missing after wrecking her car in rural New Hampshire in 2004. Over the course of his investigation, he uncovers numerous important and shocking new clues about what may have happened to Maura, but also finds himself in increasingly dangerous situations with little regard for his own well-being. As his quest to find Maura deepens, the case starts taking a toll on his personal life, which begins to spiral out of control. The result is an absorbing dual investigation of the complicated story of the All-American girl who went missing and James’s own equally complicated true crime addiction.

James Renner’s True Crime Addict: How I Lost Myself in the Mysterious Disappearance of Maura Murray, is the story of his spellbinding investigation of the missing person’s case of Maura Murray, which has taken on a life of its own for armchair sleuths across the web. In the spirit of David Fincher’s Zodiac, it is a fascinating look at a case that has eluded authorities and one man’s obsessive quest for the answers.


Wednesday, May 15, 2019

"Siege: Trump Under Fire" is the Sequel to the Bombshell Bestseller "Fire and Fury" by Author @MichaelWolffNYC

Michael Wolff, author of the bombshell bestseller Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, once again takes us inside the Donald Trump presidency to reveal a White House under siege.

Michael Wolff — who enraged President Trump with his international bestseller "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House," about pandemonium in the first-year White House — will be out June 4 with a sequel, "Siege: Trump Under Fire."

The book, "about a presidency that is under fire from almost every side," begins with Year 2 and ends with the delivery of the Mueller report. The publisher says: "'Siege: Trump Under Fire' reveals an administration that is perpetually beleaguered by investigations and a president who is increasingly volatile, erratic, and exposed."

"Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House" sold more than 4 million copies in all formats worldwide, according to Henry Holt, which is publishing both books.

Publishing sources say "Siege: Trump Under Fire" is about what Wolff considers the insurmountable legal, personal and political challenges ahead of Trump — about everybody coming after him.

The publisher says Wolff interviewed 150 sources for the new book. We're told the two key groups of sources were former senior officials, and acquaintances outside the White House who talk to Trump at night and that more than two-thirds of the book's essential sources talked to Wolff again. Indeed, some of them sought him out, knowing he was working on what was being called "Fire and Fury II."

Wolff didn't seek an interview with Trump in an effort to avoid legal action that might delay the book. Trump threatened to sue to stop publication of "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House," which he called a "phony book." That backfired and stoked sales.

With Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, Michael Wolff defined the first phase of the Trump administration; now, in Siege: Trump Under Fire, he has written an equally essential and explosive book about a presidency that is under fire from almost every side. A stunningly fresh narrative that begins just as Trump’s second year as president is getting underway and ends with the delivery of the Mueller report, Siege reveals an administration that is perpetually beleaguered by investigations and a president who is increasingly volatile, erratic, and exposed.


Friday, May 03, 2019

Book Signing for Ghost: Secrets of an FBI Undercover Agent at @TheMobMuseum

INSIDE JOBS: SECRETS OF AN FBI UNDERCOVER AGENT

Date: May 9, 2019
Time: 7 p.m. in the Historic Courtroom
Cost: Free for Members or with Museum Admission

FBI Special Agent Michael R. McGowan (Retired) is the co – author, along with New York Times bestseller author Ralph Pezzullo, of the fascinating memoir tilted Ghost – My Thirty Years as an FBI Undercover Agent, recapping his more than 30 years of dedicated service within the FBI, the majority of which was spent working undercover against some of the most dangerous, sophisticated, and notorious criminal organizations and individuals throughout the world, having participated in excess of 50 FBI Undercover Operations. Ghost was released nationally on October 2, 2018, and was ranked #1 New Release on Amazon under Law Enforcement Biographies. In addition, the book’s film rights have now been optioned to Sylvester Stallone’s new production company, Balboa Productions, for development as a feature film.

For over 30 years, Special Agent McGowan successfully infiltrated the Italian LCN (La Cosa Nostra/”The Mob”) and Russian Organized Crime groups, Mexican drug cartels, Outlaw motorcycle gangs, contract murderers, and corrupt politicians, all resulting in significant arrests, seizures, and lengthy incarcerations. He has been recognized at the highest levels of the FBI and Department of Justice for his FBI UCO assignments, both domestically and internationally.

In the FBI’s-109 year history, Special Agent McGowan is the only FBI Agent with the following unique experiences: Successfully infiltrating three separate Mafia families – the Merlino/Luisi Philadelphia/Boston Family (1998-99); the Rhode Island faction of the Patriarca Family (2000-2005); and the Boston faction of the New England LCN (2008), resulting in the indictment and incarceration of one Boss, one UnderBoss, two capos, a national Union President, union officials, and dozens of LCN associates and soldiers. No other FBI Agent has infiltrated more than one LCN Family. Successfully infiltrating the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel and indicting the notorious head of the world’s most powerful Drug cartel organization and the most wanted fugitive in the world, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, and his Executive Management board – the only successful US law enforcement undercover penetration of the Sinaloa Cartel. Seized more than $15 million dollars of Cartel drugs without the expenditure of any FBI drug buy funds (2009-2012).

Successfully infiltrating two Pakistani heroin trafficking organizations on separate occasions resulting in the indictment and incarceration of a top five international drug baron and the seizure of over 100 kilograms of almost pure heroin, valued at $400 million dollars, again without the expenditure of any FBI drug buy funds. The combined seizures are ranked as two of the top, if not top, heroin seizures ever within the United States (1992-1994) and (1995-1996).

Falsely accused and investigated by the FBI of stealing $180 million dollars of drugs from a secured FBI evidence vault. Was interrogated with Miranda Warnings more than 20 times, had major case fingerprints taken in front of co-workers, and had his reputation and integrity temporarily destroyed by the false allegation. Later assisted in identifying the correct suspect. (1994).

In addition to the above FBI undercover assignments, Special Agent McGowan was also intimately involved in the 2001 “PENTBOM” 9/11 Boston investigation, and the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombings investigation. Special Agent McGowan also served as an FBI SWAT Team member for more than 10 years, and prior to joining the FBI, served as a Police Detective/Police Officer for several years, and received commendations for his arrests on homicide, sexual assault, armed robbery, and other violent felony offenses.

In his post-FBI career after retiring in 2017, Special Agent McGowan continues to provide training and mentoring to new law enforcement undercover agents, and now also provides consultant and technical advising services to the entertainment industry. Special Agent McGowan recently served as the law enforcement consultant/technical advisor on the set of Equalizer 2, directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Denzel Washington and Pedro Pascal. He is currently at work consulting and advising on other Fuqua Films development projects.

He is also at work on his second novel, Wrong Move , a James Michael Devonshane FBI fictional thriller series led by an unconventional, less-than-perfect but relentless FBI Agent battling not only the bad guys in the street but the internal and risk-averse forces within FBI management sitting inside safely behind their pristine desks. Special Agent McGowan lives in New England with his family and now fifth child, a 5-year-old badly behaved English Crème Golden Retriever.

Wednesday, May 01, 2019

Ghost: My Thirty Years as an FBI Undercover Agent

The explosive memoir of an FBI field operative who has worked more undercover cases than anyone in history.

Within FBI field operative circles, groups of people known as “Special” by their titles alone, Michael R. McGowan is an outlier. 10% of FBI Special Agents are trained and certified to work undercover. A quarter of those agents have worked more than one undercover assignment in their careers. And of those, less than 10% of them have been involved in more than five undercover cases. Over the course of his career, McGowan has worked more than 50 undercover cases.

In this extraordinary and unprecedented book, McGowan will take readers through some of his biggest cases, from international drug busts, to the Russian and Italian mobs, to biker gangs and contract killers, to corrupt unions and SWAT work. Ghost: My Thirty Years as an FBI Undercover Agent, is an unparalleled view into how the FBI, through the courage of its undercover Special Agents, nails the bad guys. McGowan infiltrates groups at home and abroad, assembles teams to create the myths he lives, concocts fake businesses, coordinates the busts, and helps carry out the arrests. Along the way, we meet his partners and colleagues at the FBI, who pull together for everything from bank jobs to the Boston Marathon bombing case, mafia dons, and, perhaps most significantly, El Chapo himself and his Sinaloa Cartel.

Ghost: My Thirty Years as an FBI Undercover Agent, is the ultimate insider's account of one of the most iconic institutions of American government, and a testament to the incredible work of the FBI.



Monday, April 15, 2019

Doing Justice: A Prosecutor's Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and the Rule of Law

By the one-time federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, Doing Justice: A Prosecutor's Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and the Rule of Law, is an important overview of the way our justice system works, and why the rule of law is essential to our society. Using case histories, personal experiences and his own inviting writing and teaching style, Preet Bharara shows the thought process we need to best achieve truth and justice in our daily lives and within our society.

Preet Bharara has spent much of his life examining our legal system, pushing to make it better, and prosecuting those looking to subvert it. Bharara believes in our system and knows it must be protected, but to do so, we must also acknowledge and allow for flaws in the system and in human nature.
   
The book is divided into four sections: Inquiry, Accusation, Judgment and Punishment. He shows why each step of this process is crucial to the legal system, but he also shows how we all need to think about each stage of the process to achieve truth and justice in our daily lives.
   
Bharara uses anecdotes and case histories from his legal career--the successes as well as the failures--to illustrate the realities of the legal system, and the consequences of taking action (and in some cases, not taking action, which can be just as essential when trying to achieve a just result).
   
Much of what Bharara discusses is inspiring--it gives us hope that rational and objective fact-based thinking, combined with compassion, can truly lead us on a path toward truth and justice. Some of what he writes about will be controversial and cause much discussion. Ultimately, it is a thought-provoking, entertaining book about the need to find the humanity in our legal system--and in our society.

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Former Acting Director Fires Back in "The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump"

There is no love lost between Donald Trump and Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director (and, briefly, acting director) of the FBI.

During his campaign for president, Mr. Trump claimed that Mr. McCabe, who was in charge of investigating whether Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server compromised classified information and national security, had a conflict of interest. In exchange for a promise not to indict her, Mr. Trump maintained, Mrs. Clinton had directed Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe to transfer $700,000 to the campaign coffers of Mr. McCabe’s wife, who was running for the Virginia state senate.

Mr. Trump continued his tweets against Andrew McCabe from the White House. Not surprisingly, Mr. McCabe believes the president is responsible for a finding by the inspector general that he “lacked candor on four separate occasions.” And for a decision by the attorney general to fire him — 26 hours before his scheduled retirement.

In “The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump,” Mr. McCabe fires back. He devotes most of his book to a review of his career at the FBI, highlighting his role in combating the operations of Russian organized crime on American soil; investigating the Boston Marathon bombing; terrorist threats on New York City subways; the attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya; Mrs. Clinton’s email server; Russian interference in the 2016 elections and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.

Greater public knowledge of FBI activities, accomplishments and the constitutional constraints under which law enforcement agents operate is urgently necessary, Mr. McCabe emphasizes. By identifying the FBI and the CIA with the “Deep State,” declaring that their leaders are corrupt, incompetent and partisan, and taking the word of Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un over experts he has appointed, Mr. Trump, Mr. McCabe asserts, is doing lasting damage to the intelligence-gathering services of the United States.

The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump” is filled with examples, some familiar, some new, of Mr. Trump’s breaches of propriety and historical norms, lies, mean-spirited behavior and, most important, his interference with investigations, indictments and prosecutions by the Justice Department and Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

The president was upset, Mr. McCabe reveals, that James Comey was allowed to fly home from Los Angeles after he was fired as FBI director. He demanded that Mr. Comey be forbidden from entering the FBI building to clear out his office.

According to Mr. McCabe, Mr. Trump made the self-evidently unsubstantiated claim that “at least 80 percent” of FBI personnel had voted for him. He stated as well that “so many FBI people” had contacted him to say they were glad Mr. Comey was gone. Such contact, Mr. McCabe points out, would have violated White House policy. And, Mr. McCabe indicates, the president, who demands loyalty to him, asked, “Who did you vote for?”

Some readers, no doubt, will dismiss “The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump” as an exercise in score settling. After all, it is obvious that Mr. McCabe is not a disinterested observer. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who fired Mr. McCabe, it is worth noting, are skewered in this book as well.

That said, “The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump” should be judged by the credibility (and, where possible, corroboration) of the analysis. And Mr. McCabe concludes with concerns (shared by many) that, in my judgment, should command the attention of readers across the political and ideological spectrum.

Donald Trump did not invent partisanship and polarization. But our country does seem more divided than it’s been for more than a century. And Mr. McCabe provides evidence to support his assertion that the president is “actively pushing” an agenda that encourages his supporters to identify themselves as “the real Americans,” stigmatize others and seek to lock them up, and accept as “facts” only information that is presented by their media outlets.

Mr. McCabe “would love to imagine a future in which we have righted the ship.” But other than endorsing traditional values — obedience to the Constitution, fairness, compassion, individual and institutional integrity, accountability, public service and diversity — he comes up empty. Perhaps we cannot begin until and unless we agree that the threat is real.

Thanks to Glenn Altschuler.

Thursday, February 14, 2019

The Untold Story of the Gangland Bloodbath That Brought Down Al Capone

Thanks to Art Bilek for sharing with us a deep account for the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. It will make a nice addition to any Mobologist's library: The St. Valentine's Day Massacre: The Untold Story of the Gangland Bloodbath That Brought Down Al Capone.

During Prohibition, Chicago’s Beer Wars turned the city into a battleground, secured its reputation as gangster capital of the world, and laid the foundation for nationally organized crime. Bootlegger bloodshed was greater there than anywhere else.

The machine-gun murders of seven men on the morning of February 14, 1929, by killers dressed as cops became the gangland "crime of the century." Since then it has been featured in countless histories, biographies, movies, and television specials. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, however, is the first book-length treatment of the subject. Unlike other accounts, it challenges the commonly held assumption that Al Capone decreed the slayings to gain supremacy in the Chicago underworld. The authors assert the deed was a case of bad timing and poor judgment by a secret crew from St. Louis known to Capone’s mostly Italian mob as the "American boys."

The target of the murder squad was indeed Bugs Moran, but the "American boys," who were dressed as policemen and arrived in two bogus police cars, arrived early at the garage where the massacre took place. When no one in the garage would admit he was Bugs Moran, the bogus cops stupidly killed them all. Much of the evidence to this effect emerged shortly after the massacre but was deftly ignored by law enforcement officials. It began to resurface again in 1935 with a manuscript written by the widow of one of the gunmen and a lookout’s long-suppressed confession. Indeed, law enforcement tried very hard not to solve the crime, for under any rock the cops turned over there might be a politician, and under the St. Valentine’s Day rock they would have found several. In the end, the machine gun bullets heard ’round the world marked the beginning of the end for Al Capone.

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