Informative, plainly recounted trip into a nexus of homegrown evil.
Ex-biker ends up a top FBI informant inside a white supremacist group.
In 1996, Hall was living on disability checks in Dayton, Ohio, fixing the occasional motorcycle for friends and taking it easy. That changed after he provided a marijuana connection to a distant relative, who turned out to be working with the feds. Special Agent Burkey persuaded Hall to use his biker-club connections to infiltrate the local chapter of the Aryan Nation. The story of Hall’s smooth climb up the AN’s chain of command is related in straightforward fashion; his words alternate with Burkey’s terse accounts in a dual memoir stitched together by prolific crime scribe Ramsland (Inside the Minds of Healthcare Serial Killers, 2007, etc.). At 6’4” and 350 lbs., sporting abundant tattoos, Hall looked like many other AN members, but he was hardly comfortable in his hatemongering surroundings. He had biracial nieces and nephews, and he viewed his new “friends” as psychopathic losers who couldn’t hack real life. But he acted his part well and was soon being groomed for a pastoral position in the AN’s pseudo-Christian hierarchy. A paranoid, trigger-happy bunch of KKK rednecks, militia types and Nazi skinheads made highly dangerous companions, but Burkey kept Hall burrowing deeper. A year after the Oklahoma City bombing, the FBI was fiercely focused on preventing another attack by white supremacists like Timothy McVeigh. Pretending to be a bile-filed racist took its toll on the easygoing Hall. By the time he was made privy to plans for truck bombings and the assassination of white-supremacist scourge Morris Dees, he was having panic attacks, knocking back Xanax and drinking himself to sleep. While the knocked-together prose shows signs of Ramsland’s overly busy schedule, she does a good job of keeping the focus on Hall’s problematic double life, relegating the FBI’s role to the background. This view of the domestic terrorist underground benefits hugely from an impressively charismatic informant’s ringside seat.
Informative, plainly recounted trip into a nexus of homegrown evil.Pub Date: April 15, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-345-49694-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2008
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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