Engagingly, Newsweek Washington bureau-chief Thomas tells the colorful story of the controversial criminal lawyer who defended spies, mobsters, demagogues, and even industrialists from legal punishment, but who left moral judgments to the ``majestic vengeance of God.'' In many ways, Williams's career was unique. He was a respectable Washington insider whose access to the secrets of the powerful gave him a reputation as a ``fixer'' of legal difficulties, yet he was a criminal lawyer who willingly defended thugs, Mafia dons, and pornographers and lived a fast life among athletes and other celebrities in bars and nightclubs. Although a devout Catholic who attended mass daily, Williams emerges in Thomas's account as an amiable, morally ambivalent rogue who thrived on power. Thomas portrays Williams as an aggressive competitor at the game of litigation who would defend anyone ``as long as they gave him total control of the case and paid up front,'' and for whom defeat was unacceptable. The author shows that Williams was genuinely brilliant as a lawyer—for instance, his successful defense of Jimmy Hoffa, in what initially seemed an unwinnable case, was a stunning display of legal virtuosity. Gradually, Williams's clients became wealthier, and Williams became one of the first, and most celebrated, specialists in ``white collar'' crime. Armand Hammer, Marvin Mandel, John Connally, and Robert Strauss numbered among his clients. Williams became so wealthy from his practice that, among other investments, he eventually became owner of the Washington Redskins and the Baltimore Orioles. Liver cancer, which struck in January 1987 and eventually killed him, prevented him from accepting an offer from President Reagan to helm the CIA. A skillful and lively portrait of a larger-than-life lawyer. (Sixteen pages of b&w photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Oct. 31, 1991
ISBN: 0-671-68934-7
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1991
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
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
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