Overlong but with some fine moments of cops-and-robbers and cops-and-politicos action throughout.
A popular historical study of the rise of metropolitan policing in late-19th-century New York City.
One of the great benefits of living in America is that people can reinvent themselves pretty much at will. Take William Devery (1854-1919), a former police official who was “as shameless a political hack as could be found within the police force.” Finally ousted from his job after a career that embarrassed even the excessively corrupt denizens of Tammany Hall, Devery took his graft-gotten gains and bought the baseball team that would become the New York Yankees. Just so, an Italian gangland leader gave up one branch of racketeering for another, changing his name and becoming a strong-arm union boss. So it is with many of the whirling cast of characters in Oller’s book, which begins with an account of reform-minded cops during and after the Civil War who took on a stellar cast of murderers and miscreants, from the Five Points Irish gangs to a Staten Island dentist of homicidal bent. The author’s account is careful and circumstantial, though it could have used some streamlining to wrestle it down to a more manageable length. But there are plenty of memorable episodes and players. One of the best of them is a former chief named Thomas Byrnes, a good man at the right time who was relieved of his duties by a police commissioner even more bent on reform: future president Theodore Roosevelt. For crime buffs, Oller delivers ample murder and mayhem as well as organizational notes for students of criminology, with commentary on such things as interrogation techniques and the reasons why homicide units are distributed among the boroughs rather than centralized. The author is also good on the evolution of organized crime in various ethnic enclaves, including the loose Black Hand and the more hierarchical Mafia in Little Italy and the Jewish and Irish gangs of the Lower East Side.
Overlong but with some fine moments of cops-and-robbers and cops-and-politicos action throughout.Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4565-3
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
HISTORY | TRUE CRIME | MODERN | UNITED STATES
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics,...
A provocative analysis of the parallels between Donald Trump’s ascent and the fall of other democracies.
Following the last presidential election, Levitsky (Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America, 2003, etc.) and Ziblatt (Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, 2017, etc.), both professors of government at Harvard, wrote an op-ed column titled, “Is Donald Trump a Threat to Democracy?” The answer here is a resounding yes, though, as in that column, the authors underscore their belief that the crisis extends well beyond the power won by an outsider whom they consider a demagogue and a liar. “Donald Trump may have accelerated the process, but he didn’t cause it,” they write of the politics-as-warfare mentality. “The weakening of our democratic norms is rooted in extreme partisan polarization—one that extends beyond policy differences into an existential conflict over race and culture.” The authors fault the Republican establishment for failing to stand up to Trump, even if that meant electing his opponent, and they seem almost wistfully nostalgic for the days when power brokers in smoke-filled rooms kept candidacies restricted to a club whose members knew how to play by the rules. Those supporting the candidacy of Bernie Sanders might take as much issue with their prescriptions as Trump followers will. However, the comparisons they draw to how democratic populism paved the way toward tyranny in Peru, Venezuela, Chile, and elsewhere are chilling. Among the warning signs they highlight are the Republican Senate’s refusal to consider Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee as well as Trump’s demonization of political opponents, minorities, and the media. As disturbing as they find the dismantling of Democratic safeguards, Levitsky and Ziblatt suggest that “a broad opposition coalition would have important benefits,” though such a coalition would strike some as a move to the center, a return to politics as usual, and even a pragmatic betrayal of principles.
The value of this book is the context it provides, in a style aimed at a concerned citizenry rather than fellow academics, rather than in the consensus it is not likely to build.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6293-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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