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ROGUES' GALLERY

THE BIRTH OF MODERN POLICING AND ORGANIZED CRIME IN GILDED AGE NEW YORK

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

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KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

THE OSAGE MURDERS AND THE BIRTH OF THE FBI

Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.

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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 Yorker staff 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

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21 LESSONS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

Harari delivers yet another tour de force.

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A highly instructive exploration of “current affairs and…the immediate future of human societies.”

Having produced an international bestseller about human origins (Sapiens, 2015, etc.) and avoided the sophomore jinx writing about our destiny (Homo Deus, 2017), Harari (History/Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem) proves that he has not lost his touch, casting a brilliantly insightful eye on today’s myriad crises, from Trump to terrorism, Brexit to big data. As the author emphasizes, “humans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers, or equations, and the simpler the story, the better. Every person, group, and nation has its own tales and myths.” Three grand stories once predicted the future. World War II eliminated the fascist story but stimulated communism for a few decades until its collapse. The liberal story—think democracy, free markets, and globalism—reigned supreme for a decade until the 20th-century nasties—dictators, populists, and nationalists—came back in style. They promote jingoism over international cooperation, vilify the opposition, demonize immigrants and rival nations, and then win elections. “A bit like the Soviet elites in the 1980s,” writes Harari, “liberals don’t understand how history deviates from its preordained course, and they lack an alternative prism through which to interpret reality.” The author certainly understands, and in 21 painfully astute essays, he delivers his take on where our increasingly “post-truth” world is headed. Human ingenuity, which enables us to control the outside world, may soon re-engineer our insides, extend life, and guide our thoughts. Science-fiction movies get the future wrong, if only because they have happy endings. Most readers will find Harari’s narrative deliciously reasonable, including his explanation of the stories (not actually true but rational) of those who elect dictators, populists, and nationalists. His remedies for wildly disruptive technology (biotech, infotech) and its consequences (climate change, mass unemployment) ring true, provided nations act with more good sense than they have shown throughout history.

Harari delivers yet another tour de force.

Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-525-51217-2

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Spiegel & Grau

Review Posted Online: June 26, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018

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