Will appeal to readers curious about the undercover lifestyle and the inner workings of federal law enforcement.
Propulsive, contrarian tale of an undercover specialist for the FBI.
Recently retired, McGowan uses his memoir, co-authored by Pezzullo (co-author: Full Battle Rattle, 2018, etc.), as a victory lap of sorts, recording his experiences in the high-stakes world of federal undercover law enforcement. As he said to a colleague, “I’m really good at pissing people off.” This frankness informs reflections on his early years and on discovering his high-stakes specialty: “Green and unskilled, I was still completely hooked on undercover work.” He portrays his inspiration sharply, chronicling his hardscrabble childhood in New England, where his father was a tough, alcoholic patrolman. McGowan entered the elite ranks of the FBI following formative years as a patrol officer and then detective. He scored an early undercover coup by securing a huge deal with a heroin smuggler, but his career was nearly derailed when he was framed for theft of the evidence: “I’d gone from FBI Golden Boy, to Public Enemy #1, back to Golden Boy.” Though he writes clearly of the nitty-gritty of complex federal investigations, he remains unforgiving of opponents, including both criminals and the upper echelons of the FBI, many of whom he clearly feels jockey for power from behind desks while tougher agents like himself take risks and build cases on the streets. He details major cases where he infiltrated the ranks of Russian mobsters and Mafiosi and shows how the FBI uses wiretaps, informants, and undercover agents to cajole admissions of wrongdoing from high-level suspects. “These guys might be cold blooded killers, but they were also fun to be around,” he writes. McGowan can come off as arrogant, with axes to grind against supervisors he clashed with, particularly regarding an elite national squad who went up against a Mexican cartel but then was abruptly disbanded. Still, this case and others give his recollections the tang of authenticity.
Will appeal to readers curious about the undercover lifestyle and the inner workings of federal law enforcement.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-13665-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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
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
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