5 comments about Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia.

1. Agent Pistone is a hero. His willingness to go deep undercover for years to clean house on organized crime is amazing. I wouldn't have done it and salute his willingness to put this mission ahead of his own life.
   
   Joe Pistone got and grew a unique assignment for the FBI. Starting with car theft rings, he was able to penetrate and become a made member of an organized crime family. As his association and the opportunity for deeper penetration grew, he had to live more and more of his life with the mob. This entailed no dinners at home, missed children's birthdays, weeks without seeing his family and the stress of always being in character for long, long periods of time.
   
   Through this book, the reader gets a day-to-day view of the mob. Often bored as only guys with too much time on their hands and nothing to talk about except cars and girls can be, his existence is enlivened by the sudden forays to steal and kill (he was able to avoid involvement in any murders, helped save many and avoided direct involvement in theft). Playing on the greed of Mafioso and the seeming ability of Donnie to connect them with money making scams in Florida, the mob lets Donnie in and eventually become an insider. Along the way, the reader gets to see mob guys at work, at play (particularly eating and spending money until they were broke), scheming against other made family members, and living the life with all the swagger and pride having "made" the mob gives these hoods.
   
   Pistone was incredibly successful. His wires and testimony lead to the arrest, conviction and deaths (through mob killing of some of those who had vouched him up the organization) of many mobsters. This is a fascinating story.



2. I'd put money that you've already seen the movie. What you wanna know is if the book is any good/better/different, right? I'd say different. For example in the book "Donnie" is much older, perhaps over forty - his kids are in high school, whereas as I recall Jonny Depp's Donnie was late twenties/early thirties perhaps, with pre-school-ish kids....Maybe that's not a big deal. A bigger difference is much of the tension in the book comes from one of Donnie's early connections and sparring partners, Tony, who feuds with Lefty over "control" of Donnie - this is a very important strand in Donnie's rise in the Mafia, and as I recall wasn't in the movie at all. Bottom line is there is far more in the book than the bare bones story told in the film, and it's a well told tale. Forgettaboutit, just buy it....



3. Gripping story of Joe Pistone posing undercover as Donnie Brasco for 6 years (!) to infiltrate the mob. As I read the story, I couldn't help but keep thinking how brave and street-smart this guy is. One slip and he's a dead man! Pistone thoroughly covered all his bases to maintain his fake identity. In the end, after the FBI agents announced to his mob ties that Donnie was actually an undercover agent all this time, they doubted it could be possible, and told the agents their was no way Donnnie was working undercover. That's how good this guy was!



4. like it much better that movie- so much more insight- get it if you are interested in this topic!



5. than the mob. Congratulations to anyone who does anything to reduce its influence and send its members to prison. Criminal trial attorney inner-city courts in a very large city, 30 years, state and fed prosecutor, and in my estimation this FBI agent is about as heroic as they come. Talk about role models. Forget about sports stars and pay attention to this former FBI agent and what he did for all of us.

1 comments about Ripperology: A Study of the World's First Serial Killer And a Literary Phenomenon (True Crime Series).

1. Robin Odell is an expert on his subject and the book contains much useful and interesting detailed information. However I did find the narrative difficult to follow and would have preferred the text to have been broken down into short sections each devoted, say, to one Ripper book and how it contributes to the body of literature.

5 comments about The Lives and Times of Bonnie & Clyde.

1. I never tire of reading about Bonnie and Clyde and I enjoyed this book. It was very well researched. All quotes and sources are well documented. It was disappointingly short especially since the auther had so much great research to draw from. In a true crime book I also like lots of photographs. It gives me a feel for the period. The photo's in this book are few and of poor quality. This book is good and I recommend it. I can't help but think it could have been great, but falls short.



2. E.R. Milner has constructed a pretty fair history of the Barrow gang in The Lives and Times of Bonnie & Clyde. Using contemporary newspaper accounts and police records, he provides detailed accounts of even many of the gang's minor crimes, such as early gas station holdups, and we B&C buffs naturally want all the details we can get. There are some previously unpublished photos, which is a must. There is also too much dialogue for historical purposes, much of it taken, unfortunately, from Jan Fortune's error-strewn Fugitives, the ghosted 1934 memoirs of Emma Parker and Nell Barrow Cowan which in turn derived as much from Ed Portley's 1934 True Detective articles as it did from Bonnie's mother and Clyde's sister. There are quite a number of typos, mostly wrong first names and misspellings of surnames and it is equally unfortunate that Milner failed to visit many of the locations prominent in the Bonnie and Clyde story, where key participants in the events still live, such as Dexter, Iowa. Milner told me once he regretted not having gone to Iowa inasmuch as Dexter was the turning point in the gang's history just as surely as Northfield, Minnesota was the Waterloo of the James gang. Having recently reread this book, I also regret he didn't come to Iowa. The three gas stations the gang hit before going to the Platte City, MO motel were in Fort Dodge, Iowa, not Kansas. Speaking of Minnesota, a visit to Okabena would have raised considerable doubts in the author's mind as to the Barrows' guilt in the bank robbery there. No eyewitnesses ever identified the Barrows there but two men and a woman were later convicted of the Okabena bank job. Milner's epilogue leaves much to be desired. Clyde's mother was shot in 1938, as Milner reports, but not by "an unknown attacker." The would-be assassin was a former minor gang member ostracized by the Barrow family as a "rat" and the shooting resulted from a feud with them which also involved a number of bombings. Cumie was also more than "slightly wounded"--like Blanche she lost the sight of one eye. Little or nothing is recorded of the deaths of Bonnie's mother or other principal participants such as B&C ambushers Henderson Jordan, Prentiss Oakley and Manny Gault. Kidnap victim Thomas (wrongly named as Jimmy!) Persell is only recorded as having retired from the Springfield, MO P.D. And the sideshow "career" of the death car should have been traced down to its present whereabouts in a Nevada casino. In view of the errors and omissions, I feel I must drop a star from my previous rating of this work. Still, Milner did Bonnie and Clyde better than many before him and both his book and the recent Running With Bonnie and Clyde by John Neal Phillips deserve a respectable slot in any crime library.



3. I was disappointed with this book. The events described are an almost an hour by hour passage of time, during the short lives of these two antagonists. We really don't care what Clyde did at 2am on the morning of the 15th of the month if it really has nothing to do with the outcome of the event! It seems as if this author wrote these pages directly from a courtroom transcript or a witness' testimony. Furthermore, there are entirely too few pictures (we want to see more of Bonnie & Clyde - duh!!). Pass on this book and buy one of the others out there.



4. One thing for sure about this book by E. R. Milner is that he apparently did not visit the actual sites of many B & C gang's activities. He has names of towns, first and surnames of people, misspelled. He continued to use old material that has been done before and is incorrect in family history. However, Milner did publish the first death photo of Bonnie Parker. I believe that the "Lives and Times of Bonnie and Clyde" will be of interest to most people as their appeal continues to grow and millions still love to read more about their lives and crimes. I was fortunate to meet the author in 1999 in Miami, Oklahoma. He was a very gracious man and a good speaker. For all it's flaws, I would still recommend this book for your crime library.
   
   Mike Koch, author of "The Kimes Gang."



5. Although this book is well written and highly informative,some facts are incorrect.The author states that the gang was driving east on Texas Highway 203 between Quail and Wellington.The truth is,they were driving north on highway 83,8 miles north of Wellington,between Wellington and Shamrock,when their car crashed into the Red River.Also Mrs.Pritchard is Mr.Pritchard`s daughter not wife.She is married to John Cartwright.When Mrs.Cartwright was shot in the hand by W.D.Jones,he fails to mention that she was holding her three month old son in her arms.The baby was not injured,altough window screen from the shotgun blast fired through the window hit the baby in the head.Mrs.Cartwright who is in her ninties is still living in Wellington Texas.When the gang fled they headed north towards Shamrock not east toward Wellington.

5 comments about LETTERS FROM TEL MOND PRISON: An Israeli Settler Defends His Act of Terror.

1. Mr. Rapaport's book is one of the few honest accounts of life in Israel today. Unlike reporters who have very little understanding of the complexities of life in Israel, Mr. Rapaport lives in the heart of Israel, and has a great understanding of the problems his country encounters daily. You can't go wrong reading this book.



2. This book takes what has become a controvertial impersonal topic and turns it into a tale of the human spirit. Era was an the average American. He had the normal life, but he choose to follow the path G-d choose for him. His acts of desperation would be called terrorism by the media, but it is only after reading this book that one understands he was an everday guy defending his family. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in gaining a true first hand perspective of life in the West Bank.



3. Era Rapaport effectively communicates the highs and lowes of being a settler in the land of Israel today. He is a modern day Zionist who gave up a life of comfort to face ridicule, persecution and imprisonment to stay true to his faith in the resettlement of Eretz Israel. I highly recommend this book to all who love Zion and believe in the restoration of Israel.



4. this book is intriging. it makes you wonder about the other side of the media. letters from tel mond prison is a book written by a man who lives his life with such pupose, meaning and honesty you wonder some times who you feel bad for - the "terrorist" or the "victim"



5. The four published reviews of this book are rather biased and show that the reviewers did not internalize what the author wrote. They stand in stark contrast to the 7 personal reviews. I couldn't put this book down. In a very personal way the author and his real experiences embody the reality of the co-existence, or lack thereof, in judea and samaria today. Stangely enough, shortly after a friend insisted I read this book I have shared tea with Era in his home and with his neighbors in Turmis Aya that he descibes in the book and to independently hear them tell the same stories he tells in the book.
   This book should be required reading for anyone that wants to offer an opinion about the future of Samaria.

No comments about Bloodsworth: The True Story of One Man's Triumph over Injustice (Shannon Ravenel Books).

No comments about Outlaw Tales of Nevada: True Stories of Nevada's Most Famous Robbers, Rustlers, and Bandits (Outlaw Tales Series).

1 comments about Motorcycle Mania 3: Jesse James Rides.

1. In this hardcover picture book Jesse James goes somewhere to perfect his skills with copper, then he gets back to work on his Copper Chopper. Kid Rock gets his own softail WCC bike built at about the same time at Jesse's place and the two set off on a road trip to Mexico. That's about it. Lots of cool pictures which you'll like if you're into choppers and the whole Jesse James/WCC thing. Only problem with this book is that it has ALL the text right at the beginning followed by ALL the pics. A little frustrating having to read and then flip forward to look at the pics which were referred to in the text earlier. Other than that it's not really as interesting to read as "I am Jesse James", IMHO. Still, worth checking out if you're a fan.

3 comments about Memoirs of an Italian Terrorist.

1. This book takes on a lot of issues, some of them with sensitivty that would surprise certain readers more accustomed to looking at 'terrorists' as something other than people. And this is the books main draw. As some sort of scathing indictment of the oppression of life under capitalism, as a revolutionary call to arms for today's generation...this book fails. But not that Giorgio even tries. This is also not a detailed analysis of the 'years of lead' in Italy or any time thereafter; This is not a critique of society. No, it's somthing much more personal, something deeper.

   It's a look into the mind of a young man driven by moral decency to take up arms, a stirring account of one giving up everything dear to fight for what is just and right.

   So if you're looking for the latter rather than the former, this is your book.

   A must read for anyone who would blindly brush social revolutionaries off as 'misguided youngsters' or anything of that nature.




2. With all the chatter about terrorism, this little book fills a gap with its unique insight into the mind of a terrorist. Written by an unnamed young man who joins a terrorist cell in Italy, this book neither glamorizes the life of a terrorist, nor does it condemn it.
   For anyone who wants to try to understand what might motivate someone to become a terrorist, this book is approachable. Since the author is a European, readers might find it easier to identify with him.



3. This is a riveting and chilling true-life account of the Red Brigades and one of its members. I couldn't put it down. I also recommend The Cyclops Hammer. It is also about the Red Brigades, but is fiction. However, it blends fiction with historic fact. It's a must-read for anyone interested in this group.

1 comments about The Plumber: The True Story of How One Good Man Helped Destroy the Entire Philadelphia Mafia.

1. An excellent book,how one small time man can bring down a large powerfull organisation,very well detailed, leaving you in no doubt as to the strugle that the plumber and his family had to go through, the court transcripts at the end are and added bonus that i enjoyed very much

5 comments about America at Night: The True Story of Two Rogue CIA Operatives, Homeland Security Failures,Dirty Money, and a Plot to Steal the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election- by theFor.

1. America at Night is one of the most riveting books I've read in a long while. I absolutely couldn't put it down. Not only is the story completely intriguing, but Kolb--unlike many true crime authors--can really write. The man is obviously a born storyteller. And in this case, the story he's telling happens to be true--which makes the book all the more fascinating. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in how politics really works in this country, or anyone that just enjoys a compulsive, compelling read.



2. This started off as interesting, but I lost interest when he started writing page after page about Muhammud Ali as the greatest man who ever lived. Toward the end, the book became a reason to bash the right, although the author claims he isn't. Kold is a left wing partisan, and it shows. Too bad, as the books holds real promise.



3. An entertaining book, as long as you don't believe the far-fetched conspiracy theories. The author takes a fact here, a factoid there, on and on and tries to put them together for a grand conspiracy. As far as I could tell, it's really just the story of some con men, talented and interesting though they were.



4. I'm sure most of what Mr. Kolb says is true about Hirschfeld and Sensi but I suspect he uses this capital to serve his ultimate goal -- to trash everything Republican. As a hit piece of this magnitude he is unconvincing. Ironically, if the picture Kolb has painted of these two con men is accurate and their abilitiy to use powerful figures is proven, then why is he not looking to find innocence in the many Republican politicians that seem to have been used? Why does he automatically see conspiracy on a wider scale within the GOP?
   
   He seems to trust "The Gray Eminence" and other people he has actually talked to like Engin Yesil. John Kerry is a war hero (Bush a poseur). He uses the term neo-con as a perjorative. Wolfowitz, Rice et al are war mongers out of touch with what....the omniscient benevolence of the Kerry team? A balanced outing of the "facts" would have at least included some rebuttal. There is none. He says at the beginning he is non-partisan. Nice try.
   
   He believes he is saving the world from evil. Has Kolb read Bill Sammon's book "At Any Cost - How Al Gore Tried To Steal The Election"? How that egalitarian and progressive organization, the Chicago Daley Machine was called in as a fixer for the Florida recount? There is no paucity of evil in America. Why be seletive?
   
   The fact is that both parties have operatives. Both parties are involved in scullduggery. And because of the hightened political climate both parties have a stake in deeming the other an enemy. I think the day of a mere advisarial relationship between left and right is over.
   
   We all pick sides. Kolb is on the Democratic team.



5. This book has some very interesting insight into a real story that depicts how some things work in this world... how someone can get all the way to the "kitchen" with the Bush's and be an outlaw. Very well written novel also! Only con would be some far fetched conspiracy theeories laid out at the beginning of the book and never proved during the book.