5 comments about Sin, Shame, and Secrets: The Murder of a Nun, the Conviction of a Priest, and Cover-up in the Catholic Church.

1. As a "hometown" boy and a Catholic and knowing many of the "characters" in some way, it's very difficult to remain objective.
   Dave Yonke is definitely a newsreporter. The writing has very little flare and is usually straightforward.
   On the otherhand, despite the facts, it's hard to keep reminding yourself that this is all real. You expect the insights of a novel, with dialogue and psychological analysis. And the fact that it's real leaves it without all the threads tied in tidy little bundles at the end or the appearance of the narrator on a white horse bringing all the hanging "facts" to a conclusion.
   At times it seemed repetitive, but then when different people are talking about the same events it does get repetitive.
   It is a fascinating read. It was even more fascinating to live through it.



2. Author David Yonke has done a wonderful job of sorting through and explaining a tangled web of cover-ups, lies, and tabu subjects that have been supressed by the Catholic Church for years. He lays it out and explains technical information in a clear and entertaining way. Once you pick it up, you can't put it down.



3. I read this book over Christmas with much activity going on but couldn't put it down. Living in Toledo I was well aware of the events and the trial yet only after I read the book did I understand what had really happened. I am not interested generally in this genre. This book, however, reads like a novel as far as "interesting" and reads like a documentary as far as "information". I highly recommend it!



4. This book is a must read if you want to know what is really going on in the church. Very sad state of affairs



5. David Yonke tackles this blockbuster of a subject with the profesionalism of
   the seasoned journalist he proves to be. He unbiasly weaves a story from
   events that take place over nearly a fifty year span. He backs up his facts
   with fascinating interviews with those just and injust. As with interviews
   culled from all sides of those who played parts in horrific events like war
   crimes, Yonke's work shows how the passage of time has made some interesting and redemptive twists of perspective
   with those who participated or had some accountabillity in the matter. Also, disturbing as it is,he illuminates the fact that as well, time has made no difference,
   to some individuals responsible,yet still obsessed with self preservation,and the image of a culpable institution they will not question.

5 comments about The Laundrymen.

1. A fun book to read, although I wondered if someone in the DEA paid the author to write it! In Robinson's view of the world, the US government is always right. US government agents wear white hats, businessmen and their lawyers and accountants and bankers wear black hats. Robinson never questions the motives of the DEA/FBI/IRS officials whom he uses as information sources. He never questions the wisdom of the US war on drugs; indeed, he seems keen on expanding this war by enlisting financial intermediaries as government proxies. He ignores the likely impact of currency and financial controls on economic growth and personal liberty. He appears to have spent little time in the non-OECD world, where government corruption is the rule and where honest citizens have every reason to use cash and to hide their savings "offshore". In short: good entertainment value, and slick PR for Uncle Sam's drug warriors, but not an authoritative book by any means.



2. This book is a very good basic introduction to money laundering. There are some very good chapters or parts of chapters, including: a description of the basic money laundering process, examples of how FINCEN uses CTR data, descriptions of Carribean (and other laundering havens') bank secrecy policies, etc. Many of the chapters degenerate into countless real-life examples of laundering schemes in painstaking detail. Overall, however, there is a lot of good, useful information in this book geared towards readers who are looking for a basic overview of money laundering.



3. This is a review of the updated 1998 edition of this book. This book is a very interesting read on world crime. The book details, quite correctly I imagine, the fact that the motivation behind most organised crime is one thing - MONEY!

   The best way to hit back at organised crime is confiscate the proceeds and benifits of crime, money and assets. Unfortuntley, the criminals today are a sophisticated (at the top) as the people chasing them. There are also many countries, who lacking other resources fall back on "confidental" financial services as a way to make a living.

   In many ways it's hard to blame these smaller countries and economies going into the money laundring business as globalisation and the corporate greed of the 1st world economies marginalise "traditional" economies and communities. It's a fact of life that people will make money any way they can - and if you are desperate enough you'll take the illegal or semi-illegal route.

   This book takes you into the murky world of swiss banking - and it's NOT like the movies. Numbered bank accounts are a thing of the past. How the columbians got shot in the foot when they set up the mexican drug trade in a fit of diversification.

   It also details how while crime has gone global in a big way, law enforcement has only done so sparodically, and not much will change until international co-operation is better organised.

   This book just goes to prove that you can do a lot with banks if you are willing to pay the fees, know the world's tax havens (and their limitations) - and that cash is not always king (because then you need to go through the bother of washing it).

   An illuminating and frightening book, which I'm sure is just the tip of the iceberg.




4. This is the ultimate book to the understanding,and art of money laundering, but it's also very informative,and an intresting book period, if you ever wondered how narcotic dealers, and cartels, launder thier money here it is, in black and white, it's also a book to all you wannabe Secret Service out there, who want's to counterfeit laundering,and counterfeiting, this book is a great addition to anybodies library, me personally, I read books like this all the time, "for informational purposes" ;o)
   but it's a great read, if you've got the time, this book will put you in the light, a fascinating topic, told in a very entertaining way. thank you.

   ~ Michael Vincent




5. This book is partly based on well-known affairs, which are more thoroughly documented in other works, like the Banco Ambrosiano and the BCCI collapses or the fall of ex-president Noriega of Panama.
   
   It brings in these cases only a few new facts to the surface. E.g., Roberto Calvi, chairman of the Banco Ambrosiano knew that Mason Licio Gelli (P2) had laundered money to buy exocet-rockets for the Argentinians, which were used in the Falklands war against Great-Britain. Or, the Swiss banks are holding on to their secrecy, because the money in secret accounts becomes their property if no transactions are registered in the account during a period of 20 years.
   
   His overall picture of the drug industry is another matter. The drug industry is bigger than the food industry worldwide with quite staggering amounts of money involved.
   More, drugs were (are) used officially and politically by the mujahedin in Afghanistan in their war against the Soviet-Union, by the Vietnamese in their war against the USA and by the CIA to finance some of their secret operations (see Peter Dale Scott's 'Drugs, Oil and War').
   For the author, the drugs war cannot be won.
   
   The other war, against money laundering, became a whole other matter after the 9/11 attacks. Even the Swiss agreed to open private bank acounts for criminal investigations.
   The 40 million dollars bills rotting in a Californian basement could be small money compared to the amount of 'black' cash actually in circulation worldwide. The 40 million belonged to the head of the Medellin cartel, the late Pablo Escobar. He didn't get enough time to recycle the bills officially.
   
   Recommended only as a first introduction to the black money market business.

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 Deadfall.

1. I am the wife of DA Chief investigator Tim Kiely. I read the book because it was about his interview and confession obtained on the Annibel/Sloan case. The Pacheco homicide was his first one as a detective with the Sheriff's office and still bothers him that it has never been solved.
   
   I don't understand how the police depts and DA's office of Humboldt county could be so unwilling to get resolution for these families.
   
   If I was Lisa I wouldn't give up. EVER! There is no excuse with all of the physical evidence, circumstantial evidence and Annibels history of violence and subsequent confession that the DA's office should back away from prosecution. Technology today wasn't the same as it was when this evidence was collected. What is the harm of testing it again. If DNA from Annibel is found on Sherry Lynn or Andrea-they need to open up the investigation and do the jobs are paid to do.
   
   I am frustrated and had a long discussion with Tim after reading it. He feels the same way. I mentioned another missing coast woman to him, I believe her name was Kristy Krebbs, but Tim doesn't think Annibel was involved, however it was arround the same time in Fort Bragg and she has never been found. Kind of makes you wonder.



2. As a local Humboldt county girl, I had to read this since I know several of the folks mentioned in the book. My girlfriend's brother was even at the dance that Sherry was last seen at. Everyone I know at work is either currently reading this book or can't wait to borrow it. It is maybe not as well written as an Ann Rule book, but it is still great and the case itself is so amazing that the book is hard to put down!



3. Humboldt County just snubbed a woman trying to bring justice for the horrible and brutal murder of her beautiful sister whom she loved so much. Her sister was brutally strangled by this mad man John Annibel and they do nothing, not a dang thing to help her in this case. Blood found on hacksaws (still not enough proof for them) and all of the evidence and witnesses Lisa could have rounded up would have been not enough for Humboldt county.
   This book broke my heart and made me sick. Sick that this jerk got away with so much. Sick that they gave the raped and strangled victims little if any respect by trying to get this guy and he is running free. Just so sad that to them all of this proof was just a lack of proof.
   God bless Lisa for trying her heart out and God bless all of the victims of that sick jerk that got away with so much!



4. the book is in detail of what the reader is looking for. This book hits home for many that live on the California Coast and slightly in land. Murders took place in and near my home town. If you are from this area, names of people in the book are very familar to the readers.
   I couldn't put the book down it was a great book kept me at the edge of my chair.



5. After having read several of Scott's books, I was greatly disappointed with this one. There are so many quotes from too many people that the storyline gets lost in the process. In addition, the pages upon pages of interviews with murderer John Annible are scripted verbatum, instead of being summarized. This made the reading process even more tedious. Scott usually puts out good text. He was way off on this one.

No comments about Burned Alive.

4 comments about Escape From Alcatraz.

1. Most people know of Escape from Alcatraz from the movie staring Clint Eastwood. However, the famous prison has enjoyed a long and colorful history.

   Written by J. Campbell Bruce, a San Francisco Chronicle newspaperman for over forty years, the book delves into the history and social significance of Alcatraz Island. Beginning with its discovery and subsequent use by Native Americans, the book takes us through the island's history as America's "unescapable" prison.

   The books most recognizable chapter, by far, deals with the mystery shrouding the prison's most famous escape attempt. This section of the book became the basis for the film Escape from Alcatraz.

   The book is very intersting as a historical account of both the island and the San Francisco Bay Area. It comes highly reccomended from this reader.




2. Escape from Alcatraz depicts the full history of this infamous prison stronghold. It reflects how life was on the Rock and details the circumstances when and how 23 convicts attempted or succeeded in escaping from the island prison - the latter few never to be ever seen or heard of again. If you are interested in Alcatraz you need go no further than reading this book - it is really that good !



3. Escape from Alcatraz would be more appropriately named The History of Alcatraz. On most levels, the book is well put together. The number of misspellings is grotesquely unacceptable, but the content is reasonably thorough.
   
   The book begins at the discovery of the San Francisco island by Spanish settlers and continues through the closure of the prison. The book documents each of the attempts to break out of Alcatraz. Unfortunately, no inmate is confirmed to have escaped alive from The Rock. Many of The Rock's most famous inhabitants are discussed including Al Capone. I particularly enjoyed the stories of how the inmates passed their time. Bootlegging took on a new meaning in Alcatraz when inmates made pruno. Pruno often included such exotic combinations as milk and gasoline.
   
   The book is concluded with the closure of the prison. There is no doubt that Alcatraz was a brutal prison that drove some men insane and others to suicide. While it was not a deterrent to crime, it was an effective punishment for crime. Had the condition of Alcatraz not deteriorated so much since the Civil War, it may still be punishing criminals for there crimes.



4. Alcatrz is an interesting place but the book didn't excite me that much. I think this is one of the few cases where the movie is better than the book. I think the history part of the book was a little dry.

No comments about Human Sacrifice: A Shocking Expose of Ritual Killings Worldwide.

2 comments about If I Did It: Confession of the Killer.

1. Orenthawl James has written what I consider to be one of finest works of literature of our time. His unique and creative writing styles lend to his already vast understanding of the English language. If ever literature was the purest form of art, it has never been more apparent than in "If I did it". Obviously an innocent man, OJ (Orenthawl James and friend of Bubb Rubb) has been the victim of what he calls "being a black african american minority in a society where he is oppressed by a majority of white people". OJ explains how his "alleged accusation" is nothing more than a hate crime against him and his brothers, citing Bubb Rubb as an example. He goes on to explain that he would have done a much better job than the story that was made up in court. A must read for anyone who wants to knowe the true Orenthawl James- a law abiding citizen mwho cares about people, truth, and justice-a true black american.



2. O.J. Simpson's narrative account of the events that led to the death of his wife and her friend Ron Goldman may have been much more of an act of catharsis than Simpson and his entourage perhaps envisaged, but the reader of this book is left with the nagging feeling that `O.J. the man' and `O.J. the celebrity' are very much separate entities, the latter successfully courting favour in order to establish his virtue in the wider media circus that characterised this sad case from the start.
   
   Much of the book is devoted to the deconstruction of Nicole's character, with O.J. bastardizing her looks, her friends, her alleged promiscuity and her insecurities about their relationship. He tempers this with the acknowledgement that she is a good mother and that at least some of their time spent together was enjoyable, but in doing so he lays the foundations for a rambling tale that sees `O.J. the man' perversely sequestering genuine, acknowledged events in an attempt to shore-up his defence case. With a startling lack of self-awareness, the book shows how his constant displays of indignation and anger culminate in an horrific situation which puts him at the centre of this murder investigation, but O.J. describes this incident as if from a third-person perspective and tells the reader that the alleged events took place with him in a state of fugue. An alibi of sorts is found, and the rest is history.
   
   From this point on, the celebrity O.J. takes the reins and rides roughshod over the feelings of the victims' families and the machinations of the American legal system. The book is unremittingly grubby, and sadly, in spite of the Goldman family's best intentions to vicariously counter O.J.'s sanctimonious version of events, the reader is acutely aware that O.J. walks away with impunity, leaving little semblance of closure for Nicole and Ron's nearest and dearest.
   
   This is a worthwhile read, if only to bear witness to the needless destruction of two people and the psychotic disintegration of a third.

5 comments about Mississippi Mud: Southern Justice and the Dixie Mafia.

1. You just can't make this stuff up. Simply put, you've got to read it to believe it. Excellent book.



2. An unbelievable eye opener for me because I knew most of the people involved. It kept me on the edge of my chair and couldn't put it down. That is, once I was able to finally read the book.



3. Those who enjoyed the "Walking Tall" series of movies in the early 1970s will thoroughly enjoy this more recent, more exciting, and more accurate portrayal of one of the killers of the key figure in "Walking Tall," Sheriff Buford Pusser.
   
   Vincent Sherry was a retired Air Force Lt. Colonel who was making a pretty penny in the civilian world as a lawyer in the Sherry-Halat law firm. His wife, Margaret, was quickly moving up the political ladder to - possibly - the next mayor of Biloxi, Mississippi. But it all ended on the night of September 14, 1987, when a hit man ended the lives of both Sherrys in their house. "Mississippi Mud" is the story of how the couple's eldest daughter pursued justice for her parents that ultimately led to Vincent's law partner (and irony of ironies, Biloxi mayor) Pete Halat going to jail along with the hit man and a tough mobster on the Gulf Coast named Mike Gillich.
   
   The story begins with the story of a loosely associated gang of thugs known as 'the Dixie Mafia.' Unlike the close-knit family organizations that tend to comprise the Sicilian mob, the Dixie Mafia was simply a group of guys with common interests that killed people all over the South and Southwestern United States from the early 1960s into the mid-1980s. One of the most prominent members of the Dixie Mafia was the son of an Oklahoma judge named Kirksey McCord Nix, Jr.
   
   Nix was doing time in the Iron Hotel in Angola State Prison for the 1971 murder of a New Orleans grocer. According to Buford Pusser, Nix was one of the four trigger men that killed his wife Pauline and wounded him in a hail of gunfire on August 12, 1967. (The other three were dead by 1971, assuming Pusser's information was correct). It seems he figured he could purchase a government pardon, and using a fraudulent homosexual lover's ploy, Nix took the cash people sent him and had it kept in the law books of the Sherry-Halat firm.
   
   But suddenly, $65,000 came up missing.
   
   You can read the rest of what happened as well as the pursuit of justice by the Sherry's daughter, Lynne Sposito, who spent over a decade chasing down every lead until she managed to put the main perpetrators behind bars.
   
   The story was good and well thought out. There were a few dry spots, but I did enjoy the story. You will enjoy the fine factual crime writing of Mr. Edward Humes.



4. I read this book three or four years ago and I still vividly remember details in the book. Very good story about the Dixie Mafia and the back door activities they were involved with. This would make an excellent movie.



5. I think this was one of the best books I've ever read. I think that J.Johnson is wrong. This was a very good book. It did not put me to sleep. I applaud Lynne and the rest of her family. I have even met a member of the family. I will not say who though.
   --L. Kenedy

No comments about White Collar Crime in America.