5 comments about Body Dump.

1. "Body Dump" is the story of serial killer Kendall Francois, who murdered 8 prostitutes in Poughkeepsie, New York in the late 1990s, and hid their bodies in his house, right under the noses -- literally -- of his family, with whom he lived. The book, while well-written and researched, is ultimately unsatisfying, no doubt to the author himself as well. Since neither Francois nor his parents ever went public, we never learn why he felt compelled to brutally murder these poor women, or how his parents and siblings managed to reside in a filthy, putrid-smelling house without checking for themselves Kendall's poor excuse of dead raccoons in the attic. (Did his family guess the truth but live in denial, or were they just major slobs?)
   
   Apparently there were some psychological issues in Kendall's background, but as he pled guilty and the case never went to trial, his psychological records were never made public. Letters Rosen wrote to him in prison went unanswered.
   
   So, both Rosen and the reader are left without insight into what turned one man into a monster.



2. Driving home after work on September 3, 1998, I found my planned route unexpectedly blocked. I took a right onto Fulton Ave., to see that the usually sleepy street had become a madhouse. Dozens of police cars closed off the road. Huge TV trucks were parked as near as they could get. Throngs of journalists and bystanders were milling around, held back by a platoon of cops. A helicopter hovered overhead.
   
   As I made a U-turn to find another way home, I turned on the radio, hoping to discover what the commotion was about. It wasn't difficult. Every station was blaring the news: the serial killer who had been stalking the women of Poughkeepsie for two years had finally been caught. He lived nearby; in fact, I frequently walked past his house.
   
   Over the following weeks, gruesome details emerged about Kendall Francois. He killed eight women, mostly prostitutes, and kept their bodies in his house - even though he lived with his parents and younger sister. The smell was so bad that it could be detected on the street, and on the skins of the inhabitants of the house...but his family apparently knew nothing about the murders, or the bodies. The house was such a mess, filled with garbage, rotting food, dirty clothes, and excrement, that the police had trouble entering it without stepping on possible evidence.
   
   Ever since this story broke, I've been waiting for someone to write a book about it. Elements of the case are so bizarre they beg an explanation. Unfortunately, this book doesn't provide one.
   
   The main problem is that the author, Fred Rosen, seems to have been unable to get interviews with any of the principles, aside from the police. This makes his viewpoint extremely limited, not to mention one-sided. For example, Rosen writes at length about how unfairly the police were treated by the press. The local papers were rather scathing about the length of time it took the cops to catch Francois, so Rosen's complaint is perhaps warranted. However, it would have carried more weight if he'd given equal time to the reporters' side of the story. He also rails against the FBI and dismisses their profiling techniques as useless...again, sounding suspiciously like a disgruntled local cop.
   
   But those are minor irritants. His inability to interview Francois or his family creates more serious weaknesses. The thin story must be puffed up with what amounts to a Poughkeepsie travelogue. We hear about the history of the area, get instructions on how to drive to the victims' houses, and are given detailed descriptions of local landmarks. It's mildly interesting for area residents, but dead boring for anyone else. (The information is mostly accurate, but there are a few howlers, such as his claiming the area is called the Lower Hudson Valley, when in fact it's the Mid-Hudson.)
   
   Worst of all, the dearth of information means the most compelling questions of this case - why Francois did what he did, the way he did it - go unanswered. This is a fatal flaw. Motive is everything in a true crime book, and here, it's sadly lacking. Rosen can offer little insight on what made Francois tick.
   
   Though the cover advertises "16 pages of disturbing photos," the photos are not all that disturbing. There are grainy pictures of the victims (mostly from the "missing" posters that were circulated before the killer was caught). There are photos of Francois' high school, and the school where he worked. There are a lot of pictures of the house, and some of the police officers involved in cracking the case. Far more disturbing images appeared in the local paper, The Poughkeepsie Journal, which ran photos of the bodies being carried out of the house on stretchers.
   
   How could a comfortable, white-collar professional couple, living in a nice neighborhood, let their house get that filthy? Could they really have not noticed eight bodies, rotting away in their own home? Why did Francois keep the bodies in his house, despite the smell, and the danger of his family discovering them? These are the questions about this case that demand answers...but none are offered here. "Body Dump" is shallow, padded, and disappointing. [...].



3. I've read most of Fred Rosen's books and I've found him to be a consistently entertaining and informative writer. He really knows how to stitch together all the pieces, which is really the most amazing part. This particular story about Kendall Francois is grizly and horrifying. Rosen weaves a story of good and bad police work as they try to figure out why prositutes are vanishing in a quiet upstate NY town. Highly recommended. One of his best. Note: Great photography too!



4. In BODY DUMP, readers are introduced to Kendall Francois, an African American serial killer, who killed at least five of Poughkeepsie, New York's prostitutes. Aside from the fact that Francois goes against the standard serial killer ethniticity, his modus operandi also included storing the bodies in the attic and crawl space of his home; despite the fact that he lived with his parents and younger sister (all who claimed to not know of the stored corpses).
   
   This was an interesting and quick read into the crimes of a serial killer. The one disappointing aspect, however, was the limited information provided into the background of Francois. While readers are provided information about his adulthood (mostly following high school), details of his family life were little. Of course, this could be attributed to the fact that the Francois family chose to enter into seclusion following the arrest of Kendall.
   
   This is an interesting read. I would recommend it to fans of the true crime genre.



5. I read this book a long time ago. I remember about a man in upstate New YOrk who was a killer. This book is memorable but mostly forgettable because they become blended into the true crime genre of literature of time. I have read hundreds of true crime books and sometimes they are just too alike. While crime particularly murder is never identical twice, this book is like so many others. It's vague and doesn't hold or have the same punch in the stomach. It's not that shocking anymore.

No comments about How to Make a Serial Killer: The Twisted Development of Innocent Children into the World's Most Sadistic Murderers.

5 comments about The War on Freedom: How and Why America was Attacked, September 11, 2001.

1. This book is very thoroughly researched! It reads a bit like a detective investigation and is every bit as gripping, using published sources (newspaper, interviews, testimony) to draw the reader beyond the official explanation of 9/11.
   
   Suffice to say, Nafeez's conclusions are even more shocking than the thought of a terrorist net outwitting the CIA, FBI and military of the world's only superpower.



2. Great resource for the whole 9/11 situation. Good history, good resourcing, great for your library to see other connnections to the 'new pearl harbor'.



3. Its a fact that more than 60% of americans are uneducated people who cannot reason very well, they make very good followers. People such as
   ===============
   Manuel Alvarez
   je "concerned-citizen"
   Critical reader (
   Nelson "The Bad One"
   ===============
   Such people would never open their minds. I meet many such crazy extremist christians like the people above many times. Explaining them anything is impossible beacuse these people DO NOT have brain in them. They are pure robots who cannot think or reason on their own, they are hard wired and believe only what they have been hard wired to believe. If a guy who happens to be muslim tells that 2 + 2 is 4 they wouldnt believe him. But if their priest tells them 2 + 2 is 10 they would believe that. They were lucky to be born in states, where such mentally retarted people are well taken care of.



4. 
   This is one reviewer who needs no convincing that our two most recent presidents (one an egg-sucking Democrat and the other an egg-sucking Republican) are accessories after the fact to murder (at the very least). OK? I'm already on-board - bought my ticket, checked my luggage, waited in the infinite security check queue, found my seat, buckled my seatbelt, restored my tray into the locked upright position, pulled out the sticky in-flight magazine from the pouch of the seat in front of me: Ready for takeoff. This is one true American patriot who has already removed the rose-colored executioner's sack from his head and done his homework. I know the score (and we're getting shutout!)
   
   But you know there's a problem when the preacher can't even deliver his sermon without losing the interest of his own choir members! If this was a war on boredom, Nafeez M. Ahmed's book, THE WAR ON FREEDOM, would have been the first casualty. (Dude, I was already a "believer", but if you couldn't even keep me awake, how did you expect to fire up the congregants with this somnambulistic sermon?)
   
   How did Ahmed put me to sleep? Let me count the ways: First of all, once you've made a point and driven it home, stop beating that poor, dead horse! It ain't ever gonna whinny again, so drop that whip. The horse is dead already; can it and feed it to the dogs! I don't need to hear the same information over and over and over again.
   
   Secondly, when one is quoting another source, it's always advantageous to find the pertinent point in the quotation, lift it out and let the rest go free. You don't need to arrest the whole mob of words if only a dozen or two are the prime suspects. Geez Louise! Ahmed has huge blocks of quoted passages throughout the book going well beyond the call of duty. I'll bet if we excised all the words of other people in this 384 page book, we'd be left with about 75 pages.
   
   And talk about dry? You thought the Mojave desert was dry? You thought Bob Newhart was dry? You thought James Bond's martini was dry? You thought your wife's baked chicken was dry? Man, I could find more "moisture" in a piece of severely burnt toast! Granted this is a serious subject that needs to be dealt with accordingly, but still.....Ahmed must be the life of a party. You know, a little personality - even if it's only rented - can do wonders for a book. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.
   
   I also have problems with a book proposing a search for truth, but which relies so heavily on Socialistic, Left-wing sources. That's not to say that their Liberal bias automatically disqualifies them as a source, but quoting bastions of "truth, justice and the American way" such as Amnesty International, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the L.A. Times, the Economist, Newsweek, and members of the Council on Foreign Relations doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. And sometimes Ahmed repeats statements without digging deeper (e.g., he informs us that Counterpunch newsletter stated that Goldman Sachs in Tokyo sent an internal memo on Sept. 10th advising all employees of a possible terrorist attack and to avoid any American government buildings. Does he provide us with a copy of this memo? No. They said it, so it must be true? Why mention something that you haven't substantiated in any way?)
   
   Then there's some pretty goofy stuff: Ahmed's inclusion of Barnett Rubin's complaint about "Congressional refusal to allocate funds for U.N. dues." (Pull up yer pants, Ahmed; yer Lefty credentials are showing!); his mention of "the vote fraud at Florida" (Whaddaya know? I've finally found someone whose math skills are worse than my own!); he mentions the escalation of widespread anti-globalisation protests illustrating increasing outrage with the Bush administration, and he also chastises the Bush foreign policy agenda for being in conflict with nominal allies on issues such as global warming and an international criminal court. (That's like beating a man for robbing a bank, and then beating him a second time for being a poor robber and leaving some cash in the vault!)
   
   Personally, I believe that "W" should be impeached and then tried in a criminal court. And if there was really any justice in this country, he would be forced to share a prison cell with Bill Clinton until death do them part.
   
   I've given this book 3 Stars because it does include plenty of valid information for the person who can manage to stay awake and sift through the pages. But this story has been told better. Try INSIDE JOB by Jim Marrs if you want "just the facts, ma'am" and without all the dead horse beatings. Or CROSSING THE RUBICON by Michael Ruppert if you want a heavy tome with all the details but without all the napping in between. But for all of those restless nights of tossing and turning, I recommend THE WAR ON INSOMNIA by Nafeez M. Ahmed. Take two chapters and call me in the morning.....if you wake up.



5. Other reviewers have done a superb job of summarizing the details, so apart from absolutely endorsing this book as a five-star level of brilliant, earnest, and helpful research and analysis, I will only observe that it is not fully comprehensive.
   
   Missing from this book is the fact that Dick Cheney knew in advance and organized a nation-wide "war game" to simulate defedning against terrorism, and this allowed Cheney to control the entire US Government. Full details are yet to be unearthed, but on the basis of all my other reading I am certain that the three World Trade Center buildings were dropped by controlled demolitions, that Rudy Guliani was a party to the conspiracy on two counts: recognizing that the Command Center in the World Trade Center would not be available and helping create the "alternative" command center on the piers; and in having hundreds of trucks pre-contracted to destroy and remove all evidence, something that caused the fire fighters to riot and tar Guliani for all time as "scoop and dump" Guliani.
   
   The other missing aspect that has been fleshed out since the author wrote the book is that of the Pentagon being hit by a missile rather than an aircraft. There is emerging evidence that the World Trade Center was hit by military aircraft remotely piloted and painted to look like civilian aircraft. I cannot state that as a fact. I can state that it has not been properly investgated. On the Pentagon, I am certain that it was hit by a missile, not an aircraft, in part because there were NO airplane parts and no video of an airplane and no engine tracks and no luggage, bodies, or even a single aircraft seat; and in part because the USAF MajGen responsible for all Soviet imagery interpretation is on the record, on YouTube, saying it was a missile. I agree. Incidentally, the missile did not just hit an "unoccupied" part of the Pentagon--it also destroyed the computer holding the evidence on where the missing 2.3 trillion dollars went, missing funds that Rumsfeld was being grilled on by Congresswoman McInney on 10 September.
   
   Bottom line: this book is an authoritative part of People's case against Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Rudy Guliani, and others of like ilk, who conspired against We the People and mass-murdered Americans to fabricate Congressional compliance and public apathy on their occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. The lies they told have not stood the test of time; in Afghanistan we allowed Bin Laden to escape, and in Iraq we have inspired a massive insurgency given force by the hundreds of billions being spent on permanent military and intelligence and ostensibly dipomatic facilites.
   
   The US taxpayer should be outraged. This author helps us all understand that the half trillion dollars spent "in our name," the thousands of US killed (tens of thousands of others), the 75,000 amputees (hundreds of thousands of others) have all been a looting festival.
   
   God willing, this period will be seen at the last hurrah of the military-industrial "rule by secrecy" era. Books like this would not have been possible 20 years ago, even ten years ago. Now they set the stage for a general strike and the removal from office of all those who have betrayed the public trust.
   
   Other recommended books:
   Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
   Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids
   Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil
   The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America
   9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, Fourth Edition
   War Is a Racket: The Anti-War Classic by America's Most Decorated General, Two Other Anti=Interventionist Tracts, and Photographs from the Horror of It
   The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
   The Fifty-Year Wound: How America's Cold War Victory Has Shaped Our World
   The Terror Timeline: Year by Year, Day by Day, Minute by Minute: A Comprehensive Chronicle of the Road to 9/11--and America's Response
   Enemies By Design

2 comments about The Enemy Within: The Mcclellan Committee's Crusade Against Jimmy Hoffa And Corrupt Labor Unions.

1. This is a marvelous peek inside Robert Kennedy's efforts against corrupt labor unions. I had long been intrigued with the whole RFK-Jimmy Hoffa "feud," so this was a treat for me. Robert Kennedy's writing style is at once humorous and pragmatic. He provides a detailed account of the inner workings of the McClellan Committee. Moreover, he meticulously describes the corruption within the labor organizations, with particular emphasis on Jimmy Hoffa. A word of warning: When I use words like "detailed" and "meticulously," I'm being serious. The book is a must for anyone interested in RFK, Jimmy Hoffa, the McClellan Committee, or American labor history; but someone who wants an action movie packaged as a book, will probably be disillusioned. Having said that, I loved the book. I highly recommend it.



2. This was a interesting book,but it can come of a little dry ecspecially at the end. It is just Bobby Kennedy's version of how the committee got started and what happened.I was interested on both sides of the story so I'm also reading Jimmy Hoffa's autobiography which goes into the comittee as well.It's amazing how Bobby can makes some of the statments about crime that he does with the Kennedy's being so crooked themselves??

5 comments about Seduced by Madness: The True Story of the Susan Polk Murder Case.

1. I had to put it down...but only because I did not want to reach the end of this book. The prose by the author is so far above what one typically finds in the true crime or courtroom drama genres. Ms. Pogash has a depth to her writing style that was so compelling I found myself marveling at nearly every sentence. When the superb writing is coupled with the intriguing story of life at the Polk house, the reader is left with a feeling of knowing the parties involved, and even caring about each and every one of them. It was clear to me from watching the news reports during the trial that Susan Polk is a fascinating yet complex and difficult woman. Felix Polk was equally enigmatic. The descriptions of Dr. Polk were interesting to anyone who lived in Northern California during the 1960's and 1970's, especially those who had any contact with the psychotherapeutic community. Felix's professional endeavors exemplified that era and his lack of professional boundaries was never updated or modified to meet current standards (right up until his death). When you read Seduced By Madness, it's like watching sausage being made. The path, the events and the results all make sense, but it feels like something you should not be privy to, and yet you will not want to stop. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.



2. "Seduced by Madness" is the biography of Susan Polk, who stabbed her psychologist husband to death one night.
   
   This book raises as many questions as it answers, and many of them are troubling questions indeed. Susan Polk became the patient of the wealthy and well respected Felix Polk when she was 14. By 18 they were lovers, and shortly after, married.
   
   How could Felix have seduced his young patient? In the late 60s, close relationships between patients and therapists were not considered immoral.
   
   How could Felix have wanted to marry a woman so clearly troubled? Soon Susan convinced Felix to see satanic abuse everywhere. Susan and Felix were convinced that their sons had suffered abuse from a vast satanic cult that was nationwide and killed babies and children in sacrifice to their dark god.
   
   Later, Susan and Felix were part of the craze for recovered memories, another fad in the therapy movement. Susan eventually believed she had recovered a memory of being drugged and raped by Felix when she was 14. But then, she also thought Felix was a Mossad agent who had known about 9/11 before it happened.
   
   Susan was delusional, clearly. But how much? Was she able to tell right from wrong? And why, why was her husband so in love with a woman so flawed? When she kept threatening to kill him, why didn't he run away? Why did he become so involved in her delusions? And what does it say about the field of psychology that it went from one fad after another, and that one of its most respected therapists had a family life most people would call insane?
   
   A fascinating read.



3. Author Carol Pogash does something miraculous: she reinvents the true crime genre to such a degree that other authors will find it difficult to match her! From the first page to the last, you're riveted to this real life drama of a psychotic and dangerous woman--Susan Polk--who butchered her husband--and then tried to blame it on that favorite alibi of many female killers: the battered wife syndrome. We first find Susan Polk puttering around her kitchen while the body of her psychologist husband rests in a river of blood in the nearby pool house where she forced him to live. She waits for one of her sons, Gabe, to find the corpse and then shows no emotion when her son tells her the news. With this introduction, you're led through their lives in fascinating detail--from Susan's mentally disturbed childhood up to the reasons she finally decided to murder her husband. Pogash creates each of the leading characters in colorful detail--and you're taken through the various psychological fads--such as the satanic child abuse craze of the 70s and then through the repressed memory cycle. Susan threw herself into each of these crazes--first, convinced that somehow that one of her sons was abused in satanic rituals. Then she was convinced through repressed memory that her husband, Felix, had hynoptized her and used drugs to seduce her as a teenager aganst her will. She became convinced he was a Mossad agent of death and that he knew 9/11 was going to happen. Yet, she's shown as being aggressively involved in the seduction of Felix. Pogash then goes into an even more fascinating part of this saga by covering the murder trial of Susan Polk. You're introduced to the attorneys, the witnesses and the courtroom junkies. Susan ends up representing herself and her madness is now seen by the public and jurors. Her bizarre courtroom antics--laughing, crying and shrieking at the prosecutor and judge--turned her case into a circus sideshow. While she claims to have been severely abused as a wife, you realize that her poor husband was forced to live in the pool house and was terrified of this woman. Yet, until the end, Felix told people how much he still loved her-even after she warned him that she was returning from a vacation in Montana with a shotgun and that she was going to kill him. This is what is so mystifying about this man. Even after continual threats against his life by his wife, he refused to move out and proclaimed his great love for this woman who now hated him. During the trial, one son, Eli, never wavered in defending his killer Mother. Two other sons depicted her as evil, psychotic and a relentless trouble-maker both in their home and to the neighbors and school staffs. I dreaded coming to the end of this book because it was so brilliantly written. Bravo to the author for breathing new life into the true crime genre which, unfortuntately, consists of too many books that are badly written and consist of nothing more than a cut-and-paste job by hack writers.



4. Carol Pogash's SEDUCED BY MADNESS chronicles the relatively well known case of the murder of psychologist Felix Polk by his wife Susan. Pogash's book begins with the childhoods of Felix and Susan, the twisted beginning of their relationship, the births of their three sons, and the dysfunctional life of the family up to and including Felix's murder.
   The family breadwinner was an emotionally flawed Felix, who, while he appears to have been a good and loving father and husband, fatally poisoned the marriage, which took place when Susan was around 20 and Felix around 45, by initiating a sexual relationship with Susan when she was a teenager and his patient.
   Their three sons were the victims of an upbringing which consisted of basically Susan, who - for example - encouraged her children not to attend school as, in her own mind, no one was really competent to care for or teach her children except herself.
   And then there was Susan. Susan is shown to be a cultured, literate, and extremely intelligent woman who was also manipulative, vindictive, socially strange, in many ways unpleasant, and increasingly paranoid and delusional. If Felix provided the financial support - Susan never worked -Susan was, in an interesting role reversal, the family's psychological leader - the one who set the tone of the family's life - while Felix pretty much went along with whatever her agenda was at any given time and while the boys, whom Susan totally loved, were raised in an environment which was, like Susan, askew like a mildly distorting fun house mirror.
   
   The last half of the book recounts the most bizarre trial you will ever read about, pitting DA Paul Sequeira against Susan Polk who was not a lawyer but chose, since she was convinced no one was smarter than she was, to defend herself. I generally feel that, with occasional exceptions, trial segments of true crime books are among the most boring. However the trial is one of the major components in the Susan Polk saga. Many of the true crime writing mediocrity, the rush to printers, would write this section by, for all intents and purposes, copying the trial transcript. I am happy to report that Pogash does not do this. It is in this case mandatory to provide the reader with a detailed account of the trial while being a writer rather than a copier, and Pogash handles it beautifully.
   
   Carol Pogash clearly set out to write an outstanding book, and she has succeeded. The research is exhaustive and impeccable, the writing is crisp and intelligent, and the tone and feel of the book are adult and literate. There are no false steps, no insertion of the author's asides and comments (an increasingly unfortunate occurence among the hacks who litter the true crime landscape) and no filler.
   
   You won't find true crime better than SEDUCED BY MADNESS. I recommend it unreservedly.



5. This story illustrates the old axiom that truth is stranger than fiction. The fascinating tale has so many bizarre twists and turns that one cannot help but be transfixed. Susan Polk begins seeing her therapist at age 15, marries the much older man a few years later, and a quarter of a century later stabs him 27 times, leaving him in a pool of blood in the pool house of the family's luxurious estate.
   
   In between these bookends, journalist Carol Pogash tells the story of Susan Polk's deepening personal madness embedded in the cultural madness of the psychotherapy world of the 1960s and 1970s in Berkeley, where therapist-patient sex was tolerated, psychodrama and EST were the treatments du jour, and cocaine use was rampant. The Polks even crusaded against mythical Satanic ritual abusers, claiming that their eldest son Adam had been kidnapped, raped, and made into a multiple personality. And if all that isn't enough, we've got exorcisms, psychics, and repressed memory claims.
   
   Pogash's rendition of the four-month trial is a riveting page-turner. Susan Polk fired attorney after attorney and ended up representing herself. On center stage, the intelligent but delusional defendant demonstrated a stunning ability to "take any set of facts and mold a story where she was both victim and hero." It is painful to read about her brutal cross-examination of two of her three sons. Pogash chronicles the Freudian slips that give glimpses into her pathology, as she called her dead husband her father and her favored middle son her husband.
   
   I am intrigued to ponder how Ms. Polk's trial outcome might have been different if it came after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling of June 19, 2008, in Illinois v. Edwards. Now, a mentally ill defendant may be barred from representing herself if she is delusional to the point that she is unable to effectively represent her best interests. (For my report on the Edwards case, type shurl.org/insane into your browser's address bar.) Perhaps that will be grounds for appeal of her second-degree murder conviction?
   
   From the point of view of a forensic psychologist, I especially appreciated the depictions of the expert testimony. We had the cagey forensic pathologist who disappeared in the middle of the trial when the judge insisted he produce his files, and the seasoned psychologist who testified for the defense, based mainly on what Ms. Polk had told her and without benefit of any formal psychological testing, that the defendant was a battered woman who suffered from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.
   
   I thought Pogash remained remarkably balanced and fair in her reporting, especially as compared to many pundits who flock to the true-crime genre. Being personally acquainted with upwards of a dozen of the participants whom she included in her account, I can say that by and large she portrayed them accurately and fairly.
   
   Seduced by Madness is a riveting page-turner, a fascinating history, and a fair and balanced portrayal of a high-profile trial that shined a spotlight on one family's dark pathos. I recommend it.

5 comments about Traitors Among Us: Inside the Spy Catcher's World.

1. There are two major triumphs covered in this volume. One for each side. Fortunately the NATO side won but it would have been a close thing indeed if the ball had dropped during the seventies and eighties when the war plans of the north central forces were being leaked to the Soviets almost as they were being written.
   Too many of the previous reviewers have treated this book as a reality based version of the usual spy fiction. Well, keep in mind, that no matter how sexy the fictioneers have it this is not James Bond. As open as he was, he would have been knocked off years ago. If you saw "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", the TV series, you came away with a much better sense of the numbing boredom and tediousness of much of the CI and spy's tradecraft. I refer you to a classic of the reality genre, McCargar's Short Course in the Secret War (cf) and the more recent book by Ib Melchior (cf)
   The amount of time it took to find the penetrators and then to build a case so that they could be punished is just one of the difficulties detailed herein. The other and most difficult side of the coin is, how do you find out what was copied in the first place? In the West, we did not have the constant paranoia caused by the KGB in the East and the effectiveness of a closed society such as was the DDR in keeping tabs on its citizens.
   Sure, at the first hint of a leak you could shut down and get rid of everyone who might have done it, but that is doubly counter productive, as as is so often shown on the TV series Law and Order, the first suspect is often not the one at all, and the real one will go to ground. The second is that those who are left will become so paranoid that they will not be able to keep their eyes on their desks from looking over their shoulders so much.
   Finally, this puts the lie to certain events in the intelligence community some years back when the entire HUMINT apparatus was almost fatally disrupted by belief in IMINT and SIGINT to keep track of things. Well, first things first, if the object cannot be seen such as a document or is never spoken of in a communication, then technical means are useless. All these cases herein depended on timeless face to face interaction between spy and case officer.
   We have seen this again today in that we have no persons who can go into deep cover and infiltrate the other side. And few who can even interrogate fluently in the languages of the Middle East. The DEA and the FBI and Treasury agents have proven time and time again that infiltration is necessary to solve major crimes. How much more important is it when national existence is at stake.



2. Perhaps the best thing about this book is the author's obvious desire to obtain recognition for those in his agency whose work, of necessity, had to be secret and hidden; they commonly worked extremely long hours, for months and years, at duties that were tedious and repetitious. They deserve this recognition and our highest respect. Unfortunately, the book shares qualities with the work and often goes on and on giving daily details of surveillance, meetings, briefings, etc, on almost an hourly basis at times. Thus, a suspect is followed here, then there, then back home, then to somewhere else and eventually I found myself turning pages. Also, the author makes excessive use of long paragraphs of the "little did we know then that our suspicions would lead to something that would take years, much money, heartbreak, frustration,..." variety. I finished the book because the story is important and disturbing; it doesn't take much to imagine how these intelligence betrayals would have hurt if WW III had broken out. But, after the first half, I was skipping over portions and reading only those that told of new happenings in the plot. Hard-core espionage junkies will like this book best (and those who may themselves have done some work along this line).



3. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but once I read the first page I was hooked. The author provides two classic cases of the worst treachery the United States military has ever been exposed to, and he writes well because he was involved in both of them. The intrigue and research into the cross-departmental assistance was very informative in light of today's "territorial" exclusiveness. A well written work that is easy for a lay person to follow, I highly recommend this book.



4. A meaty, readable memoir of an officer's counterintelligence career during the Cold War. It could get a bit tedious in places, and Herrington has an annoying habit of inserting unnecessary rah-rah patriotism, but overall a solid read. The Clyde Conrad case is one of the most important, but least known, spy cases in U.S. history.



5. Excellent book. I couldn't let it go and managed to read it in 4 days. Written so that you don't have to be a spook to understand it. Again, a very good book. Buy it, read it.

5 comments about Joey the Hitman: The Autobiography of a Mafia Killer (Adrenaline Classics Series).

1. Some good anecdotes. My problem with this book is that, in contrast to books written later, it is totally anonymous. Might have been necessary in the old days, but those were the old days.



2. I read this many years ago when it first came out entitled as 'Killer' and thought it was a fascinating look at the business of crime. However, I just bought the reissue and noticed that a whole chapter devoted to Joey and his feelings about women was dropped. Why so? Were the publishers getting PC about a Mafia killer so as not to offend new readers? Anyone have the original? And does anyone have any info on Joey's real name? A mention was made of his obit in Time magazine...date and issue anyone?



3. I read the original "Killer", by Joey, back in the early 70`s.I also saw a masked "Joey" interviewed on the Sunday evening talk show "Open Mind" by David Susskind. Susskind berates Joey, at one point, for using the slur"Pollack". Susskind said"You wouldn`t want me to use an anti-Italian epithet, would you?"Joey retorted."I wouldn`t care, really, since I`m not Italian. I`m Jewish"(Susskind was stunned!) Also, in "Killer", Joey recounts a meeting in a NYC club with the reputed Columbo crime family soldier, Carmine Di Biasi, in which he describes shoving the barrel of his revolver into Di Biasi`s mouth after Di Biasi "insulted my Ethnic backround". All in all,this is not a Primer on organized crime.To really enjoy this book you are better off reading a few other books first, such as "Mafia USA","The Grim Reapers","Pictorial History of the Mafia" or "The Vallachi Papers".



4. The nagging things about this book are it's many inconsistencies. He said he was making 150 dollars a day starting at 11, but he later says he knows what it's like to make no money. What, as a 10 year old? Or he had 10 poor years with his family? He says he was a tough teenager, didn't care if he lived or died. Then he says he got that attitude at 28 when his wife was murdered. And he seems to have been everywhere and have seen and know just about everyone who is/was famous in organized crime. There's a bunch of others, I'll let you find them, as you can add an extra star for entertainment in looking for them. But these things point to a subject that was made up and not consistent because its not real. If you want a real account of "hit" men, read Murder, Inc. It still rings modern even though it was written in 1951. And you can't put it down.
   
   I give this 3 stars because of it inconsistencies.



5. JOEY IS for real. The services he purveys are death and destruction. And as a blood member of the American Mob he is also qualified to speak on hi-jacking, smuggling, loansharking, operating liquor stills and making porno films. But his specialty is murder, and he tells all about that.
   
   This is the story of a man without conscience, in his own words.
   
   "A good hit man goes out, does the job, comes home to his family and can ssit down and eat his dinner with no problems. See, the thing I do best is kill people."
   
   " I have never killed an honest man. And I have never been convicted. All I need is a clientele- a demand for my services."

4 comments about Murder at Holy Cross (Berkley True Crime).

1. This is a very well written and very well researched book about a sordid crime that gripped South Florida. I followed the case closely when it first broke, so I found the book especially interesting. The author, a veteran true-crime journalist, did a remarkable job revealing never-before-disclosed details about the goings-on at Holy Cross. He delves deeply into the characters of the victim, a nun, her killer, and the clerics who lived and worked at Holy Cross. He also provides historical context, especially concerning the Catholic Church. True crime fans will find this book very compelling. It is a real page-turner and a terrific read.



2. Students of American history may find Murder at Holy Cross somewhat reminiscent of the early 19th century lurid accounts of the purported goings on inside Catholic convents and monasteries. Two hundred years later we are still shocked by the immorality exposed by the author at this Florida monastery. A very frank account of what can happen when people( here the head monks) have absolute control over the lives of young men who are studying to become members of the order. Highly recommended for true crime mavens.



3. MURDER AT HOLY CROSS is the story of the murder of Sister Michelle Lewis, a nun at the Holy Cross monastery in Miami, by Mykhaylo Kofel, a young Ukranian monk-in-training. Holy Cross, though on the surface a mainstream institution, was in fact anything but. The founder and head man, Abbot Gregory Wendt, specifically chartered his operation so as to be totally independent from either the Catholic or Byzantine Churches. And Holy Cross specialized in recruiting teenage boys, an unheard of practice in usual monastery tradition, from the Ukraine to train as monks. Holy Cross was, then, essentially a rogue operation responsible to no controlling authority, with Wendt as the head rogue. When Sister Lewis was murdered, Wendt and his right-hand man, Father Damian Gibault, did not cooperate with investigators, concerned only with controlling the damage that the murder, and Kofel's allegations of sexual abuse at the monastery, would do to their fiefdom.
   
   Peter Davidson has written, intelligently and professionally, a fine book.
   He eschews the tired soap opera trotted out by lesser writers, sticking to a journalistic approach. His research into the backgrounds of the young Ukranians and of Michelle Lewis are good. And the allegations of homosexual abuse by Wendt and Gibault are dealt with in great detail.
   My only minor complaint is that I wish there had been considerably more background information on Wendt and Gibault, but it is unlikely that Davidson would have received their cooperation.
   
   MURDER AT HOLY CROSS is not a "big" book, but neither is it a rush to print trasher. It is short, an easy read, and highly recommended to true crime lovers.



4. Abott Gregory Wendt and his priestly partner, Father Damien Gibault, established Holy Cross Academy as a Catholic school which also boasted a small monastery for young monks in training. However, things were not as they seemed. Wendt was not really an Abott as he lacked the proper credentials and training. He just assumed the title because he felt himself worthy of the title. In addition, Father Gibault, who should have been under supervision, was not. And, unbeknownst to Sister Michelle Lewis, a nun who worked tirelessly at Holy Cross for 10 years, she was not really a nun. You see, Abott Gregory Wendt did not wish to follow the rules of the Catholic Archdiocese, so he effectively "divorced" Holy Cross Academy from the Archdiocese... a legal maneuver that left Sister Michelle without a convent, and Abott Gregory Wendt accountable to no one.
   
   In a series of tragic events leading to a death, Sister Michelle Lewis was bludgeoned and brutally stabbed in her small bedroom on a hot, summer evening. A trail of bloody footprints led to the monastery on the campus grounds, where Mikhaylo Kofel was quickly identified as the murderer. When he confessed to police, he also disclosed the shocking details of two pedophilic priests who controlled every aspect of the young monks lives, and insisted that some of the boys sleep with them at night. Police investigators soon found themselves investigating not only a murder, but allegations of child sexual abuse.
   
   Without disclosing all pertinent details, I will state without reservation that MURDER AT HOLY CROSS is a book well worth the investment of time to read it. I do wish there had been more individual and familial history available pertaining to Abott Wendt and Father Gibault, but these two losers refused to submit to any formal interview with police investigators and "lawyered up" befor Kofel could even make a full statement about the murder of Sister Michelle or the abuse he suffered for years at the hands of Wendt and, less often, Gibault. Attempts by the author to contact both men went ignored.
   
   As a practicing psychotherapist, I have given the murder of Sister Michelle Lewis a great deal of thought. Mikhaylo Kofel reported that Sister Michelle was often angry with him and treated him unfairly. Perhaps she did. However, I doubt Kofel murdered Sister Michelle simply because she was perceived as an overbearing, "mean" nun. It is much more likely that Kofel lashed out at one of the few persons available as a target for his building rage and fear. Allowed almost no contact with anyone outside the monastery and having been effectively imprisoned in the United States during the crucial formative and adolescent years of his devlopment, Kofel had nowhere to go and no way to seek assistance from his family in the Ukraine. Too afraid to act out against his aggressors and unable to physically overpower Wendt or Gibault, Kofel unleashed his anger on the only person over whom he could exercise power or reclaim some sense of self... a defenseless nun asleep in her bedroom.

5 comments about Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors.

1. if anyone said this book was bad, or written by a women or anything else, they probaly didn't even read the book or don't understand anything.
   the book is not so well written but the information given is VERY valuable. it shows how easy a hit can take place and how much money you could get out of it in a realistic way.
   unlike the bourne idenity it keeps the kills realistic although
   not all adivise is as good.
   such as using a knife istead of advising a simple garotte or pianowire (wich is NOT mentioned in the book).
   who cares if it's written by a woman or not. the information is very usefull if you want to take that path.
   there is one thing though, some of the advices given are right out of movies and books.
   read the day of the jackal and rex feral and you will notice that the this book has a lot in common with the day of the jackal about switching identity and identity theft.
   also, it probaly copied some information from the Ian Flemming James Bond novel 'From Russia, With Love' as well by suggesting some gadgets such as the silenced AR-7 presented in the james bond book.
   my opinion is that the author spend some time going trhough all kinds of fiction and non-fiction books for a while, summed them up all together and wrote 'Hitman'.
   nevertheless, the rex feral summary is very valuable since you won't have to read all those other books (such as jason bourne, james bond, the day of the jackal) and will find all the usefull information given in one book in an order of rank.
   still, i don't recomend buying the book for $50, i suggest you just download it since it is widely available on the internet (almost every anarchy site has a free copy). just google 'hitman rex feral' and you will find the book for free (without pictures and without some other miniscule information though)
   the book is a great book, and it suggest you will have to use you own imagination and improvisation.
   i suggest you read it and ignore all the negative reviews since the are either written by : a- FBI agents
   b- priest
   c- people who haven't read it
   
   
   a free copy can be found at --- http://ftp.die.net/mirror/hitman/ ---



2. I JUST GOT DONE READING THIS MANUAL AND I TRULY ENJOYED IT. NOT IN A BLOODTHIRSTY MURDERING WAY, BUT BECAUSE IT WAS FASCINATING. ALTHOUGH THERE ARE A FEW HOLES IN THE THEORY OF EXECUTING A PROFFESSIONAL HIT, THIS BOOK COVERS ALL THE BASES. THE NEGATIVE REVIEWS IVE READ ON THIS BOOK ARE PATHETIC. ANY PERSON WHO TOOK THE TIME TO READ THIS BOOK, LOG ON THEIR COMPUTER AND PUT SOME SERIOUS THOUGHT INTO WRITING A NEGATIVE REVIEW IS THE SAME OLD HAG THAT CALLS INTO A RADIO STATIONS AND STAYS ON HOLD FOR 30 MINUTES TO COMPLAIN ABOUT THE PROGRAM ON AIR. JUST DONT READ IT IF YOU DONT LIKE IT. BUT IF YOU ARE A FAN OF HITMAN THE VIDEO GAME, JAMES BOND, SPLINTERCELL, OR ANY MAJOR STEALTHY ASSASSIN STORY, THAN YOU WILL LOVE THIS BOOK. I GOT MORE THRILL IN KNOWING THAT I CAN LEGALLY READ THIS BOOK THAN KNOWING HOW TO TAKE OUT A "MARK." THE IDEA OF A PERSON MAKING A LIVING BY KILLING ON REQUEST IS EXTREMLEY TABOO. ALTHOUGH THE MOVIES AND TELVISION PROGRAMS BEING PRESENTLY RELEASED HAVE OVERWHELMED THIS SUBJECT MATTER, HITMAN "A TECHNICAL MANUAL FOR AN INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR" HAS A CHILLING REALITY TO IT. THAT IS WHAT MAKES THIS BOOK A MUST READ.
   
   
   P.S. THIS BOOK ALSO MAKES FOR GREAT CONVERSATION



3. This is a great book. However, unless you're a book collector... don't waste your money. After the said lawsuit was finish between the publisher and the plantiff. The publisher dropped the copyright vowing to never publish it again. This allowed anyone to provide it free via copies; internet; etc. If you want to just read the book visit-- ftp.die.net/mirror/hitman/



4. This book was interesting back when I first saw it, in the 80's. My friend and I found it rummaging through his father's closet. At the time his father was in the police department, and simply had interesting books, this one was one of them.
   
   Things that still stick out in my head about this book I read that long ago? The construction of a silencer from pvc was what amazed me most at the time, the how to details of finding a mark, etc, really are a bit of a check list etc, that most fans of mystery movies, law and order or CSI can figure out. But back then, it was a real eye opener.
   
   To tell you the truth, it was a great book, but It will need to be updated for todays day and age. For example, I saw a CSI episode where a person used a plastic coke bottle as a silencer, right after he finished drinking it... Now that should be in the book.



5. Several years back I bought one book. Just one. Wish I had bought a dozen. I paid about $14 after shipping. Look at it now!

4 comments about Simon Says: A True Story of Boys, Guns, and Murder.

1. The shocking teen violence and depravity in this country that a decade ago seemed like a horrid anomaly, unfortunately now seems to have become a weekly occurrence. On New Year's Eve 2000 in the rural countryside outside of Colorado Springs, just twenty months after the Columbine massacre, a Grandmother, Grandfather and their fifteen year old Grandson were brutally and senselessly murdered.
   
   The investigation that followed revealed that four teenage boys with ages that ranged from fifteen to nineteen years old were involved in committing the murders, planning the murders, and destroying crucial evidence. One of the boys, fifteen year old Isaac Grimes, who was later convicted of murdering fifteen year old Tony Dutcher by slitting his throat from behind with a knife in such a heinous way as described in the court records: "at issue, is the brutality with which the defendant killed Tony. The autopsy showed he sawed back and forth." "The D.A. demonstrated a sawing motion with his hand against the loose skin of his own neck." "He severed the spinal cord, not just the spinal column." What makes this repulsive crime even more incredulous is the fact that Isaac and Tony used to be best friends.
   
   The Grandparent's Carl and Joanna Dutcher were slaughtered in a salvo of bullets. But the backdrop of this horrendous crime that joggles the imagination and all human sensibilities, is the relationship and "pecking order" of the four teenage criminal sociopaths Simon Sue, Jon Matheny, Isaac Grimes and to a lesser extent Glen Urban. (He destroyed evidence.) Simon at nineteen was the oldest high school student and he filled the role as a "Svengali" like leader. His parents were originally from Guyana a small South American country. None of the future criminals had many real friends, so Simon targeted them to become part of a non-existent "secret" paramilitary organization, "Operations and Reconnaissance Agents" (OARA). Simon said "OARA stood ready to serve should a coup arise against the standing Guyanese government, the People's Progressive Party. Under Simon's tutelage the boys learned to assemble and disassemble weapons, practiced shooting and planned and carried out burglaries. All without any of their parents knowing what was going on. When Simon demanded they murder Tony Dutcher and his Grandparents while Simon was conveniently out of the country, the other boys followed orders, later saying Simon's threats to murder their families kept them from telling anyone.
   
   After the murders the police and CBI (Colorado Bureau of Investigation) during the course of their investigation turned up among other things at Simon's house alone; THIRTY SIX GUNS, MOST OF THEM MILITARY ASSAULT RIFLES, WEDGED INTO A CLOSET... THEY TAGGED UZIS, SKS,'S AND AK-47'S. As heart wrenching as the murders themselves are, the domino "death-affect" tremors of loss to all surviving family members is just as important in the telling of this tragic senseless crime. Charles Dutcher alone lost his son and his Mother and Father. The authors writing style is not poetic, nor does it revive memories of Hemingway or other famous authors. But what the author does succeed at is terrific investigative reporting. There is not a wasted chapter or a wasted page. The reader is taken step by step through this entire sordid mess. She cannot give you the big answers, because that's the problem with this heart-breaking catastrophe, no logical person with a heart beating with even an ounce of humanity can answer the questions that this story and far too many stories like this raise. As many scientists state: "THE BEST EXPERIMENTS CREATE MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS" AND PERHAPS THIS BOOK SHOULD BE FILED UNDER THE SAME HEADING!



2. Kathryn Eastburn is at her best with the telling of this tragic tale. She approaches the subject with a reporter's objectivity, yet true to form with all of her writing, there is an underlying humaness that refrains from stooping to sensationalism or lecturing.



3. Make sure you have a significant amount of time available before you start to read this book, because you will have a difficult time putting it down. I read it in two sittings. It rates right up there with Judgment Ridge, the story of the two Dartmouth professors who were murdered by two Vermont teenagers less than one month later in January of 2001. Simon Says is an appropriate title for this new book because it is the tragic story of a very controlling and charismatic high school student named Simon Sue who manipulated those he saw as vulnerable into doing whatever he demanded. If they failed to do his bidding the threat of death to themselves and family members was made to appear real. One of the vulnerable boys, Isaac Grimes, murders his former best friend, Tony Dutcher, by cutting his throat as he slept while another, Jon Matheny, murders the boy's grandparents in their home by shooting them to death. The book covers the boys' relationship with charismatic leader Simon Sue, the murders, detective work needed to get confessions, the guilty pleas of each of the defendants, and subsequent appeals. This is a book filled with tragedy not only for the boys involved, but for other family members as well. It is a story without any winners. The only redemptive feature is a forgiving relationship between Isaac Grimes' mother and the mother of Tony Dutcher, the boy who Isaac murdered. It is the tragic story of an individual with a controlling and charismatic personality preying on vulnerable and younger individuals who otherwise would have never have become involved in such tragic behavior. The books' cover says it quite thoroughly, "A True Story of Boys, Gun, and Murder." I definitely got the feeling the boys, however belatedly, appreciated the beauty of their Colorado surroundings and would now not be able to enjoy the freedom they once had.



4. So just what is going on here? How can teenagers be so gullable and what's with this fascination with firearms? Whatever happened to playing varsity and intramural sports, going to Friday night dances and trying out for the school play? For me the harrowing events depicted in Kathryn Eastburn's "Simon Says" serves as a stark reminder that evil really does exist in this world and that young teenagers are a prime target for those who seek to spread it. You will find yourself just shaking your head again and again when you learn about the senseless murders of three members of the Dutcher family in the remote hamlet of Guffey, CO in the wee small hours of New Years Day 2001. Incredibly, the individual who ordered the "hit" on the Dutcher family and the two young men who carried out the bloody deed were all students at Palmer High School in Colorado Springs. "Simon Says" is a chilling tale that brings to mind the likes of Charles Manson and the Reverand Jim Jones.
   Author Kathryn Eastburn does a marvelous job of portraying the young men who would become caught up in this tangled web. The leader of the group was a young man named Simon Sue. Simon had moved to Colorado with his parents from his native Guyana. He was a natural born leader in search of malleable young minds to exert influence over. Sue was fascinated with guns and with the military and bragged to whoever would listen that he was part of a secret paramilitary group known as the OARA. In the fall of 2000 he found a pair of recruits in 15 year old Isaac Grimes and his older pal Jon Methany. Later on another young man named Glen Urban would join the group. Just a few short months later, Simon Sue would order his troops to kill the Dutchers and his willing accomplices carried out his wishes.
   Of course, "Simon Says" offers comprehensive coverage of the investigation into this heinous crime and of the subsequent trials of these young men. You will meet the detectives who finally managed to ferret out the facts of this case and the lawyers who argued for both sides during the interminable proceedings that would follow. Then you will learn how each of the families, the students at Palmer High School and the community at large tried to cope with these sensational events. There are so many issues to ponder here and I am sure that each reader will attempt to make sense of it all. But in my estimation this is simply not possible. At the end of the day far more questions than answers remain. Despite Kathryn Eastburn's best efforts to help us to understand I don't believe that anyone can present a rational explanation for what went down on that cold January morning in the Rockies. Nevertheless, I found "Simon Says" to be an exceptionally well written book that managed to hold my interest from cover to cover. Highly recommended!