4 comments about When You Read This They Will Have Killed Me: The Life and Redemption of Caryl Chessman, Whose Execution Shook America.

1. Fine read. Makes you think hard abouth the Death Penalty



2. I was given Mr. Bisbort's "When You Read This They Will Have Killed Me: The Life and Redemption of Caryl Chessman, Whose Execution Shook America" as a gift, and what a gift it was. I have read many books related to the tragic nature and ultimate futility of capital punishment, but not recently. One reason, perhaps, is the dry, "cookie-cutter" publishing approach to the re-telling of these stories. One reviewer stated, "At times the spirited defense engages in hyperbole--for instance comparing Chessman with Alexander Solzhenitsyn--rather than just letting the facts of the case make the powerful argument." It's that exact sentiment that had me drifting away from the genre. Rather than re-tell a story by rote, Mr. Bisbort's lively take is sprinkled with a treasure trove of historical and pop culture references. Also, rather than having the typical all-in-one photo section, Mr. Bisbort's book is illustrated throughout with a wide range of photos, news clippings, book cover art and illustrations. All of these elements, combined with the sad tale of Mr. Chessman, make this book a true page-turner.



3. Alan Bisbort has delved deep into heretofore unplumbed archives to present a solid, nuanced portrait of a compelling American anti-hero: a small-time career criminal who never killed anyone but wound up being executed anyway by the state of California for reasons that, in hindsight, seem driven mainly by public hysteria and political calculation. The injustice of his execution is one matter, but what really drives Bisbort's narrative is the fascinating tale of Caryl Chessman's jailhouse redemption. During a lengthy internment preceding his trip to the electric chair, Chessman transformed himself into a legal expert and a literary figure of renown. Bisbort delves into Chessman's interior psychology, and the reader feels as if he or she is in that dim San Quentin cell with Chessman as, for the first time in his misspent life, the lights come on and burn bright within his fertile brain. It's a remarkable tale that is ripe for rediscovery in our present age, given all the debate about the death penalty. And it would make a great movie, too. Sean Penn as Caryl Chessman, perhaps?



4. Only now, some forty-five years after the barbaric execution of Caryl Chessman, Los Angeles' so-called, 'Red Light Bandit,' are we introduced to the man behind the myth. Bisbort brillantly mirrors Chessman's real face. Over a dozen years, on death row, we hear the voice of a soul on fire begin to cool and mature as it seeks light and finds true personal redemption. Alan Bisbort's sensitive historical postmortem stands in service of the truth."
   
   Steve Hodel, author of Black Dahlia Avenger: A Genius for Murder

5 comments about No Questions Asked: The Secret Life of Women in the Mob.

1. I purchased this book for myself because I am fascinated by organized crime. This was a fairly interesting account of the woman's role in "modern" US mafia. I wish the information was more in-depth, but it was an enjoyable read none the less.



2. If you read this book -- you can thank the author for making you dumber.
   If you spent money on this book -- you can thank the author for wasting your hard-earned cash.
   If you enjoyed this book in any respect -- then you can thank the author for her talent in writing fiction.
   
   Not only was this book chock full of crap, it didn't at all confer with the people involved to get the facts straight. This is all hearsay and press coverage that anyone could dig up googling the subject matter.
   Now, if you believe what the press tells you -- then you're a real sucker.



3. The most accurate aspect of the book, insofar as it pertains to me, is the title, since Clare certainly did not ask any questions of me. From my perspective, it is little more than a smear-campaign and attempt to cash in on a popular topic.



4. THE BOOK WAS GENERALLY GOOD, HOWEVER SOME OF THE FACTS ARE OFF. sHE SHOULD HAVE INTERVIEWED THE WOMEN BEFORE WRITING ABOUT THEM.



5. I like books on the mafia. This was pretty good. Its a collection of many stories from mob wives or daughters. Most with bad endings. This was easy to read but the women in the stories are mostly all nuts like the one who married her first husbands killer. I really dont think men would like it though.

5 comments about No Greater Deception: A True Texas Story.

1. for me, the story is marred by grammatical errors, over use of commas and exclamation points, and numerous mispelled words. I found it difficult to read for any length of time, but made my way through it.
   The story itself is excellent, full of twists and turns and the angst that only family can provide. Despite the drawbacks mentioned above, I highly recommend this book.



2. Maybe this vanity self-published (1st Books) memoir "couldda been a contender" in the True Crime book genre. But there's more rotten in the State of Texas and this book than just the allegations that Stepmomma forged Daddy's will. Daddy had six kids with wife #1. When he dies, married to wife #2, the kids in Family #1 are unhappy that Daddy didn't leave them the proverbial farm and all the underlying Texas mineral rights thereto. So, two of the Family #1 daughters waltz across, zig zagging back and forth around, Texas trying to prove that Wicked Stepmomma forged a Will not giving them what they feel to be their due.
   
   This saga is all relayed to the reader in screenplay fashion - via expository cell phone conversations and faxes in the present (so she goes to Betty's and like, opens the door and goes...) Valley Girl lingo tense as the amateur sister sleuths try to grab the Texas gold. The author (Sister Sleuth # 1) writes of herself in the 3rd person. There is totally too much extraneous information and conversation in this 553 page tome that would have greatly benefited from an experienced editor and proof reader at a "real" publishing house. Grammatical and syntactical errors abound. And buried in the middle of it all, warranting only scant mention, is the bomb that maybe Daddy was involved as an assassin of JFK (!)
   
   At the end of all the traversing of Texas, the reader knows little more than she did at the start of the journey about who did what to whom - except that those Newman girls think all attorneys are idiots.
   And, Owen, there are no pictures here.
   /TundraVision esq Amazon Reviewer



3. This book needs to be read when you have the time because you will not want to put it down. My husband is not a "reader" and he couldn't put it aside either. I could not wait to find out if justice prevailed. It's really hard to comprehend that people can be so evil and deceptive, but Sydney Newsome Dodson did a terrific job of telling her, and her siblings horrific experiences. Her documentation and attention to detail is superb. I can't wait to read her follow-up book!!! Read and enjoy, we really did.



4. I bought and finished this book in two days. I can't wait to find out how this winds up. I hope Sydney and her family get their rightful share of their dad's inheritance. This kind of thing happens way to often.
   
   I hope the sequel comes out soon. Hopefully pictures will be in the next one. It makes it more real to know what each person looks like.



5. I read this book in only a couple of days. It was pretty good for a first-time author. I got a little confused with all the characters. However, I could visualize the story coming to life in my mind's eye. Hopefully there will be a sequel.

5 comments about GOOD GUYS: How We Turned the FBI 'Round Q and Finally Broke the Mob.

1. I read this after reading Donnie Brasco, so I was a bit disappointed in the comparison in the style of writing. But after setting that aside, I found this to be an excellent book with incredible detail in the 'catching the crook' process. Bravo Jules Bonavolonta!



2. Former FBI agent Jules Bonavolonta describes departmental efforts to investigate and prosecute member of the mob/mafia in New York City. We see how the FBI used legal surveillance means like wiretaps, bugs, and undercover agents including the legendary Joe Pistone ("Donnie Brasco") in their oft-successful efforts to bring down top mobsters including the "Teflon Don" John Gotti and many other figures. Bonavolonta has quite a bit of scorn for mobsters, plus FBI employees who collect their paychecks without any extra effort. This readable book gives a nice view of the mob workings and FBI opposition, but I'd have preferred less cursing and machismo from the author.



3. This book is an embarrassment to law enforcement personnel and to Itatlian Americans in particular. The author must have paid someone under the table to obtain a college degree. I counted the use of the "F" word and gave up around 150. The author, a managerial factotum in the FBI is forever worshipping his superiors (Louis Freeh and His Eminence James Kallstrom) to a degree ad nauseam. No wonder, now in the private sector, this flunkie and illiterate is now again serving his masters (Freeh/Kallstrom)in bank security. Perhaps he should have started there.



4. Overall, I enjoyed Mr. Bonavolonta's story of the breaking up of the Italian Mafia. There were many facts I did not know, especially those told from an insider's perspective, plus interesting insights into the day to day operations of both the F.B.I. and the Mafia.

   However, I found several of what I considered glaring weaknesses.

   First, the excess profanity. Believe me, I am not a prude by any measure, and I definitely believe that profanity has its place in literature, especially when used in quotations. However, I found Mr. Bonavolonta's excessive and promiscuous use of it to be, at first offensive, then boring, and finally insulting to my intelligence. Is it that Mr. Bonavolonta felt that his audience is made up of the dense and unsophisticated, unable to understand frustration with the burocracy and unimaginative, stodgy time servers within the F.B.I. unless he calls them motherfuckers and the system bullshit, over and over and over again? Mr. Bonavolonta needs to be aquainted with the concept that, sometimes, less is more.

   Second, I found that Mr. Bonavolonta's apparent view that the F.B.I. operated in a virtual vacuum while investigating organized crime and the Italian Mafia to be ridiculous and pedestrian in the extreme. There were many other law enforcement organizations involved in these wars, and to minimize or exclude them from the telling of this story does a great diservice to them, to Mr. Bonavolonta's reputation as a accurate reporter of facts, and especially to the reader.




5. Very few Americans realize the reach of the Mafia. For decades, the FBI even refused to admit to the presence of a Mafia. The Mob thumbed their noses at law enforcement. Punks like John Gotti became cult heroes. Then came an incredible confluence of a new breed of FBI agents and a new law, the RICO statute. RICO only required that the government prove a pattern of racketeering activity. This allowed them to go after the bosses, who had only issued orders. "The Good Guys" is an enthralling story of how a group of FBI agents in New York, and a few prosecutors, made an all-out assault on the Mafia, using wiretaps, bugs, undercover agents, and surveillance. How they brought the Mob to its knees.

   The author of the book, FBI agent Jules Bonavolonta, grew up in an Italian family in which his father's tailor shop was a target for Mafia intimidation and extortion. Some of the other players you know well. Rudy Guliani, now Mayor of New York. Louie Freeh, now director of the FBI. Not known at the time, but agent Joe Pistone played a key role. He was undercover in the Mob for six years and got so tight with one of the bosses, that he, Joe Pistone, FBI agent, was asked to carry out a contract for a Mob killing!

   And my favorite, Jim Kallstrom, who was the FBI agent in charge of the squads that did the bugging and wiretapping of the Mob in the New York City area. Kallstrom is the sometimes gruff, and always intimidating, spokesman for the FBI on the TWA flight 800 crash. I relate more to him because I did some lock picking and bugging of the Mafia as a criminal investigator for the U.S. Treasury Department - and later the same kind of work as a CIA agent in several foreign countries.

   The book is a behind-the-scenes look at how Mob figures were targeted, bugged, wiretapped, and surveilled, and is like no other real-life story I have seen in print. It is full of gripping suspense and unexpected humor, like when an agent got caught under the bed of a bigtime mobster and told the wiseguy that he was the exterminator man. And the guy bought it! No Einsteins in this group.

   But too, this is a remarkably frank book in which Jules Bonavolonta and other agents express their complete contempt for the "pencil-necked geeks" at FBI headquarters. They rail against the bean counters who want instant statistics to parade before the Congress and the press. This group of mutineers put their careers on the line every day in their passionate belief that they had to do some long-term work to infiltrate and expose the Mob. As a man who worked for both Treasury and CIA, I respect this small group of FBI agents as much for their willingness to tell the bosses to go climb a rope, as their determination and courage in finally making the cases that brought down the Mob families in New York.

   I'm a novelist, but I would have a tough time topping the story told in "The Good Guys." At times, it is hard to believe that it is a true story. It would be impossible for you not to enjoy this book.

   Richard C. Rhodes rcr@gte.ne

1 comments about The Shelton Gang: They Played in Peoria.

1. While slightly disorganized in the earlier chapters, this slim book by a Peoria newspaperman is still an entertaining read and contains some new information on the notorious Shelton brothers of Illinois. While not neglecting their Twenties feud with Charlie Birger and Thirties battles with the Cuckoos gang in East St. Louis, the bulk of the book deals with their latter days in Peoria. Photo quality leaves something to be desired but there are some pictures I haven't seen before. It's well worth picking up though Taylor Pensoneau's "Brothers Notorious" remains the essential biography of the Sheltons.

No comments about Mala Femina: A Woman's Life s the Daughter of a Don.

2 comments about A Devil Incarnate: From Altar Boy to Alcatraz--The Autobiography of William Radkay #666AZ.

1. Everything in the universe is circular and Willie Radkay made the full circle. From altar boy to Alcatraz to model citizen. But don't let that fool you. This is no boring namby-pamby "born again" ex-con tale that leaves out the juicy stuff. This is Willie's own story, as he related it to his niece Patty Terry, who has excellently "captured" his whole life story. The cops had to shoot Willie at least twelve times in the course of his various captures and he carried most of that lead around for the rest of his ninety-five years. A bank robber and escape artist from the classic gangster era, Willie's story is violent, dramatic, and even humorous at times and despite his crimes, his streak of rebellion, sense of humor, and sheer cantankerousness unveil a downright likeable rogue, as well as a true survivor who just had to make good in the end. His years on the Rock (with "pen pals" like "Machine Gun" Kelly, Basil "The Owl" Banghart, Harvey Bailey, Eddie Bentz, Alvin Karpis, and Jimmy Murray) are covered in detail and make for essential Alcatraz reading. The details may not always jibe with official reports but those reports aren't always right and Willie was there when it happened. If you ever wanted to talk with a former public enemy, this book is as close as you'll ever get.



2. I lived on Alcatraz Island and am very familiar with the History of the Federal Penitentiary years [1934-1963]. I have met "Willie" and have been fascinated by his life on Alcatraz [1945-1952]. "Willie's" niece Patty has successfully captured him in print. It is as if "Willie" was in the room with you, telling his story. This book should be read by anyone interested in the Gangster Era and Alcatraz Island. It will give you a NEW view of a vanished Era. Very well done. Easy to read!

No comments about Do You Sincerely Want to Be Rich?: The Full Story of Bernard Cornfeld and I.O.S. (Library of Larceny).

No comments about The Great Cole Younger and Frank James Historical Wild West Show.

No comments about Outlaw Tales of Idaho: True Stories of the Gem State's Most Infamous Crooks, Culprits, and Cutthroats (Outlaw Tales).