1 comments about Mr. Nasty: A Confession.

1. While Cameron White may not be a nasty person as the title implies, he has definately seen his share of nasty situations and nasty people.
   
   With an easily accessible writing style, Cameron White takes the reader on a very frank, exciting and realistic foray into the world and lifespan of a student turned entreprenuar.
   
   The protagonist is a very likable guy, and anyone who has seen the periphery of society can relate to his experiences that at times can be linkened to walking on egg shells resting on razor blades.
   
   Using a series of locations as different as his experiences, from London to LA to Berlin to Thailand to Sydney, Cameron shows that we can outrun our problems but we can't outrun ourselves.
   
   Mr Nasty is an excellent read, especially for those who like to flirt with danger and can relate to the experience of buying drugs.

5 comments about A Prison Diary.

1. Prison Diary is, by far, one of the most interesting books I have ever read. While some believe that Archer is egocentric (he does talk about himself quite a bit), I believe this adds importance to the story. Archer was part of the political system, yet he had no idea how horribly the prisons were run. He is now experiencing day to day life in the highest security prison in England. For a first-time offender, that has to be extremely overwhelming! He may complain about his conditions and the ordeals of his daily life, but wouldn't you if you were given a four year sentence for something that should have only gotten community service? His stories of the drug dealings, the prisoners inside the "lifers" wing, and the problems the guards face bring a new insight into prison life. Because Archer was not the "typical" con, everyone felt as if they could talk to him, thus, making this a well-rounded novel on the system. Overall, this is a well-written novel sure to shake things up a bit.



2. What a shock to the system,but what a good read this was as well.To go from the very top to the bottom in one easy lesson!
   Loryn Potroz



3. I actually originally read Volume III Heaven before finding a copy of Volume I Hell and have to say I think Heaven was a lot higher in quality than this book. Heaven is also a lot thicker with a lot more pages. In Volume I Archer shows more of himself through his writing than in the final volume which to be honest makes him a little bit less likeable and harder to relate to. In Heaven you assume he is an average guy (I mean you know he is a rich author and politician) but in Hell he portrays his upper class upbringing and lifestyle and comes across rather snobby at times when talking about his fellow inmates backgrounds or describing his conditions. He will only drink bottled water, can't eat the everyday prison food served at meal times even though there's a menu of three alternatives, had never even heard of let alone eaten Coco Pops (these as the same as Coco Puffs for North Americans) before getting them in a multipack of cereal, and in his opinion they weren't as good as Cornflakes. How he was amazed that drugs can get smuggled in obviously means he had never watched normal TV before in his life.
   
   I found that the empathy I had for Archer in Volume III Heaven I just did not have reading Volume I Hell. Surely he also got some of his friends into trouble and a loss of their privileges or another 28 days added onto their sentences by revealing stuff like one of them who worked in the canteen stole him a bottle of water and passed it through the wire. Even if he uses fake names it is not going to be that hard for prison authorities to work out who it was from the dates in his diary. I'm glad he also got rid of the cricket score updates by the trilogy finale as these were pretty boring.
   
   Saying all that though I still found the first volume of the Prison Diaries an entertaining read and an insightful look into the Class A prisons of Britain which I imagine would have many similarities to ones in Australia, North America and elsewhere. I'm just glad that he improved the diaries by the third volume and I will definitely be checking out Volume II Purgatory.



4. Incredible writing, totally expected of Jeffrey Archer.
   He brings his artisary in fiction into this non-fiction giving you great insight in the lives of prisoners who we all love to think of as bad guys.
   At the end of the book, the inmates are no longer bad guys but regular people who just want to get by with their lives living it as best as they can.
   A definite must read for all lovers of a good book.



5. Absolute drivel, poorly written by an angry ego driven con. The only thing that does come out of this is the state of our prison system, Kudos to our Lordship for at least using his celebratory status to raise this issue. However, come on, if you are going to write about being in prison at least let us know that you were scared to death. He never really talks about what was running through his mind all those hours in lock up. If any of these men, including Fletch, had sat next to him at the theatre he would have called security.

5 comments about Mafia Kingpin.

1. I don't know where all the 5-star reviews for this book originated from, but I guess everyone is entitled to their own particular opinion. For me, this book was a massive waste of time and paper. Sonny Gibson has been pretty convincingly exposed as a con-man and charlatan, so I suppose some of this might work as one man's self-aggrandizing fantasy of what he imagines the Mafia is like. (...) Most of it is just ridiculous and/or boring. If you want Mafia fantasy, stick with books like Puzo's "The Godfather." Better yet, read a book that deals with the reality of organized crime, written by an author like Nicholas Pileggi or George Anastasia. What it comes down to, for me, is this- there are so many good books out there to read and only a limited number of hours in a lifetime to read them, so why subject yourself to works like this?



2. I READ "MAFIA KINGPIN" FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 1983, DURING MY SENIOR YEAR IN HIGH SCHOOL, FOR A PROJECT I WAS ASSIGNED TO DO ON THE SUBJECT OF ORGANIZED CRIME. I HAVE READ THE BOOK MANY TIMES SINCE THEN, AND I FIND IT NO LESS EXCITING THAN THE FIRST TIME I READ IT. THIS IS AN EXCELLENT BOOK. BY FAR AND AWAY IT IS ONE OF MY ALL-TIME FAVORITES. TRY IT, YOU'LL LIKE IT! FAST-PACED, EXPLICIT, GRAPHIC, YOU-CAN'T-PUT-IT-DOWN!

   BUT WHATEVER BECAME OF SONNY GIBSON? I UNDERSTAND THAT HE MADE A MOVIE IN 1988 WITH REPARATA MAZZOLA, HIS CO-AUTHOR ON "MAFIA KINGPIN," BUT ASIDE FROM THAT I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MOVIE HE WAS SUPPOSED TO MAKE OF HIS LIFE IN CRIME, AND HIS TRANSFORMATION TO CHRISTIANITY? IS HE STILL AN ACTOR? DOES HE HAVE A WEB SITE (IF HE DOES -- I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO FIND IT), AN EMAIL ADDRESS? WHATEVER BECAME OF SONNY GIBSON? DOES ANYONE OUT THERE KNOW? IF YOU HAVE INFO, FEEL FREE TO TELL ME ALL ABOUT IT @ my email address: SCHAGHY@ISD.NET

   THANKS, TED




3. It was one the best books i've read. It is graphic but after you get over that it's GREAT!!! I all most cried when he left Angelo. I wasn't able to put it down.



4. The book was very graphic and accurate. I had the misfortunate to grow in the same type of environment and was exposed to the same lifestyle. The ways of the world and Satan are cruel masters. It's a continuing miracle I didn't have to pay the same price as Sonny Gibson did.



5. I really enjoyed MAFIA KINGIN! It's one of the best mafia books that i have read that have been based on a true story. I passed it along to several friends who felt the same way after reading!

1 comments about Cortina: Defending the Mexican Name in Texas (Fronteras Series,).

1. Masterfully written, narrated, and prodigiously researched for twenty years, Jerry Thompson's Cortina finally provides a balanced and contextualized life of Juan Nepomuceno "Cheno" Cortina. Cortina was a South Texas Mexican ranchero whose fight to "defend the Mexican name" and whose struggle for equality and justice in Texas manifested itself as social banditry that violently culminated in the "Cortina Wars" in the mid-nineteenth century.
   
   Cortina's early social-banditry embodied the frustration and resentment of the countless ethnic Mexicans who for generations had owned and worked the land that would become U.S. territory as a result of the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty, and as a consequence much of it lost to Anglo newcomers via legal, extra-legal and illegal means. Cortina became more than an avenger of perceived and actual wrongs against ethnic Mexicans in Texas, however; he also participated in the major conflicts that convulsed Mexico beginning with the U.S. war on Mexico, through the War of the Reform and the French Intervention. His actions in these conflicts allowed him to ascend to important and powerful Mexican military and political positions from which he emerged as a respected and courageous defender of the Republic prior to the advent of the Pax Porfiriana. His actions often resonated as far away as Washington, Mexico City and even Paris, France. Nonetheless, even in defending the nation, he remained very much a norteño whose allegiance was mostly to his region and ultimately his personal interests.
   
   Thompson rescues Cortina from the one-dimensional "most insolent...bandit" or "red-robber of the Rio Grande" caricature found in earlier histories by authors such as J. Frank Dobie, Walter Prescott Webb and others by providing us with a rich tapestry of a "man of immense nuances, contradictions, paradoxical views, and incredible survival instincts." He presents a fully fleshed-out, warts-and-all man, properly contextualized in the chaotic times of a violent and vivid land. Thompson has assuredly enriched the body of knowledge of both Mexican and Texas history.

1 comments about Through a Mother's Eyes.

1. 'Through a Mother's Eyes' presents a chilling look at human nature in a context where the lines between right and wrong are obscured. It is compellingly written account of one woman's life and what drove her to the brink. It neither condemns her actions nor supports them but leaves one to wonder how close the edge really is for every one of us. It seems that the author is writing with this purpose in mind...to bring to our attention how seemingly small 'everyday' choices and events build up. They shape our personality, perception, thought and justification process, and eventually our actions as surely as water shapes sandstone. It is a fascinating but tragic study in human nature but one that should not be missed.

5 comments about John Dillinger: The Life and Death of America's First Celebrity Criminal.

1. Of the many books on Dillinger this one belongs in the upper half but does have its flaws. If anyone reading about Dillinger for the first time thinks his nickname was the "Jackrabbit"-this book is to blame, only a very few times was this name put to him and it was more of a descriptive word explaning his jumping over tellers stations. There are many worse books on Dillinger but there are a few that are better.



2. I was really looking forward to reading this book but I am very disappointed after doing so. Not only is the book riddled with errors, but the writing style is childish, to put it mildly, and very irritating. I find it hard to believe that Matera has actually written other books! Most annoying is Matera's constant use of clichés. If a high school freshman had written this book as a term paper, it would come back to him marked up with so much red that you wouldn't be able to see what he had written. On top of that, Matera's incorrect use of words is actually pathetic and his attempt to sound "hip" is not only corny but it's also not appropriate for the time period he is describing. The book is also loaded with so many factual errors that it loses all credibility.
   
   I will try an experiment to prove this point. I am going to randomly open the book and see what I come up with.....O.K.- on page 46, Matera mentions a Kroger store robbed by Dillinger and his gang. Matera says that Kroger was a department store and that it was the precursor to K-Mart. Not so! Kroger IS a grocery store and it has absolutely nothing to do with K-Mart. In fact, a quick check of the facts reveals that Kroger is 125 years old and it is the third largest retailer in the United States after Walmart and Home Depot. It still exists and is thriving. Not only is it NOT a precursor to K-Mart, but it isn't even in the same business!
   
   Every page filled with such errors. I really got a kick out of the quotes supposedly made by Dillinger's father. If you have seen old film clips of Dillinger's father, you know that he was a simple, uneducated farmer. But the quotes attributed to him by Matera sound as if they were made by a PhD!
   
   Apparently, the publishers never bothered to even proof-read this book because it is filled with spelling errors, grammatical errors, and punctuation errors. That may not matter to some readers but it indicates a carelessness that permeates this book. This is an example of very poor writing. I cannot recommend this book. There are much better books on the subject.



3. When I climbed into "John Dillinger's getaway car," a 1933 Hudson Terraplane, and ripped off a piece of the torn leather back seat, I had no idea just how famous, or infamous, Dillinger really was. Fortunately for me, I was but a child, Dillinger was recently dead, and his car was on display at a local fair which was passing through town. I still have that small piece of leather, so, as you might imagine, I've always had an interest in John Dillinger, even though I've never taken the trouble to read much about him.
   
   Prior to reading this book, about all I knew was that Dillinger was a bank robber and that he was gunned down in front of the Biograph Theater in Chicago thanks to the mysterious "lady in red," who, as it turns out, wasn't even wearing red. But, as you will find by reading this book, John Dillinger was more than a simple bank robber and his brief career as America's "Public Enemy #1" involved much more than mere bank robbery. As a matter of fact, his adventures and misadventures were so surprising and interesting, and at times death defying, that, although I already knew the outcome, I found myself rooting for John to pull it off one last time and somehow escape the long arm of the law. But of course, that was not to be.
   
   I really enjoyed this book, once it got rolling, i.e., when Dillinger was paroled after ten years in prison and began the career which made him famous throughout the world and which helped J. Edgar Hoover create the FBI. My only complaint about the book, and it's a small one, is that in the beginning I came feel that the author was overdoing it. By that I mean that he was attempting to convince his readers of the book's authenticity by stating the name and history of every person that Dillinger ever knew and every street address at which he had ever visited or lived. Once the story got moving, however, there was no putting the book down. I only wish it had had a slightly happier ending, but, then, I sat in Dillinger's getaway car.



4. "John Dillinger" by Dary Matera proved to be the page-turner I hoped it would be when I purchased it purely on impulse.
   
   Matera gives brief attention to the early life of America's favorite Depression-era desperado, noting the death of his mother when Johnny was a three-year-old and his early forays into small-time crime. Sentenced to a "whopping ten-to-twenty" in the penitentiary for his youthful crimes in 1924, Dillinger spent nine years in the pen before being granted clemency by Indiania Governor Paul V. McNutt in May 1933.
   
   In the fourteen remaining months of his life, Dillinger engaged in a crime spree, robbing banks, raiding police stations for weapons, and staging jail breaks to become America's most colorful prince of thieves and Public Enemy Number One. The narrative is swept along with one shoot-out and getaway after another, and the cast of characters includes all the gangsters I was fascinated with as a boy -- Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, Homer Van Meter, Alvin Karpis, and a dozen others in Dillinger's changing gang of thugs.
   
   The gun molls play their part and the often-bumbling lawmen, with J. Edgar Hoover at the head of the newly-formed FBI. There was a tender side to Dillinger, shown to his family and girlfriends, his generosity with the needy, and a fierce sense of loyalty to his gang members, for whom he would risk his life to insure their freedom.
   
   Demonstrably well researched, the book has few flaws other than an occasional factual slip-up and a few niggling errors of syntax that annoyed me. But it is definitely a rip roaring read!



5. The other reviewers are kinder than I--I got 50 pages in before I gave up on the book, annoyed by the author's factual errors; odd attempts at humor, such as making a pun based on a getaway driver's name, Parker; contemporary slang, such as stating that Dillinger's gun was "righteous heat;" and down right peculiar observations, such as calling a Kroger grocery store "a precursor to K-Mart." There are so many other books on Dillinger that there is no need to wade through this one.

5 comments about BAD: The Autobiography of James Carr (NABAT).

1. to quote richard pryor"thank god we got penitentiaries"a very well writen and imformative book of the california prison system of the late 50s early 60s. a fairly accurate account of the start of the california prison system race war that raged into the 70s and is still felt today.
   this book fails in the same way that 99% of the other books about the black prison experience fail,no responsibility(see monster).it's always the same refrain,it`s not my fault. the system or whitey made me do it.thats bull.i had relatives in the same prisons at the same time as carr and i have never heard them blame anyone but themselves.
   at the end i did`nt buy the idea that carr turned his life around.people who turn their life around don`t usually get gunned down in their own driveway



2. Prison ain't a picnic now, but it was much worse in Carr's time. Much of Bad recounts his sadistic brutality (in and out of the joint) with transparent pride. Carr is the "wolf" archetype, thriving inside by taking advantage of anyone dumber or weaker. He's a unique, powerful storyteller - for better or worse, depending how hard your belly is. Before he starts to reflect (which he only does, in earnest, in the conclusion-cum-manifesto), he regails us on his murders and rapes, sparing nothing but any remorse he might feel. Only Jim Goad and Iceberg Slim paint prison life in starker colors, or glean deeper philosophical insight from the experience... but don't get offended by Bad and claim you weren't warned.



3. It's a fascinating book. Incredible actually when you discover that Carr began his preparing for his career as an inmate when he was 9 yrs old. Note: he committed robberies etc. inside and outside of jail, but he was not a professional criminal. He was a professional inmate; and as such, he was cunning, devious, and diabolical. He was also - although he'd deny it - assexual. The only sex he had outside of prison occurred during gang rapes or trains just as if he was in prison. Sex was mechanical; simply a way of displaying power. Be that as it was, it is even more incredible that he was studying and enjoying calculas. What a wasted life.



4. I read this book when it was first published and until recently had always wondered why Carr was killed. I always felt that it was a contract murder but didnt have a clue as to why the contract on carr was carried out. Mr carr was it seems a very bright, well versed man. It" interseting to note that despite all the violence and mayhem. of which Carr contributed was a very itelligent man who was never able to seperate his inate intelligence from his penchant for violence. Mr carr was a victim of his past deeds and very much a product of the era in which he lived. A good read, disturbing because conditions in California State Prisons remain for the most very much the same today as they did in Carr"s time.



5. The book is very well written and not at all dated. Best Prison book I've read. Extremely honest. Deals with race wars, sexual predators, murder...This guy doesn't make excuses, he just tells it how it is. He admits that he was a guy who didn't want to work so he did liquor store robberies. Every time he got out of prison, the first thing he did was get caught for something & sent back. He was in prision during the time that the Mexican Mafia was starting and has some interesting insight on that. Very involved in race wars and riots. It's interesting how he moves from institution to institution (San Quentin, Tracy, LA County, among others) and always runs into cons that he knows. This guy was so bad that he got moved from a juvenile facility to San Quentin at the age of 16. An all around bad guy. Great read.

2 comments about Hoffa.

1. Sloane takes us on a journey through Hoffa's life. From his early childhood, to the end. Sloane spends time on Hoffa's relationship with Ferral Dobbs and the tactics and strategies that he learned in Minneapolis that Made Hoffa one of the most effective Union organizers of all time. This book literally cuts through the crap and vilification and shows Hoffa the man, the Union organizer, and the Union leader. A must read



2. Good book, well I don't know much else to say, I read it a long time ago, but I remember being enthrulled with it; I couldn't put it down!

No comments about The Mad Trapper: The Incredible Tale of a Famous Canadian Manhunt (An Amzing Stories Book).

1 comments about Sins of the Father: The True Story of A Family Running From the Mob.

1. I liked this unusual point of view on the world of organized crime - the experience of a family preparing to vanish from their lives into a Witness Protection Program. Details of the father's criminal involvement are secondary to the problems and fears of the wife and two teenage sons. Narration shifts between the voice of the older son and the father, a technique which works fairly well. Taylor must have conducted some pretty intensive interviews to get the subjects to talk in such detail about what they thought and how they coped during such a weird time in their lives.