The operatives of the Pinkerton s National Detective Agency were renowned for their skills of subterfuge, infiltration, and investigation, none more so than James McParland. So thrilling were McParland s cases that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle included the cunning detective in a story along with Sherlock Holmes.
Riffenburgh digs deep into the recently released Pinkerton archives to present the first biography of McParland and the agency s cloak-and-dagger methods. Both action packed and meticulously researched, Pinkerton s Great Detective brings readers along on McParland s most challenging cases: from young McParland s infiltration of the murderous Molly Maguires gang in the case that launched his career to his hunt for the notorious Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch to his controversial investigation of the Western Federation of Mines in the assassination of Idaho s former governor.
Filled with outlaws and criminals, detectives and lawmen, Pinkerton s Great Detective shines a light upon the celebrated secretive agency and its premier sleuth."
"A nice quiet night."
During his two decades on the force, if you asked NYPD officer Steve Osborne how things were going, that's what he'd tell you. On a stakeout? Nice quiet night. Drive by shooting? Nice quiet night. Now, with The Job he's ready to talk, and does he have some stories to tell. Most civilians get their information about police work from television shows, which are pure fantasy. Here, Osborne takes us into his world, the gritty and not so glamorous life of real street cops. And along the way he finds humor and soul searching humanity in the most unlikely places. For anyone interested in knowing what a cop's life is all about, this is a must read.
Conducting hundreds of interviews over the course of one year of reporting on the ground, Washington Post writer Wesley Lowery traveled from Ferguson, Missouri, to Cleveland, Ohio; Charleston, South Carolina; and Baltimore, Maryland; and then back to Ferguson to uncover life inside the most heavily policed, if otherwise neglected, corners of America today.
In an effort to grasp the magnitude of the repose to Michael Brown's death and understand the scale of the problem police violence represents, Lowery speaks to Brown's family and the families of other victims other victims' families as well as local activists. By posing the question, "What does the loss of any one life mean to the rest of the nation?" Lowery examines the cumulative effect of decades of racially biased policing in segregated neighborhoods with failing schools, crumbling infrastructure and too few jobs.
Studded with moments of joy, and tragedy, They Can't Kill Us All offers a historically informed look at the standoff between the police and those they are sworn to protect, showing that civil unrest is just one tool of resistance in the broader struggle for justice. As Lowery brings vividly to life, the protests against police killings are also about the black community's long history on the receiving end of perceived and actual acts of injustice and discrimination.
They Can't Kill Us All is a canonical work in the fight against police brutality. Lowery grapples with a persistent if also largely unexamined aspect of the otherwise transformative presidency of Barack Obama: the failure to deliver tangible security and opportunity to those Americans most in need of both.
#1 New York Times Bestseller
#1 Washington Post Bestseller
#1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller
On March 16, 2018, just twenty-six hours before his scheduled retirement from the organization he had served with distinction for more than two decades, Andrew G. McCabe was fired from his position as deputy director of the FBI. President Donald Trump celebrated on Twitter: "Andrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI - A great day for Democracy."
In The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump, Andrew G. McCabe offers a dramatic and candid account of his career, and an impassioned defense of the FBI's agents, and of the institution's integrity and independence in protecting America and upholding our Constitution.
McCabe started as a street agent in the FBI's New York field office, serving under director Louis Freeh. He became an expert in two kinds of investigations that are critical to American national security: Russian organized crime--which is inextricably linked to the Russian state--and terrorism. Under Director Robert Mueller, McCabe led the investigations of major attacks on American soil, including the Boston Marathon bombing, a plot to bomb the New York subways, and several narrowly averted bombings of aircraft. And under James Comey, McCabe was deeply involved in the controversial investigations of the Benghazi attack, the Clinton Foundation's activities, and Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server when she was secretary of state.
The Threat recounts in compelling detail the time between Donald Trump's November 2016 election and McCabe's firing, set against a page-turning narrative spanning two decades when the FBI's mission shifted to a new goal: preventing terrorist attacks on Americans. But as McCabe shows, right now the greatest threat to the United States comes from within, as President Trump and his administration ignore the law, attack democratic institutions, degrade human rights, and undermine the U.S. Constitution that protects every citizen.
Important, revealing, and powerfully argued, The Threat tells the true story of what the FBI is, how it works, and why it will endure as an institution of integrity that protects America.
In the late 1600s, Louis XIV assigns Nicolas de la Reynie to bring order to Paris after the brutal deaths of two magistrates. Reynie, pragmatic and fearless, discovers a network of witches, poisoners, and priests whose reach extends all the way to the king's court at Versailles. Based on court transcripts and Reynie's compulsive note-taking, Holly Tucker's engrossing true-crime narrative makes the characters breathe on the page as she follows the police chief into the dark labyrinths of crime-ridden Paris, the halls of royal palaces, secret courtrooms, and torture chambers.
Once considered a borderless and chaotic virtual landscape, the Internet is now home to the forces of international law and order. It's not just computer hackers and cyber crooks who lurk in the dark corners of the Web--the cops are there, too.
In The Internet Police, Ars Technica deputy editor Nate Anderson takes readers on a behind-the-screens tour of landmark cybercrime cases, revealing how criminals continue to find digital and legal loopholes even as police hurry to cinch them closed. From the Cleveland man whose "natural male enhancement" pill inadvertently protected the privacy of your e-mail to the Russian spam king who ended up in a Milwaukee jail to the Australian arrest that ultimately led to the breakup of the largest child pornography ring in the United States, Anderson draws on interviews, court documents, and law-enforcement reports to reconstruct accounts of how online policing actually works. Questions of online crime are as complex and interconnected as the Internet itself. With each episode in The Internet Police, Anderson shows the dark side of online spaces--but also how dystopian a fully "ordered" alternative would be.
Includes an afterword that details law enforcement's dramatic seizure of the online black market Silk Road.
Bringing to light an entertaining array of anecdotes, this collection of police stories recalls some of the strangest, funniest, and most poignant accounts from the freeways, highways, and country roads throughout California. From the family who pulled over for a picnic on the median strip of a busy freeway to the angelic-looking 5-year-old girl who defused a tense traffic stop by sweetly confessing, ""my daddy has a beer under the seat,"" this is an uncompromising view of the everyday pursuits, enforcement stops, arrests, accidents, and weird encounters that patrolmen must endure. Also featured is a panoply of unlikely drunk-driving suspects, including Santa Claus, a Boy Scout troop leader, a newlywed couple, and an airline pilot on his way to fly a plane; the traffic stop of an elderly driver whose license had expired 35 years earlier--and who explained he was on his way to the DMV; and many more hilarious, odd, and tragic stories of life and death on the open road. Encouraging a renewed respect for the men and women in uniform who risk their lives to protect the public, this compilation also contains advice on highway safety and how to behave when pulled over by a patrol officer.
How does it feel to be in a high-speed car chase? What is it like to shoot someone? What do cops really think about the citizens they serve? Nearly everyone has wondered what it's like to be a police officer, but no civilian really understands what happens on the job. "400 Things Cops Know" shows police work on the inside, from the viewpoint of the regular cop on the beat--a profession that can range from rewarding to bizarre to terrifying, all within the course of an eight-hour shift. Written by veteran police sergeant Adam Plantinga, "400 Things Cops Know" brings the reader into life the way cops experience it--a life of danger, frustration, occasional triumph, and plenty of grindingly hard routine work. In a laconic, no-nonsense, dryly humorous style, Plantinga tells what he's learned from 13 years as a patrolman, from the everyday to the exotic--how to know at a glance when a suspect is carrying a weapon or is going to attack, how to kick a door down, how to drive in a car chase without recklessly endangering the public, why you should always carry cigarettes, even if you don't smoke (offering a smoke is the best way to lure a suicide to safety), and what to do if you find a severed limb (don't put it on ice--you need to keep it dry.) "400 Things Cops Know" deglamorizes police work, showing the gritty, stressful, sometimes disgusting reality of life on patrol, from the possibility of infection--criminals don't always practice good hygiene--to the physical, psychological, and emotional toll of police work. Plantinga shows what cops experience of death, the legal system, violence, prostitution, drug use, the social causes and consequences of crime, alcoholism, and more. Sometimes heartbreaking and often hilarious, "400 Things Cops Know" is an eye-opening revelation of what life on the beat is really all about.
