GOOD GUYS : How We Turned the FBI 'Round Q and Finally Broke the Mob

Rating:
Summary: Lots of information; too much profanity; written for low IQ
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: English 001
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A Gang of Mutineer FBI Agents Brings Down the Mafia!
Review: Very few Americans realize the reach of the Mafia. For decades, the FBI even refused to admit tothe presence of a Mafia. The Mob thumbed their noses at law enforcement. Punks like John Gottibecame cult heroes. Then came an incredible confluence of a new breed of FBI agents and a newlaw, the RICO statute. RICO only required that the government prove a pattern of racketeeringactivity. 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, madean all-out assault on the Mafia, using wiretaps, bugs, undercover agents, and surveillance. Howthey brought the Mob to its knees.

The author of the book, FBI agent Jules Bonavolonta, grew up in an Italian family in which hisfather's tailor shop was a target for Mafia intimidation and extortion. Some of the other playersyou 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 Mobfor six years and got so tight with one of the bosses, that he, Joe Pistone, FBI agent, was asked tocarry out a contract for a Mob killing!

And my favorite, Jim Kallstrom, who was the FBI agent incharge 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 TWAflight 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, andsurveilled, and is like no other real-life story I have seen in print. It is full of gripping suspense andunexpected humor, like when an agent got caught under the bed of a bigtime mobster and told thewiseguy 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 expresstheir complete contempt for the "pencil-necked geeks" at FBI headquarters. They rail against thebean 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." Attimes, it is hard to believe that it is a true story. It would be impossible for you not to enjoy thisbook.

Richard C. Rhodes [e-mail]