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Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book, well-written!
Review: This book is one of those undiscovered treasures that really should have been more popular than it was. A lot of us know that Washington D.C.'s mayor was arrested for crack cocaine, but we really never got the inside story just from reading the papers. Agronsky dug deeper, and presents his findings in such a way that it makes for fascinating reading. Marion Barry's behavior is presented in a non-judgmental manner, I thought. Indeed, Barry's actions spoke for themselves. We all saw the surveillance tape of Barry smoking the crack pipe, but Agronsky gives us the full story of what went on behind the scenes. Yes, it was disturbing to see the mayor of this country's capital city smoking crack cocaine; however, as Agronsky reveals, Barry at first resisted smoking the crack, because he wanted to lay off the pipe. It was only after a lot of prodding that Barry finally took a few hits. ...Was he set up? Judge for yourself. To me, it was interesting how nobody was blameless in the whole Barry crack scandal. To be sure, Barry himself was a scumbag. (He went up to the hotel room to cheat on his wife, which itself is bad enough.) But the feds who busted him did not strike me as being much higher in character than Barry. My only gripe with the book is that it was not long enough. Agronsky relates the story of the sting operation in rich detail, but by the end of the book, he fast-forwards through time, squeezing months into each chapter. Agronsky is a superb investigative reporter, and I wish he would write more books!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book, well-written!
Review: This book is one of those undiscovered treasures that really should have been more popular than it was. A lot of us know that Washington D.C.'s mayor was arrested for crack cocaine, but we really never got the inside story just from reading the papers. Agronsky dug deeper, and presents his findings in such a way that it makes for fascinating reading. Marion Barry's behavior is presented in a non-judgmental manner, I thought. Indeed, Barry's actions spoke for themselves. We all saw the surveillance tape of Barry smoking the crack pipe, but Agronsky gives us the full story of what went on behind the scenes. Yes, it was disturbing to see the mayor of this country's capital city smoking crack cocaine; however, as Agronsky reveals, Barry at first resisted smoking the crack, because he wanted to lay off the pipe. It was only after a lot of prodding that Barry finally took a few hits. ...Was he set up? Judge for yourself. To me, it was interesting how nobody was blameless in the whole Barry crack scandal. To be sure, Barry himself was a scumbag. (He went up to the hotel room to cheat on his wife, which itself is bad enough.) But the feds who busted him did not strike me as being much higher in character than Barry. My only gripe with the book is that it was not long enough. Agronsky relates the story of the sting operation in rich detail, but by the end of the book, he fast-forwards through time, squeezing months into each chapter. Agronsky is a superb investigative reporter, and I wish he would write more books!
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