Rating: 
Summary: Immediate and Current Accuracy
Review: Espionage exerts a hold on the public imagination. Race Against Evil covers Interpol, intelligence and the fight against child sex slavery and terrorism. In the fast-moving, slightly blurred world of intelligence operations it is often hard for anyone except aficionados to distinguish between the authentic and the dross. Alas, there is all too much of the latter, often masquerading as the genuine article, but David Bannon's Race Against Evil is emphatically in the former category, written by a plain-spoken ex-agent who, unlike many of his intelligence and military colleagues, writes with humility and a deep understanding of espionage. The result is a balanced memoir packed with good case histories.
Rating:
Summary: A lively and involving work
Review: David Race Bannon's "Race Against Evil" captures the verve and mastery of exceptional true crime writing. It is a lively and involving work. Race Against Evil has earned some of the best word of mouth--and every word of it is justified. As a penetrating character study it's nonpareil, with the dual "Race" of the title brilliantly realized. David Race Bannon is a missionary who gets caught up in smuggling, at which point he encounters the intrepid Jacques Defferre. He is recruited by Defferre into Interpol and taught to loathe terrorism and child pornography and all its offshoots--with lethal results. Bannon has transformed the espionage expose into something more than factual repetition. If the author's own race against human sex traffic is sometimes foregrounded, he speaks from experience and this is still an author at his considerable best.
Rating:
Summary: A realistic jaunt into espionage
Review: Taut, clever and avowedly unglamourous, Bannon has a great gift for writing. I found this book more than occupied me for a 6 hour train journey through Germany. A small department of Interpol is assigned to eliminate child slavers and terrorists. The book effectively shows the transience of any moral justification for assassination. Nothing that you read here is fanciful or contrived, but the crimes against children may be a little too realistic for readers who merely want an espionage thriller. Bannon's ability to conjure up images of this worn-out organization with its old-fashioned worthiness is one of the joys of this book. The convincing descriptions of Romania and Asia were also highly enjoyable. Whilst reading this book, I happened to be sitting in an ageing train, half expecting my papers to be demanded by surly communist officer.
Rating:
Summary: Dense, tightly paced thriller that reads like a top-notch cr
Review: This is a dense yet tightly paced thriller that reads like a top-notch crime novel and has more angles than a dodecahedron. Bannon's cast seems to have been recruited from the dank, smoke-filled and, invariably, black-and-white alleyways and bars more commonly conjured by Philip Marlowe or Raymond Chandler. Yet this is not make-believe, but horribly, vividly and even nauseatingly real. It is a thoroughly entertaining and satisfying read. Bannon's writing demonstrates his backbreaking research and is spiced with just enough emotion and personality to avoid the banal tone of a travelogue memoir but not go over the top into a morality play. He salts his narrative with bare facts and internal questions that rarely have answers. I hope that Bannon sells the film rights to this book to a foreign director. I don't know if an American could capture the sense of 'film noir' that the story demands. Bannon has done a fantastic job of bringing the details and motivations behind Interpol officers and the criminals they hunt to light. Far more than an autobiographical recounting of events, the author sheds valuable insight on the meaning of faith, good and evil within a daily barrage of violence. He skillfully weaves the facts of crimes and investigations with the disturbing details of the child slavers' narcissistic, sociopathic personality traits. The reader is taken inside Interpol and made to understand how his boss captivated an entire department and came to believe he was above the laws of man. A captivating story from beginning to end that forces us to look inside and to question those in whom we place our faith and trust. A page-turning true crime story that should come with a disclaimer: Read only on a weekend when you don't have early morning plans.
Rating:
Summary: Grim and unputdownable!
Review: This account of the instantly loathsome child molesters makes you want to scream "kill them" or "Take your kids and run". A true hero story. Thank God that Bannon found the strength and the courage to eventually tell his story. Read this book - it is worth the purchase price. One of those books that you still think about long after you've read the last page! Fascinating.
Rating:
Summary: Seeking Bannon
Review: Race Against Evil is a fascinating, highly readable and weighty addition to the relatively small number of worthwhile books about Interpol. It is a remarkable achievement that any student of the intelligence community should read. Often regarded as a mystery, Interpol (the world association of national police forces for mutual assistance in the fight against international crimes and criminal conspiracies) is analysed and exposed in this book by a retired officer of the organisation, and its inner workings scrutinized. Untold tales of undercover work, conspiracies and outstanding bravery constitute Bannon's personal account, in which he avoids more than a brief description of Interpol in the 1930s and the murky years when it fell into the hands of the Gestapo, focusing instead on its renaissance in the 1980s. Interpol is one of the world's most elusive organisations. Its operations remain veiled from scrutiny and to write about Interpol risks harassment and prosecution, as former members and current commentators know to their cost. Like Britain's most celebrated spymaster, William Stephenson (known by the telegraphic address, Intrepid, used for the British Security Coordination (BSC) office he ran in New York), David Bannon has been taking flak for his autobiography, Race Against Evil. But the life of the professional spy is by nature one of secret accomplishment and shadowy triumph. Trying to shine a light into this world, especially twenty years on, is a daunting exercise. If it accomplishes nothing else, it should serve to remind us of the dark world faced by such individuals. Like so many Interpol agents, Bannon contributed silently, exercising his skills behind the scenes. The nature of the business is that he and his colleagues went largely unsung. It's part of the mythology. Efforts to emerge from the shadows naturally engender scepticism. Large, reliable news services have validated many of the facts presented in the book. Only one source - a small weekly (circ. 9,000) in the southern United States - questioned Bannon's intelligence adventures, doing so without interviews, research or qualified reportage and therefore it is irrelevant to an educated discussion of the verifiable facts presented in the book. There is little question that Bannon has an honourable record and that he served Interpol admirably. His publications in Asian affairs and many translations - he read history at Seoul National University - are easy for any competent researcher to confirm. The larger question relates to the substance of his clandestine career. In this, the enigmatic nature of Interpol has pretty well doomed Bannon from the start. The fact that Interpol is still shrouded in public contradictions and official secrecy makes for a challenging research environment. To this day, many of the people from Bannon's Interpol circle cling tenaciously to their code of secrecy. It is very difficult to pry information from them. Of great interest are Bannon's personal details of French-born master spy Jacques H. Defferre, to whom Interpol gave the code name Archie, who died this year at age 67 in Marseilles, France. Protean in his exploits, Defferre served as a commissioner in Interpol. During the Vietnam War, Jacques Defferre set up Interpol's spy operations in Asia and coordinated the exchange of intelligence between France and South Korea. In this capacity, he also served as a trusted and confidential intermediary between South Korea's President Park Chunghee and Interpol. Defferre's influence extended to helping shape Interpol intelligence and special operations capabilities, namely the investigative branch Rosetta and its enforcement arm, Archangel, both assigned to investigate international child traffic. Among the operations undertaken by Defferre as head of the Rosetta Division at his La Verpillere based operation was assassination of slavers. Accounts of his division's successes helped inspire awareness of the child sex trade at international conferences. A full accounting of Defferre's service has proven elusive: a reflection of the trade of intelligence and the personality of those with a vocation for it. I suspect Defferre was amused by all the controversy surrounding him. That he seems to have taken many of his secrets safely to the grave is the spy's ultimate achievement. Epitomised in the public imagination by James Bond, Interpol's svelte and glamorous image has been peeled away by Bannon's searching revelations to reveal a less savoury truth. Here is the story of Interpol's recruitment of former criminals during the 1980s; campaigns against child sex rings in Europe and Asia; Operation Archangel; and many other little-known operations. The dealings of the Belgian Beast Marc Dutroux, the Wonderland Club, and North Korean labour camps, among others, are also fully explained, as are the many tensions that have existed and to some extent still exist between Interpol and its sister intelligence organisations especially in contentious areas such as Thailand and South Korea. It is impossible, under the laws presently shielding Interpol, to write about its daily activities. But Interpol has a history, and this book reveals a great deal. Here for the first time is an operational history of Interpol's activities and attitudes. Bannon's is a searching story of the characters and situations in which the games have been played, and of twenty years of international political intriguing, spying and thuggery - all in the name of intelligence. By Geoffrey Ries, a former intelligence officer.
Rating:
Summary: Unforgettable Account
Review: Race Against Evil is David Bannon's unforgettable account of how be became part of the mysterious underworld that is child slavery--the first and only account by an Interpol agent--and it is as amazing and intriguing as the flamboyant, deadly, terrifying world it portrays. Bannon's inclusion of excerpts from actual Interpol documents bring the events of this tale chillingly to life. He narrates this thrilling account of his own experiences as an undercover Interpol agent who successfully infiltrated the dangerous world of child slavery. During an eighteen-year period, but particularly for about five years in the 1980s, Bannon adopted flexible personae to "buy in" to child trafficking networks. Though it reads like a thriller, this work also provides listeners with much concrete information about Interpol intelligence and financial operations, as well as the grotesque world of child sex slavery. Bannon's descriptions of sex slavery rings are shocking, but since his book's publication, the problem has garnered international attention. Delegates to the U.N. General Assembly heard U.S. President George W. Bush condemn the international trade in sex slaves on Sept. 23, 2003. The State Department estimates that at least 800,000 women, children and men are sold across borders each year, Bush said, some "as young as five, who fall victim to the sex trade. This commerce in human life generates billions of dollars each year." Bannon's exposure of the existence of rings in the borders of the U.S. has elicited criticism, but the president didn't gloss over the facts. "This problem has appeared in my own country," Bush said, "and we are working to stop it." Bannon is not the only one to label child sex slavery as evil. President Bush condemned the "special evil in the abuse and exploitation of the most innocent and vulnerable." He said, "We must show new energy in fighting back an old evil," adding, "The trade in human beings for any purpose must not be allowed to thrive in our time." To understand the terrible human cost of this evil commerce in children, Bannon's Race Against Evil is essential for public libraries with crime collections.
Rating:
Summary: A stripped-down, basic autobiography
Review: In many of the more recent true crime books, forensics are the stars. Not here. Bannon gets involved with bigger crimes, sees more of the world around him, becomes involved in things much larger than himself. In Race Against Evil we're back to basics - a basically good man with a lot of history and psychological baggage, unpleasant killings, and a hell of a lot of tension. We age with Bannon but do not mellow; the past that he almost comes to terms with haunts him, and the mistakes and enemies he's made through his career look poised to destroy him. A sombre, elegiac memoir and thriller, written with Bannon's dark brand of perception, insight and wit. A fine addition to the Interpol canon.
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Summary: A harrowing study of the legacies of murder and revenge
Review: David Race Bannon has produced a superbly written, intricately detailed and meticulously crafted autobiography. Race Against Evil is a departure from usual true crime as there is no single crime to detect. Of the murders that permeate the story, most happened twenty years ago; the murderers were brought to justice and the crimes themselves, once front-page news, are now nearly forgotten. But there is much that is yet to happen as we watch and it is a tribute to Bannon's powerful writing that, even when you know it's coming, the moment that a murder quite casually happens is still shocking. Bannon is an appealing narrator. His emotional awakening and eventual self-realization is one of the key themes of the book. But it's also a study of deceit: lies told for good or selfish reasons, how they alter the course of a life, and the way we blindly and wilfully collude in our own deception--not to mention the secrets of Interpol. It's an emotionally harrowing book, but utterly absorbing. I first read this book in one sitting. It's a tour de force by an intelligent and accomplished writer who is also deeply compassionate, and the book ends with the promise that Bannon has at last discovered the way back to life.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining and mysterious!
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book from beginning to end and was gripped after a few pages! A lot of reviewers mention that the book is thrilling but they leave out the amazing detail and satisfying mystery of Bannon's writing. He lets us live the story with him, step by step. A surprising ending which nobody would suspect as well as a shocking twist. And there's no cheating. We experience it with Bannon and he leaves enough facts along the way that when real life takes it's bizarre turns, we slap our foreheads (probably as he did) and think, "Of course!" The book is packed wih entertainment and mystery making you want to stay up to finish it. Praise for this brave memoir!
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