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Rating: 
Summary: The Truth is BEHIND the headlines
Review: A book like LAbryinth is so compelling, and so right on that it is amazing that LA society in general does not get up in arms when they read of the lax police policy that allows thugs and gangsters to foist rap music as an artform, and brutality as a modus operandi on the public. OK OK all people are entitled to produce their personal music, but the crude lyrics are far exceeded in debauchery by the tacit police compliance by LA's famous Chief Bernard Parks and a band of his hand picked corrupted officers. THAT A FIRST CLASS DETECTIVE LIKE RUSSELL POOLE RESIGNS BECAUSE HE IS UNABLE TO DO HIS JOB is not only frightening but should be totally unacceptable to anyone who reads or hears about the book. Chief Parks' contract has not been renewed, but why is this LAbyrinth information still not blasting from the front page of the LA Times? Informed readers shake their heads, and the rappers shake their booty. What needs to shake is the very foundation of the LA police department.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent read
Review: After finishing LAbyrinth, I can say I am extremely pleased with Randall Sullivan's effort. The book was thoroughly researched, well written, and is the most definitive work written on the Biggie Smalls/Tupac murders. Although there are plenty of dates and facts throughout, the book's narrative is easy to follow, and it doesn't really read like a text. If you're interested in true crime and/or the rap industry's seething underbelly, then this should be a top choice. Also included is a startling portrait of the LAPD as one of the most corrupt police organizations in U.S. history. The binding thread in this book is Detective Russell Poole's investigation of Biggie's murder, and the subsequent LAPD officer ties to Death Row Record's executive Suge Knight. Highly recommended reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Biased author, unsympathetic characters
Review: As a fan of both Tupac and Biggie, I was very interested in learning more about what really went down. Former Officer Poole seems to think he has the answers so I was eager to learn what he knows draw my own conclusions. Before I say anything else, let me admit that I haven't finished the book--nor do I intend to do so and here's why. First of all, to my absolute surprise, nobody else seems to have picked up on the author's extreme bias. For example, on page 14 of the hardcover version, Sullivan notes that "[In the early 1960s], as now, black males committed a hugely disproportionate amount of crime in Los Angeles and across the country." WHAT? I can't even believe that went to print. Question: do black males commit a disproportionate amount of crime in this country or are they accused and convicted disproportionately? At the very least, if you're gonna make such outrageous comments, back it up. With no statistical data, I consider Sullivan's comment to be hearsay. Then, just a few pages later, on page 18, Sullivan gets a little diatribe going about how the LAPD hiring process has become less stringent over time, noting that "liberals had successfully argued that [baring applicants with juvenile records] limited the number of blacks and Hispanics who could join the LAPD." I'm not even 20 pages into the book, and my reading of the author is that he really doesn't like minorities or "liberals," whatever the latter term means to him because he sure doesn't define anything. Yet I decided to take these and similar comments with a grain of salt and press forward with the book, which ultimately led to the real reason I decided not to finish it. The second reason I stopped reading it is that assuming that even one-tenth of what's written in these pages is true, Biggie and Tupac were just as despicible as Suge Knight, the LAPD, the affiliated gangs, the attorneys and just about everyone else who graced the pages of the book. And that made me really sad because it's hard for me to listen to the music the same way. Tupac and Biggie were not innocent; they were just greedy bastards who courted violence successfully. Truthfully, none of the stuff about the LAPD or any of the other authority figures surprised me. Money and testosterone--bad combination. Lest you think I'm a man-hater, the women in this book are appalling, too. I hate to say it but Tupac and Biggie got what they deserved. Not to play devil's advocate I do think that Sullivan's style is extremely readable and engaging. I also like the way he attempted to provide background on the LAPD history, the history of the Crips and the Bloods, etc. If you're not likely to be critical going into this book, it's not bad for escapism. Unless you were living in a plastic bubble or don't keep up w/ current events, I doubt that you'll be blown away, no pun intended, by the overall picture Sullivan paints.
Rating: 
Summary: A good read... for the most part
Review: I enjoyed reading LAbyrinth, it was a quick and fascinating read. Although it did not tell me a lot of new information, it helped tie together things that I already knew about Suge Knight and interjected new details along the way. There are times in the book that Sullivan gets bogged down in the minutiae and loses the reader. There are also moments where Sullivan is clearly sympathetic and biased towards the ex-cop (Russell Poole). This book is loaded with details but it is one man's view of the events. The book also jumps around from different characters, events & dates. So there is not a natural flow from chapter to chapter. All in all, I enjoyed reading LAbyrinth. I recommend the book to all. But please remember that this is one man's interpretation of the facts. There are always two sides to a story and this book only shows one.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: I was drawn to this book by a radio interview I heard a year ago or so, I believe with the author (I missed the beginning of the interview) in which he detailed some of the allegations of shoddy policework that attended the LAPD's investigation of the murder of Christopher Wallace, who went by the rap alias Notorious B.I.G. One eye-opener was an eyewitness to the shooting who was willing to cooperate but was never contacted by authorities, and was shot to death in a housing project back east two months later. So I bought the book, and basically more of my opinions on the LAPD scandals of the last several years were confirmed. The book starts with Russell Poole, a decorated detective with basically impeccable credentials, investigating a shooting in the San Fernando Valley. The shooter and the victim both turned out to be police officers: the shooter, Frank Lyga, was a white undercover narcotics detective, the man killed, Kevin Gaines, a black patrolman. When the detectives went to the house the black policeman was living in, they were a bit taken aback to discover it was a mansion in Beverly Hills. The man's girlfriend was Suge Knight's estranged wife. Knight, the owner of Death Row Records, had an unsavory reputation for intimidation, extortion, drug dealing, and murder anyway, so the police were somewhat taken aback. Soon, Poole agrees to become the lead detective in the investigation of the shooting of Wallace mentioned above, and discovers that there may be LAPD officers involved in the killing, or at least working for Suge Knight. Soon, that part of the investigation is derailed, and Poole is ordered by superiors to look in other directions that he's sure will be fruitless, and of course they turn out to be. Meanwhile connections to other incidents, including the killing of Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas, surface, but nothing's pursued. The minutae of the story does at times bog it down. This does one bad thing in terms of the book: it serves to obscure the author's basic message, which is that the political leadership in Los Angeles and its minority-run suburbs (notably Compton) are unwilling to investigate people like Suge Knight too closely, and the Los Angeles media is willing to cover for them because to do otherwise would damage various minority (read black) politicians and city leaders. Prominent in this category is Bernard Parks, the controversial now ex-chief of police. Sullivan has him basically uninterested in corruption among black police officers when he was in charge of the Internal Affairs division, and later when he was chief. The mayor, and Maxine Waters, our most prominent local black politician (she's a congresswoman from Compton and South-Central LA) are also implicated, if not in corruption, then in condoning it. The last part of the book, however, was a surprise for me. When Poole was investigating the connections between Death Row Records and various black police officers who were illegally working for the company providing security, one of the officers involved was a gang task force detective named Rafael Perez. For those not up to date on LA current affairs, Perez was caught with several kilos of cocaine, and turned state's evidence in return for a reduced sentence. The subsequent investigation led to what's been known as the Rampart police scandal, after the Rampart division where it occurred. His testimony got many (hundreds) of people released from prison, and has resulted in the city paying millions (some estimate it's going to run into the hundreds of millions or even more) in damages to the alleged victims. Perez himself is something of a chamelion (black to blacks, latino to latinos, colorless to whites) and apparently has been fabricating at least some of his allegations, but meanwhile he's worked himself a deal such that he's already negotiating a release from prison. Poole's investigation seemed to show that Perez's allegations should be carefully viewed, but the higher-ups in the LAPD wouldn't listen, and the whole thing has blown up in their faces. Even worse, they shut down the gang task force that Perez was part of, and predictably gang homicides increased almost immediately. This is a tangled, convoluted, difficult book. People get killed left and right, and most of those killed aren't exactly angels themselves. Notorious B.I.G., for instance, was a drug dealer before he became a rapper, and Tupac shouldn't need any introduction. The implication that the police are or were running interference for the people who killed them, however, is pretty horrifying, and the author presents some evidence that one cop should be at least looked at in connection with Notorious B.I.G.'s murder itself, though an associate of his is the likely shooter. While this is troubling, it's the racial politics that's the most aggravating to me. One person is quoted as saying that the L.A. Times, for instance, wouldn't investigate the story further because they didn't want to be involved in bringing down an African-American police chief (Bernard Parks). This sort of thing has to stop. While Suge Knight is black, yes, so were most if not all of this victims. Failing to demand justice on that rationale is insane, and if the allegations in the book have merit, they should be investigated thoroughly.
Rating:
Summary: Mindblowing!
Review: If ur a fan of either tupac or biggie GET THIS BOOK .....russell poole blows the lid on how death row was really run. He explaines the level of corruption within the LAPD, and how and why the investigations into their murders remain unsloved. After reading this book, and watching the Nick Sullivan Biggie and Tupac dvd, its plain and obvious to all who was behind their murders!
Rating:
Summary: A shocking and horrific read
Review: The book is an excellent read, and for the reader from Trenton, NJ, if you already knew what was going on in regards to the whole Death Row/Tupac/Biggie murder, then why did you buy the book? And if the reader from Trenton did know so much about Suge Knight, then he would not have found it highly unlikely that these rougue cops who were associates of Suge Knight could instill the kind of fear into their co-workers as they did. The book exposes the dirty side of both politics and law enforcement and although it does happen in every city it doesn't mean it's right. And apparently the Chief of police was not doing his job since he was not re-elected. I admire this detectives time, dedication, and courage to expose Suge Knight. I also admire his dedication to trying to solve the horrific murders of these great entertainers and it is just unfortunate that politics is overriding these two unjust murders and who knows how many others. A must read!
Rating: 
Summary: Using Tupac and Biggie's names to sell books!
Review: This was an interesting book about what was going on in the LAPD, but it does not discuss the topics that is titled to. The amount of information on Tupac is probably one page at most and Biggie maybe four or five. I felt that Det. Poole and R. Sullivan were more about getting back at the LAPD (not that his information is not valid) than discussing the details about Tupac and Biggie's murders. This books title should be LAbyrinth: A Detective Investigates the L.A.P.D. I don't recommend this book if you are looking for answers or information about Tupac, cause you won't find it. If you want to know more about the L.A.P.D., this is a great book.
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