Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, The FBI and a Devil's Deal

Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, The FBI and a Devil's Deal

by Dick Lehr (Author), Dick Lehr (Author), Gerard O'Neill (Author)

Synopsis

One FBI Agent. One Boston Gangster. One Deal. The greatest and bloodiest story of corruption ever told. James 'Whitey' Bulger and John Connolly grew up together on the tough streets of South Boston. Decades later in the mid-1970s, they met again. By then, Connolly was a major figure in the FBI's Boston office and Whitey had become godfather of the Irish Mob. Connolly had an idea, a scheme that might bring Bulger into the FBI fold and John Connolly into the Bureau's big leagues. But Bulger had other plans. Black Mass is the chilling true story of what happened between them - a dark deal that spiralled out of control, leading to drug dealing, racketeering and murder. From the award-winning journalistic pair Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill comes a true-crime classic which takes the reader deep undercover, exposing one of the worst scandals in FBI history.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 448
Edition: Main
Publisher: Canongate Books
Published: 05 Mar 2015

ISBN 10: 1782116230
ISBN 13: 9781782116233
Book Overview: The True Crime classic available for the first time in the UK

Media Reviews
Black Mass succeeds admirably in showing just how fragile FBI integrity can be when the good guys lose sight of the truth, the rules, and the law * * WASHINGTON POST * *
A jaw-dropping, true-life tale of how two thugs corrupted the FBI * * BALTIMORE SUN * *
Black Mass should prompt a reevaluation of the uses and misuses of informers by law-enforcement officials throughout the country * * NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW * *
A triumph of investigative reporting, this full-bodied true-crime saga by two Boston Globe reporters is a cautionary tale about FBI corruption and the abuse of power * * PUBLISHERS WEEKLY * *
An eye-opening true-crimer * * KIRKUS REVIEWS * *
What a marvellous read Black Mass is -- DOMINICK DUNNE
[Lehr and O'Neill] vividly capture the turbulent culture and conflicting loyalties of the Boston underworld * * LIBRARY JOURNAL * *
More than an expose on the abuses of power, Black Mass tells of the shameful betrayal of all things decent by two of our own native sons who climbed the ranks of both the underworld and the FBI. The good qualities of loyalty and pride that we were raised on in Southie, were manipulated and perverted for their own gains as they promoted a culture of drugs, denial, and death on our streets. Lehr and O'Neill give us all the details with a journalistic precision that does not sacrifice the power of the story. After reading Black Mass, you might wonder if any of us really knows who are the good guys and who are the bad guys -- MICHAEL PATRICK MACDONALD * * author of ALL SOULS: A FAMILY STORY FROM SOUTHIE * *
This perfectly measured journalistic work constructs a thrilling factual timeline which bleeds and shocks, while avoiding the tabloid hyperbole of certain true crime wastes of paper pulp, stacked high in airport bookshops. It explores an ugly interdependency between the foxes and hounds on Boston's South Side - a chilling symmetry. Bulger is painted as a Machiavellian sociopath - the dark Prince of Southie, rising within his criminal court . . . Black Mass exposes the dilapidated soul of American justice at a moment when corruption seeped into the foundations of its integrity * * SKINNY * *
Author Bio
Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill are former reporters with the Boston Globe, and co-authors of Whitey: The Life of America's Most Notorious Mob Boss. O'Neill has won the Pulitzer, Hancock and Loeb Prizes. Lehr, a Pulitzer finalist, has also won the Hancock and Loeb awards. He currently is a professor of journalism at Boston University, where he is a co-director of an investigative reporting clinic.