Whipped Cream Difficulties

The Mafia Cops case is a great story for true crime lovers. Two retired NYPD cops are arrested, accused of being in the Mafia’s pocket for almost their entire careers on the force, convicted, have their conviction partially overturned, reinstated on appeal, and wind up with lengthy prison terms. Adding additional savor to the case are such minor details as:

• These cops didn’t just sell inside NYPD information to the mob: they’re accused of actually performing hits for the mob themselves, using their badges as cover.
• One of the convicted cops actually wrote a book about how he overcame his upbringing in a Mafia family to become a decorated NYPD officer.

This has the makings of a pretty decent book.

Friends of the Family: The Inside Story of the Mafia Cops Case isn’t that book.

I  expected a book co-written by two of the people who worked on the case (a former NYPD detective and an assistant DA) to be at least somewhat compelling. Instead, that’s actually the source of the book’s biggest problems. Problem number one: because Dades (the detective) and Vecchione (the assistant DA) are co-authors, the book is told entirely from their point of view. This is a problem because the decision to prosecute the Mafia Cops at the Federal level, rather than locally, was rather controversial, and frankly questionable. The conviction was initially overturned because the Federal prosecutors chose to bring RICO charges against the two cops: there are legal questions about whether their ongoing criminal activities fell inside or outside of the statute of limitations. An outside observer could have written an interesting book giving both sides of the case: because Fisher chose to work with Dades and Vecchione, his coverage of the question is mostly quoting uncritically the griping of the local cops and DA’s office. It reads like an episode of NYPD Blue: The Bad Years.

A second problem is that Dades and Vecchione are not well served by their ghost writer. Vecchione, in particular, comes across as a cypher. We know nothing about him going into the book, and little more than nothing coming out.

The book’s third, crippling, problem is actually related to the second problem. If Vecchione is a cypher, we end up knowing too much about Dades. Why is that a major issue? Because a great deal of time and space in the book is devoted to Dades and his issues. Dades is bitter: he feels he’s being forced into retirement after 20 years of service to the NYPD. Why does he feel “forced” into retirement? Let’s go over the reasons:

• Dades cheated on his wife with the wife of a suspect he arrested.
• When he broke off the relationship, the woman he was cheating with accused him of rape.
• Dades was cleared by NYPD Internal Affairs.
• Dades also managed to avoid a charge of “conduct unbecoming an officer”. The book doesn’t specify how he did that, and I actually am curious. After all, he admitted the affair…
• In spite of all this, Dades feels like he has to retire because he’s made enemies within the department, and within Internal Affairs specifically. Dades is bitter, resentful, and wonders why he is being treated like a criminal. After all, what did he do wrong? (Except for the whole cheating on his wife, jeopardizing a criminal case, and making the department look bad thing.)

In addition to Dades and his resentment about being “forced” out of the NYPD, a considerable amount of space is devoted to Dades and his attempt to establish a relationship with the father who walked out on him when Dades was a kid. I figure there’s about two people, maybe, who care about that. The rest of us wanted the ghost writer to shut the hell up about Dades and his father issues and get back to the case already.

I have not read it yet, but I suspect The Brotherhoods: The True Story of Two Cops Who Murdered for the Mafia is a better book about the same case. In an ideal world, Jerry Capeci would write his own book about this case as well. In this world, I can’t recommend Friends of the Family.

(I’d like to thank Patrick at Popehat, who encouraged me to write this review.)

Bill Crider, one of nature’s noblemen, points us to this list of “The 25 Best True Crime Books” from the Forensic Colleges blog.

Blogging about other people’s lists seems to me to be non-productive (de gustibus non disputatum and all that), but I’m making an exception here because this seems to be a pretty solid list. I’ve read 9 out of the 25 listed, and mostly agree with those choices.

Of course, I have a few quibbles:

• I wouldn’t have put both Mark Bowden books on the list, though he is a heck of a good writer. Finders Keepers would be my pick for the list: Doctor Dealer is only a so-so book (and a very early Bowden).
• I confess that I have not read Killer Clown, but it will have to be one heck of a book to beat Buried Dreams on the Gacy front.
• The Amanda Knox case is fascinating and troubling, but it seems a bit early to be putting Angel Face on a best list. I have something of the same quibble about The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher.
• I’ve read Crime and Science – The New Frontier in Criminology, and it seems odd to pick that over Thorwald’s much more famous Century of the Detective. To be fair, though, I’ve only read the latter book in the Reader’s Digest Condensed Edition. I’ve been trying to find a cheap used copy without much luck.
• Blood and Money is actually a 1976 book, though it appears to have been reissued in 2001. (I read that for the first time last year; it is a swell book that belongs on the list.)
• The Onion Field, dammit!