I have three true crime books to recommend you all. I know this is a gun forum but I hope the moderators can see between the fingers and allow this thread to live on. Understanding how criminals think could help you tactically, if nothing else.
1. Under and alone, by William Queen.
The book is written by a federal undercover agent who infiltrated a violent MC gang in California around 2000 to gain evidence of their criminal activities. The language is straight and to the point. The book takes off quickly. Even those of you who normally don't care to read books will get sucked in and tumbled around. What makes this book something out of the ordinary is the connection the reader makes with the author. The author being a good guy, sane, rational and empathical, you feel how his skin crawls as he moves along with people who has given up and taken the easy road along the dark corners of society. Going deeper and deeper undercover, with a girlfriend who can't take the crap and leaves him, cold and unappreciative supervisors at the federal office, the undercover agent begins to long for a home and is being drawn toward the warmth only the outlaws can provide him with now. The author gradually sees the qualities in some of the gang members, feel their shattered minds, them being human too after all but with bad choices made in the past. The author paid a high price in the end. The book is disturbing and all-out real. One of the best books I ever read.
2. The last undercover, by Bob Hamer.
Again, a federal agent writes a book about his infiltration of a specific group of people, this time pedophiles. As his several years long infiltration deepens he recaptures other undercover operations he has been involved with in the past, given in much less detail but still being captivating short stories each end every one of them. The federal agent is aging and the pedophile case is his last. This book gives a better understanding for how undercover work is done, but the book lacks in emotion somewhat. The author says he on several occations felt like grabbing the pedophiles by their throats and squeeze, listening to their garbage, but his silent reflections about what he sees and feels stays on the pages in the form of words, never quite transforming into that uneasy raw gut feeling which the book above did for me. Bob Hamer relies more on his recorded tapes than the author above. It is still a highly recommended book, a must read.
3. Abandoned prayers, by Gregg Olsen.
Gregg Olsen is a journalist who gathered information about a murder of a boy child that happened in rural Kansas in the cold Christmas of 1985. For several years the murder remained a total mystery, an unknown boy child found in a ditch out in nowhere. Olsen back tracks, starts from the beginning and paints a full picture of the murderer, an Amish man later caught. This Amish man, a hard core homosexual, is something else, with real humans turning into cold bodies discarded as he moves along. The book deals with a human mind gone all bad. A slower read than the other two books it is still highly recommended.
Now, has any one else in here read a good true crime book? I'd like to know because I have nothing to read right now.
1. Under and alone, by William Queen.
The book is written by a federal undercover agent who infiltrated a violent MC gang in California around 2000 to gain evidence of their criminal activities. The language is straight and to the point. The book takes off quickly. Even those of you who normally don't care to read books will get sucked in and tumbled around. What makes this book something out of the ordinary is the connection the reader makes with the author. The author being a good guy, sane, rational and empathical, you feel how his skin crawls as he moves along with people who has given up and taken the easy road along the dark corners of society. Going deeper and deeper undercover, with a girlfriend who can't take the crap and leaves him, cold and unappreciative supervisors at the federal office, the undercover agent begins to long for a home and is being drawn toward the warmth only the outlaws can provide him with now. The author gradually sees the qualities in some of the gang members, feel their shattered minds, them being human too after all but with bad choices made in the past. The author paid a high price in the end. The book is disturbing and all-out real. One of the best books I ever read.
2. The last undercover, by Bob Hamer.
Again, a federal agent writes a book about his infiltration of a specific group of people, this time pedophiles. As his several years long infiltration deepens he recaptures other undercover operations he has been involved with in the past, given in much less detail but still being captivating short stories each end every one of them. The federal agent is aging and the pedophile case is his last. This book gives a better understanding for how undercover work is done, but the book lacks in emotion somewhat. The author says he on several occations felt like grabbing the pedophiles by their throats and squeeze, listening to their garbage, but his silent reflections about what he sees and feels stays on the pages in the form of words, never quite transforming into that uneasy raw gut feeling which the book above did for me. Bob Hamer relies more on his recorded tapes than the author above. It is still a highly recommended book, a must read.
3. Abandoned prayers, by Gregg Olsen.
Gregg Olsen is a journalist who gathered information about a murder of a boy child that happened in rural Kansas in the cold Christmas of 1985. For several years the murder remained a total mystery, an unknown boy child found in a ditch out in nowhere. Olsen back tracks, starts from the beginning and paints a full picture of the murderer, an Amish man later caught. This Amish man, a hard core homosexual, is something else, with real humans turning into cold bodies discarded as he moves along. The book deals with a human mind gone all bad. A slower read than the other two books it is still highly recommended.
Now, has any one else in here read a good true crime book? I'd like to know because I have nothing to read right now.
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