The book is good. It could be better. I felt like I was sitting at the bar with the guy listening to the story over beers, definitely a good yarn hereThe book is good. It could be better. I felt like I was sitting at the bar with the guy listening to the story over beers, definitely a good yarn here. It needs editing. Stop reminding me what 703 is. I'm three quarters of the way through the book and you're exhausting me with the reminders. Give me the reminder something like three times, maximum. First third of the book too, by the 75% mark I know damn well that JPMC has an account ending in the numbers 703 that is capable of making some ghoul named alan greenberg nearly have a stroke when asked about it. Let's see what else. Just after the bit about Doctoroff taking over for Cassa there's a mistake. You describe transactions between Levy and Madoff from Manufacturers Hanover and Chemical/JPMC "Bernie would transfer money from to Levy". Is it money from or is it money to? Context saves you if it doesn't get changed but still, you owe me a beer for that one. Don't use the unword "amirite", it's below the rest of the work. It's dumber than Bernie Madoff. Dumber that the SEC. Why did you spend any words defending them? On the subject of the SEC and the characters contained in here, I refuse to believe that you've used real names. Andrew Calamari? Was his partner Bobby Salami? Tommy Tuna was probably on the case as well. Wait there's an Annette Bongiorno? A european guy last name Schon (with the umlaut!). SEC goon named Badway? Alright alright it's too much you got me. I really liked "cell phones were smoking across the city" or whatever that phrase was, that's pretty good. I hope you didn't steal it. Felt like I learned a ton, which is always good. Things like: the SEC badly needs to get their eyeballs checked. These guys keep reading billions as millions, among other things; Basically blow Madoffs crime off until they start getting frantic phone calls. At this point the wife is just pulling ten cool million out of accounts while the SEC wildly proclaims "it can wait until the morning". So much of Madoff's fraud is hilarious, just total farce. First off, he's just forging documents. That's all. But the mendacity is just preposterous. Making more fake trades than the total volume of all trades on the entire market in some given period. Claiming to an investigator that he has less than 20 clients when he has more than 20 family members in on the scheme with accounts. Just stuff that only the blind would miss. SEC allow me to give you a hot tip, if someone is doing impossible things with money to the point that everyone on wallstreet is saying THIS GUY IS DEFINITELY DOING CRIME you should just put on a pair of fucking glasses and dig through the trash at one of their many mansions where you will likely find a piece of paper that says something like FAKE TRADES at the top, followed by a list of fake trades they are making. I clearly had a good time reading this, despite every effort you made to bore me to death in the beginning when you're connecting photos on the wall with red string. It's sort of all over the place but if you cut some of the crap I'd say this thing should be in a library someplace. Would benefit from footnotes telling the reader where they all are now. Don't forget that beer you owe me. 4th star when I get it. NETGALLEY!...more
This book was too much for me. It's a horror and a tragedy, and Rick Jervis just I'm sorry but Rick you are probably not the author to write this. It'This book was too much for me. It's a horror and a tragedy, and Rick Jervis just I'm sorry but Rick you are probably not the author to write this. It's certainly a thing that happened and should be out there in some way, but the writing, it is not polished or absorbing. It has this metronome quality to it, obviously trying to rack up a page count on this one. Rick is a journalist and I have to say, I do not think there's enough of a story here to warrant a book. It's a ton of background information, a lot of speculation unless Juan Ortiz has admitted to saying some very specific things, but it could probably just be a long newspaper article. Maybe a multi part piece or a podcast. It's just misery on a grand scale for way too long. Cut out the gratuitous horror and you've got about 50 pages maximum. There is a lot of biographical information and it's all painful and I just wasn't sure what the point of reading or especially writing any of it was. It feels like Rick was going for Truman Capote but this is just not that, at all. Not by a long shot. I don't think the author was able to interview the killer so we aren't getting any kind of insight into what made him operate. There is conjecture and it boils down to shitty beer and PTSD.
The murderer here isn't saying or doing anything that necessitates a book. It seems like from the beginning the authorities were after him pretty dilligently, there's no conspiracy or a societal failure that needs looking into. It's just tragedy. I hope the proceeds here are going to some kind of outreach program to help people get clean. This story just isn't worth the steady onslaught of despair that you are going to endure. The guy kills a bunch of addicts who are sex workers, and is caught. The end. ...more
A whirlwind through NYC's psychotic policing as seen through a handful of innocent men who are kept in prison for decades despite authorities knowing A whirlwind through NYC's psychotic policing as seen through a handful of innocent men who are kept in prison for decades despite authorities knowing they should be free. Dan manages some levity despite this being a depressing but much needed lens on the insane behaviour of a few powerful people who just absolutely cannot admit that they are in any way fallible. Don't expect justice because these lunatics are most definitely out there shouting nonsense and not seeing a single consequence.
Dan should get whatever counts as the highest possible honor for identifying and correctly labelling the "word salad" that comes out of every officials mouth when they caught red handed but are pathologically incapable of telling the truth. Every single time these apparatchiks spew out the human equivalent of an error code and Dan is able to capture it quite memorably. These people need to be studied in a lab.
I gave it three stars on net galley. The story felt important, certainly entertaining. You've got the FBI acting in concert with other nations around I gave it three stars on net galley. The story felt important, certainly entertaining. You've got the FBI acting in concert with other nations around the world to catch violent criminals. There's a deus ex machina. It's a true life techno thriller. Unfortunately, the writing lacks the thriller part. This thing reads like a math textbook. I felt nothing. If an author writes about a storm I expect to taste it, I need to smell it and certainly see it. Ominous; thunder cracks send sharp signals up the spine. Lightning flashing in the distance reveals grim rain. Shadows swirling in the dimly lit streets. Gotterdamerung upon us. Joseph Cox got his hands on a story equivalent to a crossfire hurricane and proceeds to give temperature and wind speed in hourly intervals....more
Examines the travails of Ray Dalio, chief god complex haver at the most monied hedge fund. The whole saga is incredibly predictable, almost as if therExamines the travails of Ray Dalio, chief god complex haver at the most monied hedge fund. The whole saga is incredibly predictable, almost as if there are a handful of factories that have been churning these freaks out for the last century or so. The story of a guy who has never been within a 100 mile radius of a callous. Well enough written but lacks the essential coup de grace that this kook deserves. I'm sure in the next decade we'll be reading about Bridgewater's financial malfeasance to the tune of some number which can only be fever dreamed by an ivy league MBA holder. ...more
I've always had this nagging feeling that I live in the dust of some great thing which has very recently become unserviceable. We all live with creepiI've always had this nagging feeling that I live in the dust of some great thing which has very recently become unserviceable. We all live with creeping unease about "the state of things". There is an increasingly visible difference between the way painted faces on our screens talk about America and the way it actually is. No longer maintained is the veneer which conceals a rotting imperial corpse slowly eating itself. This book documents the activities of boomers after they finish college. Referred to as yuppies, short for young urban professionals. As a group they psychotically decide to strip the copper out of America's walls because they want money instead of a functional society. Half a century later they all live in mcmansions and their legacy is to have turned America into a strip mall parking lot. Netgalley provided this book...more
Wow, this is a nearly perfect book. I have nothing negative to say. Greg Barnhisel is a great writer. Academics are the worst and their ivory tower maWow, this is a nearly perfect book. I have nothing negative to say. Greg Barnhisel is a great writer. Academics are the worst and their ivory tower maneuverings deserve to be pasted with napalm. Somehow, Greg manages to cover these loathesome machinations in a way that preserves your sanity and gets the point across. Incredible scholarship here, doubtless better than whatever psuedo-intelligible vomit the subject ever managed to produce. Concludes a bit suddenly, I think.
Mark starts out with a little quip about controlling the narrative. It comes up a few times in the book. It's a good onI got this book from Net galley
Mark starts out with a little quip about controlling the narrative. It comes up a few times in the book. It's a good one, the book that is. Could be great. The story itself, definitely great. The book, the writing, has some issues that are actually interesting. Reading this book in a meta-context is almost as interesting as the actual story about the strip club itself. By this, I mean really examining the writer and what is making him spend considerable amounts of time being, well, kind of petty. Mark, buddy, some things you just need to let go. You're the good guy in this, everyone who matters knows it. Anyone who thinks otherwise isn't going to be convinced by the axe grinding contained in this work and all it does is bring the whole thing down to, well, the level of the people you ultimately helped put behind bars.
I took notes during my read. Certain things that catch my eye and I decide I should come back to them. The best books I read don't really require this. I sort of slip into the book and it's not really reading but experiencing something, you know? Anyways with this book I almost get there, but the author just kind of jars you back to reality. It's like hanging out with an old friend of yours, and he has some great stories and things are going fine, then suddenly he'll just slip into this well honed complaint, one that he's been thinking about and turning over in his head for years, decades even. You've heard it before, it sucks and is boring and you just kind of zone out as your buddy goes on autopilot about that damn insurance company, or those damn neighbors, or whatever the thing is that he just absolutely cannot let go. Specific parts about this case are definitely grinding Marks gears and it comes out in the writing, not in a good way. I don't want to hear my buddy complain for the hundredth time about getting kicked out of a bar ten years ago. I definitely do not want to read, over and over again, about how the defense tried to make Mark into the witnesses lover. Once is enough. This trend is present throughout the book. Just tell me the one time, bro. Like I said, we're all on your side. Just let it go.
Anyways, here's my list of things that just don't need to be elaborated on. Towards the end I just gave up and stopped listing them so I could get on with the book, which is really good at times.
We know Snoop Dogg is famous and in commercials with Martha Stewart. We know this, Mark. do not devote words to telling us what we already know. Just tell me that he made questionable VHS tapes and leave it at that. This was the point when I started wondering why he bothered to write certain things. Clearly someone is bitter that criminal activity is glorified, or whatever. Just stick to the salacious bits man, we can figure the rest out. Don't insult me, we get what you're trying to say.
Oh ya, and the Jerry Springer bit. Whats up with (not the real number). This bit was confusing. It clears up later, when someone from Springers camp actually calls and I realize oh, you've given the reader a fake number, not Jerry Springer. Why even add those seven digits in? Just like, don't put that part. Just delete that sentence. Here, I'll fix it for you. "I gave them agent whomevers work number".
Early on you introduce Andruw Jones and you just say "we'd see him again" and I just laughed out like, like Mark bro, ok. Thanks. Do FBI agents have some kind of quota of "one liner" attempts? Come on man. WE'D SEE HIM AGAIN. YOU HAVEN"T HEARD THE LAST OF ME. ILL BE BACK. Anyways this book is full of sort of eye rolling things like this, but the story is good enough to keep going. Mark is a likable enough guy too, which is good because he is just all over this book. I mean, like his inner thoughts and what he personally is caring about or thinking about. But not explicitly, you can just interpret it from what he's deciding to talk about and his, let's say "opinions" on things.
Why do you think Terrell Davis and Jamal Anderson both blowing their knees out is weird? They get smashed to bits for a living. It would be weird if their knees didn't blow out.
Here's a bit from my notes: He needs to cut out all the petty holier than thou stuff and replace it with facts. I'd like a history of Kaplan, for example. I'd like a brief history of some of the other main players. Maybe a brief description in the introduction as to where each bit of the legal process occurs. Subpeona -> Grand Jury ->Indictment? You could use this to set up some foreshadowing for what's to come because as it stands I'm just reading fast and furious Mark Sewells memories and anecdotes. Set me up, give me some good chunks of that, then slow things down with those little histories, Try to make a connection between something in Kaplans past and his current behavior. I don't know, research something about the guys upbringing. Mark is firing on all cylinders, a constant stream of events, a lot of direct quotes that are just sort of, long and well there they are. Is it a court transcript? A lot of it is good but I don't really have any time to savor it, you're just off to the next long ass direct quote of something someone said.
Here's a big one. Sewell should seriously reconsider quoting a podcast, verbatim, then refuting it point by point. He comes across as bitter and just sounds aggrieved. It doesn't help his cause. Reword that whole passage, or at least put it in the footnotes dude. Like, we all know these people suck but just, let it go. We're all on your side and we all know lawyers just straight up lie constantly.
Retitle the book all puns intended, I cannot believe you made me read those words three times. Those puns are not good at all.
What's with the dig at Andy Warhol? What's the point of that? Again man, just wearing your feelings on your sleeve constantly.
The bit about the gold gloves just litering Andruw Jones apartment is great, just stick to stuff like that. The book is best when Mark is talking about things that directly involve him, and are interesting. There's also quite a bit that directly involves him and is not interesting, at all, to anyone who is not Mark Sewell. Anyways, good story man. The book is good enough too, just wish you'd cut some stuff out and replace it with like, something that doesn't read like a pathetic complaint. Stop yelling at clouds.
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