90 Church
Inside America's Notorious First Narcotics Squad
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
MAD MEN MEETS THE WIRE IN THIS GRIPPING TRUE-CRIME MEMOIR BY A FORMER AGENT AT THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF NARCOTICS IN 1960s NEW YORK
Before Nixon famously declared a "war on drugs," there was the Federal Bureau of Narcotics.
New York City in the mid-1960s: The war in Vietnam was on the nation's tongue—but so is something else. Clandestine and chaotic, but equally ruthless, the agents of the Bureau were feared by the Mafia, dealers, pimps, prostitutes—anyone who did his or her business on the streets. With few rules and almost no oversight, the battle-hardened agents of the bureau were often more vicious than the criminals they chased.
Agent Dean Unkefer was a naive kid with notions of justice and fair play when he joined up. But all that quickly changes once he gets thrown into the lion's den of 90 Church, the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, where he is shocked to see the agents he revered are often more like thugs than lawmen.
When he finally gets the chance to prove his mettle by going undercover in the field, the lines become increasingly blurred. As he spirals into the hell of addiction and watches his life become a complex balancing act of lies and half-truths, he begins to wonder what side he is really on.
90 Church is both the unbelievable memoir of one man's confrontation with the dark corners of the human experience and a fascinating window into a little-known time in American history. Learn the story of the agents who make the DEA look like choirboys.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Some readers will take a skeptical view of this memoir of Unkefer's four years with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (from 1964 to 1968), given the publisher's disclaimer, which notes that the volume is based on the author's best recollections and that he has "rearranged the details of events and chronologies in order to facilitate the narrative." The federal agent initially comes across sympathetically, as his first day on the job at the bureau's Manhattan office is an embarrassing comedy of errors, and he begins his career as an idealistic crime fighter who refuses to sign off on a false report. That phase doesn't last long, as Unkefer is quickly influenced by his crooked colleagues, becoming a corrupt and violent drug addict who cheats on his wife. He managed to justify his behavior by the results he and his fellow agents achieved; he looked forward to betraying drug dealers, even those he slept with, because "There were no more bothersome thoughts about right and wrong." But the apparent honesty of his warts-and-all self-portrayal will be offset for some by his rationalization of his work for the FBN: "We worked in an environment of desperation, in a war that threatened to destroy America. The agents did what had to be done."
