Howie Carr

now this is strange — just back from LA — Santa Monica visiting Lynn + — most wanted criminal Whitey B. captured living Blks away from her — 15 years in a rent controlled apart. — tip from Iceland.
doesn't make Boston Politics look good — so many killings + misuse of power — Saw Bill B. — he is short! At U. Mass Pres Offic in Beacon Hill — Alumni gathering —

For years their familiar story was of two siblings who took different paths out of South Boston: William "Billy" Bulger, former president of the Massachusetts State Senate; and his brother James "Whitey" Bulger, a vicious criminal who became the FBI's second most-wanted man after Osama Bin Laden. While Billy cavorted with the state's blue bloods to become a powerful political force, Whitey blazed a murderous trail to the top rung of organized crime. Now, in this compelling narrative, Carr uncovers a sinister world of FBI turncoats, alliances between various branches of organized crime, St. Patrick's Day shenanigans, political infighting, and the complex relationship between two brothers who were at one time kings.… (más)

The unimaginable, blatant corruption involving blackmail, theft of records, possibly murder, certainly payoffs is mind boggling and is evidence of that same kind of entitled liberal behavior we are witnessing today. To gain control, it would seem that nothing is beyond the pale. The fixing of elections, falsely attacking opponents and arranging positive personal publicity has been a long standing practice in the politics of the Kennedy family, and now, it seems it has spread to the party at large.
The Kennedy’s obviously believed that they were above the law, and their contacts insured that they were able to project and maintain that image. They slept with strange bedfellows, literally and figuratively. Somehow, their money and influence controlled all of the powers that be and their willing co-conspirators, a team of “good old boys”, went along with all of their schemes. Their friends were in high places, and they respected and revered the Kennedy name, yet it would seem, in retrospect, that it was an undeserved homage.
The book centers its focus on the scandals of the Kennedys and all of the people associated with them. They lived their lives with abandon, chewing up people and discarding them. They disregarded the laws that most people feel compelled to obey. Drugs and alcohol, sex in any form, and outright lies, seemed to be de rigueur for all of them. There was no law that was inviolable, no rule that they wouldn’t break, no lie that was beyond them in order to protect themselves or each other. There certainly was honor among those “thieves”. They seemed impervious to normal standards of decorum. For me, the worst observation about their lifestyles was the fact that those who could have exposed them for what they really were, actually supported their horrific behavior; they were actually in cahoots with them, colluded with them to protect them from scrutiny and appropriate verdicts and sentencing even when laws were broken beyond the shadow of a doubt; they prevented them from being punished and their victims from attaining appropriate retribution and justice. They painted a picture of the Kennedy’s that was indeed a fairytale, that truly was a fictional Camelot, but surely it did not exist in America. Yet the myth pervaded the country, especially after the death of JFK. They and the people surrounding them were dishonest, corrupt and corruptible. They were sycophants, plain and simple; but how could there have been so many, so willing to cover for them for their own fifteen minutes of fame?
There are secrets revealed in this book that are titillating, but today these same kinds of stories are not secrets, but are worn as badges of honor. President Clinton wore his badge named Monica Lewinski among others, without real detriment, and he still enjoys the praise and respect of his party and his followers, even as they cast aspersions and condemn those who have done far less. The Democrats were apparently corrupt for years under the Kennedy dynasty’s leadership, fixing affairs of the heart, hiding affairs of the heart and arranging affairs of the heart. They dealt with anyone who could advance their causes, bar none, and that may be ultimately what brought them down, in the end. You lie with dogs, you do get up with fleas.
The patriarch, Joe Kennedy was the worst one. Among other things he was a bigot. He began the crusade of lies, secrets and threats that invaded the family history. He used his money to buy influence and peddle it. He bought the office in the Senate for his son and later the Presidency as well. Still, those on the left don’t own up to this charade and still honor the memory of the Kennedys as superheroes, even though they were no better, in retrospect, than the mob. They were thugs. They were lords of the manor and had their own personal fiefdom. They also had more than their share of tragedy.
This first of a two volume tell-all book, will be an eye opener and a shocker for most readers who were brought up with the absolute fairytale idea of Camelot and JFK. Their collusion with mobsters, the bribes and the strong arm tactics they used seem quite truthfully, horrifying, and even more so today, because they are the stuff of reality, not fiction. One has to wonder if this kind of corruption continues. I am not sure that this book will be fully comprehended by those who have no real knowledge of politics in Massachusetts. In some cases, it felt as if the author assumed everyone who was going to read it was from Massachusetts and was familiar with the commonplace corruption and shenanigans still ongoing today in the party as a whole, a party that has, by and large, not played by the rules for years, as evidenced by their underhanded tactics in our most recent Presidential election of Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton. The book is not a fast read because there is so much “dirt”, that turns out to be real that it is hard to absorb it all at once.
On a practical note, I thought the heft of the book itself was too heavy, and it made it hard to handle easily. My advice for the second volume is to try and use paper stock that is lighter and more pliable. Also, since I couldn’t recognize all of the cartoon caricatures on the cover, I suggest they print a name underneath, or include a footnote identifying them. Also, after attending a very entertaining presentation of the book by Howie Carr and then reading the book, I realized he presented too much about the book in the public forum, so that when reading it, it felt repetitive. It would be better if he simply hinted at information in the book because exposing it with a detailed powerpoint presentation. It almost made it unnecessary to read the book, and it would be a shame if it didn’t get the readership it deserves.… (más)

Killers by Howie Carr failed to walk that fine line between hard-boiled and cliche-ridden. While that is certainly a difficult line to walk, this book stood out in the cliches used. Usually the worn cliches are the tried and true tough guy type of talk that made the original era of hard-boiled stories so memorable. Current works in this genre have to balance using some of the same comments, or at least similar, without becoming a parody of the genre.

Well, this fell short of even being a parody of the genre. Instead, it was a parody of that "news" channel from Fox. Worn out, tired and disproved rhetoric in a story of this type not only slows the action but also dumbs the book down to an unbearable level.

No doubt his fans will like it for the bigoted comments whether they like the genre or not. After reading the book I had to look up who this joker is and then I understood. Oh well, at least he calls it fiction, O'Reilly would likely have claimed a role in it and called it journalism.

Reviewed from a copy made available through Goodreads First Reads.… (más)