New England Crime Bake Rocks!

Hallie Ephron: Today we bring you tidbits from this weekend's 11th annual New England Crime Bake and I've been to every one of them! It's a 3-day conference held every year on the weekend before Veteran's Day at the Dedham Hilton, within easy striking distance of Boston. It's intimate (about 350 people), fabulous fun, and the always a hoot. Lucy and Jan and I are on the planning board right now.

We're in the thick of it, recovering from last night's blowout banquet (costume conga line and Everybody Dance Now! ...and they did!), heading back this morning to moderate a panel of "Plot Conjurers" and listen to two forensics expert before we pack it in until next year.

Here are two of my favorite quotes from Saturday's panels:

• On what it's like writing a character that's not fully formed: "Like showering wearing a raincoat." -- Archer Mayor
• On what a main character needs: "A goal and a gap" -- Joseph Finder

 And here are some photos of the highlights.

The BIG GUNS panel featured Joseph Finder and Hank Phillippi Ryan and Bill Landay -- here signing books after. They really are having fun!

 Our own Lucy Burdette with James Tabor after their panel on writing short stories.

 Dressed to kill for the banquet: Literary Agent Paula Munier and author / MWA/NE President Margaret McLean (with 80s hair about to cook the bunny.)

 Death investigator Michelle Clarke who looks adorable as Medusa (but don't look!).

 Michelle Dorsey and her main squeeze (who took second prize!) as Whitey Bulger with his main squeeze and Catherine Grieg

 A pair of AVENGERS (Nikki MADE these costumes -- which you'd have had to be there to appreciate), Nikki Bonanni and Jocelyn Kondrotas.

And I know you're all wondering what Hank and Jonathan came as... Sam Spade and Miss Wonderly, of course.

So come on down (up?) next year and be part of the fun! This is a conference that just keeps getting better!

THE MOST NOTORIOUS GANGSTER EVER

This is the dark side of The Sopranos, The Godfather with all the romanticism stripped away, organized crime shown for what it really is and the terrible costs it bears.

But at its heart BETRAYAL is the story of one man’s absolute refusal to quit, even after facing the ultimate betrayal and, finally, long after he was forced to resign, leads to his spectacular vindication thanks to a series of groundbreaking trials years before Bulger’s capture in June of 2011.

***on BETRAYAL by Bob Fitzpatrick and Jon Land

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Think of Melvin Purvis' dogged pursuit of John Dillinger, or Elliot Ness taking on Al Capone. Think of BETRAYAL. This hot-off-the-presses nonfiction thriller—just out this week!--tells the story of Robert Fitzpatrick, one of the most celebrated FBI agents of the modern era.

In 1981 Fitzpatrick’s career took him to Boston where he found himself up against his greatest adversary ever: the notorious, and recently captured, Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger.

Bulger had been on the books as an FBI informant against the mafia for years. But Fitzpatrick quickly uncovered the fact that Whitey was providing no real information – while reaping the rewards of FBI protection that ultimately enabled him to murder three of Fitzpatrick’s informants after corrupt agents leaked word they were ready to talk. But did anyone listen to him?

The fabulous Jon Land collaborated with Fitzpatrick to tell this stranger-than-fiction tale…

THE MOST NOTORIOUS GANGSTER EVER

by Jon Land

Bob Fitzpatrick was appointed ASAC (Assistant Special Agent in Charge) of the Boston office of the FBI with a clear mandate: “Kick ass and take names.” And the ass he really needed to kick was that of an Irish gangster named Whitey Bulger.

But what Fitzpatrick, one of the most celebrated agents of his time, didn’t know, couldn’t know, was that the adversary he was about to confront was fast becoming the most notorious gangster in all the annals of American crime history. Bigger than Al Capone, bigger than any of the infamous heads of the Five Families in New York, bigger than John Gotti and every other name of criminal legend. Why?

Because only Bulger had the FBI and the Justice Department acting as willing accomplices in his murderous rise to the pinnacle of the criminal underworld.

Sound crazy? Maybe so, but it happened. Turned out, James “Whitey” Bulger, who, remember, is Irish, was then on the books as a Top Echelon (TE) informant. And in the Bureau’s mind, he was the perfect guy to supply crucial evidence against the Italian mafia!

But Fitzpatrick ascertained that Bulger was providing no evidence of the kind whatsoever, never mind anything of note. He was ripping off the FBI. Using the agency to his own ends.

Yet instead of taking Fitzpatrick’s advice and targeting Bulger, the FBI did nothing. The Justice Department through Jeremiah O’Sullivan, head of the Organized Crime Strike Force for New England, did nothing. No less than William Weld, then the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts and future governor of the State, did nothing. Fitzpatrick warned officials at the very highest levels of the FBI in Washington about what was happening. They, too, did nothing.

They did nothing--Even when no less than three informants capable of proving everything he said was true were murdered. And that was thanks directly to sources inside the Boston FBI office who leaked the names of those informants to Bulger—which, of course, in that vicious culture of corruption, assured their deaths.

Meanwhile, Bulger consolidated the power the FBI had enabled him to seize in the first place. His equally notorious contemporaries and predecessors never had the government’s help, never had the FBI and Justice Department riding shotgun over their murderous exploits. Elliot Ness put Al Capone away on tax invasion. Melvin Purvis gunned down John Dillinger. John Gotti, the so-called “Teflon Don,” died in prison.

Whitey Bulger, on the other hand, went on to allegedly murder more than a dozen people under the watchful eye of the FBI after Bob Fitzpatrick recommended he be arrested once and for all after their single fateful interview in March of 1981. No other gangster, no other underworld figure, can make that claim. No other gangster or underworld figure had their brutal efforts aided and abetted by the very officials charged with protecting the rest of us from their actions.

As a fiction writer, of thrillers specifically, no one would believe this were possible or credible if I had offered this story as a plot synopsis. But in BETRAYAL (Forge, January 3), the book I co-authored with Bob Fitzpatrick—we give the straight story, chronicling his time in Boston and the frustration he faced in trying to end the madness once and for all.

Bob Fitzpatrick wasn’t just any agent either. Before coming to Boston, his major case experience included playing a key role in the takedown of Sam Bowers in the famed Mississippi Burning case, leading the investigation into the Martin Luther King assassination, and running ABSCAM in Miami. The Bureau had the right man for the job all right; they just wouldn’t let him finish it.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I was just waking up one morning last year when I heard the news that Whitey Bulger had been captured. I leaped up, ran downstairs, and pounded on the door of my husband’s bathroom. He was taking a shower. I couldn’t wait until he was finished to tell him—the news was that amazing!

Jon Land’s incredible access to inside information has all of us reporters salivating…and he’s here today to answer all your questions! (The ones he’s allowed to, at least!)

*****************************************

ROBERT FITZPATRICK spent twenty-plus years as an FBI agent and chief in a career highlighted by his involvement in the Martin Luther King, Jr. killing and the ABSCAM investigation in Miami that resulted in the indictments of numerous public officials. He played a key role in the famed "Mississippi Burning" investigation and recovered the rifle that was used in the MLK assassination that ultimately led to the arrest of James Earl Ray.

JON LAND is the critically acclaimed author of thirty novels, including the bestselling series featuring female Texas Ranger Caitlin Strong: Strong Enough to Die, Strong Justice, and Strong at the Break. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island and can be found on the Web at jonlandbooks.com.

They Always Get Their Man

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: When I heard the news, I literally, literally could not believe it. It was about 7 am, and I raced downstairs in my sweatpants and tank top. I banged on the door of Jonathan’s bathroom even though I knew he was in the midst of taking a shower.

This had NEVER happened before. I didn’t want to scare him because I knew that it was such an unusual and unheard of thing to do that his first reaction might be fear. But I had to risk it.

I banged again, and again. Maybe he couldn’t hear me over the water. He finally opened the door, dripping and soapy and worried.

"What?" he said. "What on earth happened?"

"They caught Whitey Bulger," I said.

It took a minute...of dripping…for it to sink in.


“You’re kidding,” he finally said. Wet hair forgotten. “You. Are. Kidding.”

"Nope," I replied. I still smile when I think about this. “Nope, they really did.”

I’m not sure, unless you live around Boston, that you can grasp what a big deal this is. The elusive—and, allegedly, pretty horrible—Whitey Bulger, mob king pin, I mean, the most-feared, most-legendarily-hated man in Boston, and soon, one of the most wanted men in America. Accused of extortion, racketeering, gambling, and also of murdering 19 people, one, at least, a woman he strangled with his bare hands. If you believe the government’s case.

(The Jack Nicholson character in The Departed was based on him.)

They got him. After 16 years on the run with his girlfriend. He’d been working for years as an FBI informant! Gasp. And he’d been tipped off, see, by an FBI crony, once a childhood friend, who’d warned him the feds were after him.He left town, and hid for 16 years. Sixteen years! On the lam, as they say. All true!

After countless theories, and sightings, and speculation by nearly everyone that the FBI wasn’t really looking for him—had even done him in!—because of all the secrets he might reveal. But I’d interviewed several FBI agents about him—and I doubted they weren't looking. They really wanted to find him, that was my opinion.

And then, after a tip, they did. And he was back in custody. (They found $800,000 and an arsenal of weapons in the Santa Monica apartment. My step-daughter, who lives around there, is sure she’d seen him walking his dog. Had she realized that a bit sooner, she might have gotten the two million dollar reward. Sigh.)

And a weird twist, my husband and his law partner were appointed as his lawyers—can you imagine? How interesting that would have been? But then one of the two cases were dropped, and so he wasn't needed.




Anyway. All this is introduction—so you know how very fascinating Jon Land’s next few months will be. He’s writing the Whitey Bulger story with the guy who…well. Let him tell you. Here's Jon Land. And he's telling all in his brand new book:

BETRAYAL

“So you wanna a bullet in the head?”

So begins BETRAYAL (Forge, January 3, 2012), my first non-fiction book after thirty novels. The speaker is Boston gangster Whitey Bulger, addressing his soon-to-be victim John McIntyre, an informant capable of bringing him down once and for all, in 1984.

The hero of BETRAYAL is Robert Fitzpatrick, one of the most celebrated FBI agents of his time who was sent to Boston in late 1980 to “kick ass and take names.” Simply stated, the office had spiraled out of control in large part because of the degree to which agents and officials stretching all the way to Washington were beholden to Whitey Bulger.

Bulger, you see, was an informant the Bureau was relying on to give them what they wanted most : the Italian mob. Of course, since he was the titular head of the rival Irish Winter Hill gang and promised to prosper from the takedown of the mafia, he was all too happy to cooperate.

Only he didn’t. In all his years as an informant, Whitey Bulger gave the FBI nothing that helped them take down the mafia. Nothing. That’s what Bob Fitzpatrick uncovered when he got to Boston and what was pretty much confirmed during his first and only meeting with Bulger himself. Check out the following excerpt, one of my favorite scenes in the book:

“I never got your name.”

“That’s ‘cause you didn’t shake my hand. It’s Fitzpatrick.”


“You don’t understand,” he boasted. “I was in Alcatraz; I was in the toughest penitentiaries. I’m a bad guy, not somebody you wanna come out here and mess with.”


“Is that what I’m doing, Whitey, messing with you?”


“You tell me.”


“I just asked you.”

“You got any idea of the stuff I’ve done?”

“That’s why I’m here, to find out what you’ve done and what you’re doing for us. See, you wanna tell me about all the stuff you’ve done when I want to hear what you’re doing for me. Because you’re the informant.”

My last remark, a caustic taunt. “Whitey, what are you doing for the FBI?” I finally asked when he lapsed into silence, even though the answer was already written on the parts of his face I could see through the dim lighting. “What are you doing for me?”

The answer, of course, was nothing, and Fitzpatrick embarked on a twenty-year quest, both in and out of the FBI, to prove that to the world in general and Bureau in particular. Three times he developed informants prepared to give up Bulger and force the FBI to give the gangster up as an alleged informant. All three times information leaked out from within the Bureau, and all three times the informants were murdered, the last one being John McIntyre whose body was not recovered until 2000.


What attracted me to Fitzpatrick’s story, which became BETRAYAL, was that it was one of those rare nonfiction “thrillers” that had a third act. Even before Whitey Bulger was finally captured in Santa Monica in California last June, a series of trials over the past few years had already validated all of Fitzpatrick’s claims and fully vindicated his efforts. Bulger’s apprehension was just the icing on the cake.

And here’s the thing. My fictional thrillers also feature heroes defined by their ability to overcome incredible odds and survive, if not thrive, on their own. They are men and women unafraid to buck the system, to do the right thing regardless of what they must sacrifice along the way. Well, that describes Bob Fitzpatrick perfectly.

“I took on plenty of guys like you,” Bulger taunted during that now famous meeting with Fitzpatrick. “Turned out they weren’t so tough either.”

Turned out he couldn’t have been more wrong.
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HANK: Whoa. Jon is writing as fast as he can, and the book will be out from FORGE Books in January! He'll be around today to answer our questions about the FBI, mobsters, and informants--and what it's like to write a non-fiction book this quickly!

(And continuing win-a-book-every-day week on Jungle Red, one lucky commenter will get Jon's book the moment it comes out! PLUS! Because we are all about instant gratification, you'll also win a signed copy of the Jungle Red book of your choice!)

On Whitey Bulger and the Fourth of July

JAN: So here it is Fourth of July and, at least in Boston, all we are talking about at our outdoor barbecues, is Whitey Bulger. The nations MOST WANTED CRIMINAL - once Osama Bin Laden was caught and killed. Frankly, I'm not as creative when it comes to imagining international conspiracy, so I only gave so much thought to how Osama was living in that suburb undetected for all those years. But I am obsessed with Whitey and have endless interest in every surprisingly new development.

For you non-New Englanders out there who don't know Whitey, he was the inspiration for the Jack Nicholson character in The Departed. He ruled the roost in Boston crime for decades and outsmarted the FBI pretending to be an informant. He was captured recently, with his girlfriend, by the FBI in Santa Monica, where he'd been living the good life in a rent-controlled apartment near the sea for FIFTEEN years.

But here's what I find most surprising. 1. How good looking he was in his youthful mug shot. I mean, I've never seen anyone look that good in a mug shot before. I guess the good looks help explain his early male prostitute stint, but even Johnny Depp in his fake mobster role as Donnie Brasco wasn't

quite the pretty boy Whitey was.

2. That, despite his good looks. Catherine Grieg would to go on the lam infinitely with him. I mean, he had just dumped or maybe been dumped by his previous girlfriend, Teresa Stanley, and despite his ready access to cash, it meant a life of laying low and looking over your shoulder. Not to mention sleeping with a murderer, who had killed other bad guy's ex-girlfriends for knowing much.

3. That he had the chutzpah to come back to Boston to deal with "unfinished business." I mean, clearly his assessment of law enforcement and FBI was correct - they were lame. But BACK TO BOSTON? And to think all the trouble we go to -- to make our bad guys actions believable.

So my question to my fellow crime writers is this. What do you find most fascinating or surprising about the Whitey Bulger saga, and what part would you be afraid to use in your novels because its just so damn unbelievable?

HANK: Well, this just in. We had quite a week here--since my husband Jonathan and his law partner and another attorney had absolutely been tapped to represent Bulger in the extortion case. So we had a couple of days of very serious discussion about how that would change our lives, and whether it was exciting, or ..or what. Can you IMAGINE the cool stuff he'd learn? And of course, he agreed to do it--for a defense attorney, it's the case of the century, even though you'd do NOTHING else for years.

But in the end, the government asked that case be dismissed, leaving the other case in another court with a different judge--who appointed a different lawyer. The bad news..and the good news.

HALLIE: Here's what amazed me: He's "hiding out" in Santa Monica?? Taking daily walks on the 3rd St. Promenade?? That is like a few blocks from the Shangri-La, a funky old hotel where we like to stay.

It sure will be interesting to see who he takes down with him this time. I'm glad no one I know is representing him. He's one scary SOB, I don't care if he is 80.

JAN: Wow Hank, that's pretty darn close to the criminal celebrity of the decade (excluding Osama, of course) But I think Hallie is right, maybe he's the one client you want to get away.

JULIA: Hank, poor Jonathan must be disappointed! I can imagine you're a bit relieved, though. As a New Englander, I'm watching with wide eyes and bated breath. After all the speculation on where he was hiding, it turns out he wasn't any different than your granddad, was he? A condo in a sunny vacation community, trips to Mexico, long-time ladyfriend...okay, your granddad probably didn't have close to a million in cash and a bunch of fake IDs.

As a crime fiction writer, I'm taking away three lessons: 1. It's a lot harder to stay hidden for a long period of time. That's why Bulger's arrest is such a news event. Most fugitives don't make it a year, let alone sixteen. 2. He had help from law enforcement, not just during his reign as mob boss, but in "retirement." We like to write about honest and hard-working cops, agents and investigators, but it's important to remember there are folks out there who can be bought. 3. Bulger moved in an entirely male world, but in the end, the only person he could trust was a woman. And she's remained close-mouthed and faithful to the end. Hmm.

ROBERTA: Totally out of it here, I thought you were talking baseball Jan:). Most amazing thing to me is the woman. Would like to do a psychological interview of her and see what her thought processes were like...what an awful, scary way to live...

JAN: I agree Roberta, but can't help wondering, what's the back story with Teresa Stanley, did he ask her to go with him first and did she say no? Did he dump her to take Catherine? Were these babes duking it out over who got to go into hiding with him?

Julia, you sound like my husband, who is certain that Whitey was making payments to Law Enforcement and then missed a payment....

How about the rest of you? Any conspiracy theories? Any plot ideas? How does the Whitey Bulger saga hold up to your own rules for crime writing? And importantly, is early Whitey Bulger as good looking as early Johnny Depp?

Happy Fourth of July everyone. We have a great week. Tomorrow Julia interviews Linda Castillo, bestselling author of Breaking Silence, Wednesday, Talk show host Robin Kall, of Reading With Robin fame, talks to us about why people read, and Thursday, professional private investigators Colleen Collins and Shaun Kaufman guest blog about their investigative techniques.