Jimmy the king Murder, vice, and the reign of a dirty cop

Garcia-Roberts (coauthor of Blood Sport, 2015) introduces two seemingly unconnected cases separated by decades on Long Island: the startling murder of 13-year-old John Pius in 1979, and a 2012 break-in by a pair of drug-addled thieves. The link between the cases is the presence of James Burke and Thomas Spota. Burke had been a key witness in the Pius case, which was tried by then Assistant District Attorney Spota. Burke and Spota's paths would diverge, but they'd meet again later when Burke served as a top cop in the Suffolk County Police Department and Spota was elected district attorney. Before the Pius case, Burke had been on a wayward trajectory; afterward, he assumed a charmed life, ascending rocket-like through the police-department hierarchy despite rumblings of malfeasance. The ramifications of Burke's criminal behavior would be felt for years. Reading like a potboiler noir, yet all too true, Garcia-Roberts' exposition of the corrupt foundations of a troubled Long Island justice system leaves no stone unturned.

Washington Post investigative reporter Garcia-Roberts (Blood Sport: A-Rod and the Quest to End Baseball's Steroid Era with Tim Elfrink) surveys decades of violence, corrupt governance, and injustice in New York's Suffolk County through a searing look at the rise and fall of James Burke, whose tenure as the chief of the county's police department ended in scandal. Despite a checkered past and numerous misrepresentations about his credentials, Burke was hired by the Suffolk Police and promoted to chief in 2012. Supported by a crooked DA, Thomas Spota, and Spota's anti-corruption deputy, Christopher McPartland, Burke spearheaded a "county law enforcement system that operated like an organized crime syndicate." Burke's assaulting a prisoner suspected of stealing items, including sex toys, from Burke's vehicle set in motion a chain of events that culminated in Burke's 2016 guilty plea to assault and the 2021 sentencing of Spota and McPartland on federal charges, including obstruction of justice. The author's encyclopedic knowledge of this case, first garnered as a member of the Newsday team whose series on Long Island police misconduct was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and storytelling skills yield a revelatory and shocking look at entrenched corruption. This is a true crime classic that should raise serious questions as to how Burke and his enablers eluded justice for so long. Agent: David R. Patterson, Stuart Krichevsky Literary. (May)

Gritty, sprawling account of police malfeasance. Investigative reporter Garcia-Roberts offers a seamy narrative of politics and violence in Long Island's Suffolk County. "It wasn't a few bad apples," he writes, "but a jurisdiction in which misconduct was woven into the fabric of the agencies heading up county law enforcement." The author reveals numerous dark corners within this bucolic setting, beginning with the 1979 murder of John Pius, a young boy, for which a few teenagers were evidently railroaded by local police. Garcia-Roberts focuses on the improbable career of Jimmy Burke, a one-time delinquent who parlayed his testimony in the botched murder investigation to become "one of the most notorious members of the Suffolk department." The author reconstructs Burke's long rise, abetted by an ambitious district attorney and a compromised clique of like-minded cops, known as "The Administration," while Burke was running the Government Corruption Bureau, weathering scandals that included a drug-fueled affair with a local prostitute. By then, "Jimmy planned to, or already had, boosted his buddies and hangers-on to the top ranks of the department." He also engineered his foes' downfall even after becoming chief of the department: "Even when he reached the peak of county law enforcement," writes the author, "Burke could never quit the machinations that got him there." Ultimately, a drug addict's theft of a compromising bag from Burke's departmental car led to the suspect's beating and a coverup that exploded into scandal. The fearsome, vindictive Burke, "the most powerful figure in Suffolk County," was investigated by federal agents who realized they "were working alongside a county law enforcement system that operated like an organized crime syndicate." The complex narrative encompasses a galaxy of sleazy politicos and subtopics including MS-13's hold on Suffolk and a still-unsolved serial killing case, which Garcia-Roberts describes as "like so many other cases out here: bizarre, interminable, and defined by flabbergasting police miscues." Meandering yet bleakly engaging account of suburban corruption and brutal zero-sum policing. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.