Michael Pevarnik

While I did not have the chance to read this book from cover-to-cover at one sitting, Michael Pevarnik writes a riveting account of his time with the DEA working to break up a multi-layered, multi-state, multi-national heroin ring operating out of Worcester, MA. He methodically provides the back ground of the environment (both mental and physical) of the Main South neighborhood of Worcester, described the players, movers & shakers of this industry and length of time - 4 years - to bring all those involved to account for the lives forever altered. As the reader, I experienced the tensions, disappointments, fears of every encounter in which is was involved and the brave individuals who put their lives on the line to make a difference. I recommend this book to those who studying criminal justice, international law/economics, and humanity.… (mehr)

Michael Pevarnik, a thirty-year veteran of local and federal law enforcement, has written an account of his time as a DEA case agent during Operation Tune-Up, a mid-nineties undercover operation to eliminate organized drug dealing in beleaguered Worchester, Massachusetts, New England's second-largest city and the unlikely epicenter of an international drug trade. Pevarnik takes you from the beginning, when a Vietnamese refugee becomes an informant, through the capture and prosecution of various kingpins. It's tempting to say a book like this reads like a novel, but real life is seldom that neat and tidy. For example, the bad guys come across as pretty boring, their defining characteristics mostly limited to the way they look or speak. (No Tony Sopranos here.) However, true to its title, the book does put you in the middle of the action and gives you a good sense of what it's like to be a law enforcement agent in the middle of an undercover operation. There's a lot of hypervigilance on the law enforcement side and a lot of paranoia on the criminal side, with a fair amount of bad luck and coincidence spread around. Locales include Panama and Puerto Rico and encompass such diverse elements as silicon wafer theft (surprisingly more lucrative than drugs), police corruption, and of course, murder. True crime fans and anyone interested in reading about undercover police work or the illicit drug trade will probably enjoy.… (mehr)