Befriend and Betray: Infiltrating the Hells Angels, Bandidos and Other Criminal Brotherhoods
Author: Alex Cain
The Hells Angels. The Bandidos. Asian triads. Russian mobsters and corrupt cops. Even the KKK. Just part of a day’s work for Alex Caine, an undercover agent who has seen it all.
Alex Caine started life as a working-class boy from Quebec who always thought he’d end up in a blue-collar job. But after a tour in Vietnam and a stretch in prison on marijuana-possession charges, he fell into the cloak-and-dagger world of a contracted agent or “kite”: infiltrating criminal groups that cops across North America and around the globe were unable to penetrate themselves.
Thanks to his quick-wittedness and his tough but unthreatening demeanour, Caine could fit into whatever unsavoury situation he found himself. Over twenty-five years, his assignments ran the gamut from bad-ass bikers to triad toughs. When a job was over, he’d slip away to a new part of the continent or world, where he would assume a new identity and then go back to work on another group of bad guys.
Told with page-turning immediacy, Befriend and Betray gives a candid look behind the scenes at some familiar police operations and blows the lid off others that law enforcement would much prefer to keep hidden. And it offers an unvarnished account of the toll such a life takes, one that often left Caine to wonder who he really was, behind those decades of assumed identities. Or whether justice was ever truly served.
Publishers Weekly
Chilling and gritty, this new account by Caine, an undercover police agent for 25 years, showcases his skills as a shrewd chameleon who could infiltrate any group while tallying their vices and offenses. Following stints in Vietnam and behind bars, he teamed with the cops to penetrate the criminal netherworld populated by cruel Asian triads and street gangs battling for territories and riches. Caine, a tough cookie, was recruited by all of the federal enforcement agencies to get the goods on the big four outlaw bike gangs-the Hells Angels, the Bandidos, the Outlaws and the Pagans-and some of his exploits are the stuff of high-tension torture and lawlessness. His resourcefulness is uncanny, as is his sheer will to survive as he matches wits with a group of Russian mobsters and lawmen on the take. It's to Caine's credit that he lived to tell this riveting tale of bloodshed and corruption. 8 pages of b&w photos. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Kirkus Reviews
Infiltrator-for-hire Caine writes with disarming candor about going undercover everywhere from Newfoundland to Hong Kong. The child of a broken family in a small Quebec town, he was a directionless 20-year-old ne'er-do-well when he signed up in 1969 to fight with the U.S. Marines in Vietnam. A horrific tour of duty, which saw him coordinating extrajudicial assassinations and accidentally killing at least one civilian, left him prone to detachment, something he put to use after returning to Canada. Accidentally getting too friendly with a Vancouver criminal, he informed the police; but instead of giving him a reward, the Mounties signed him up as an informant. The investigation widened into an international operation that sent Caine flying to Hong Kong (along with plenty of cops looking for a taypayer-funded vacation) to move higher up the Triad's chain of command. After that, he became an undercover mercenary specializing in biker gangs. Caine's unassuming demeanor made him fit in better than the undercover officers who overdid it. Indeed, he displays considerable contempt for cops who relish playing the bad boy, portraying one police ambush he witnessed as little more than a gangland hit. Most of the narrative details his work inside the Bandidos, a Pacific Northwest gang, and a long assignment with the Hell's Angels in California. Along the way he also describes operations involving Toronto gangs and the KKK. His personal life suffered from all the role-playing: "My mind is really a graveyard for all the people I've been," he writes. Two marriages broke up, and an investigation involving a family member estranged his sisters. Unlike ATF special agent Jay Dobyns (No Angel, 2009),Caine remains resolutely unromantic about his targets and has no problem doing exactly what the book's title directs. A refreshingly open and clearheaded account of the dirty side of law enforcement.
Interesting textbook: Anna and Michael Olson Cook at Home or Feel Good Cookbook
Baghdad Diaries: A Woman's Chronicle Of War And Exile
Author: Nuha Al Radi
The only available book about daily life in modern Iraq, BAGHDAD DIARIES offers American readers a first-person account of the human toll of war and the price paid by ordinary Iraqi citizens.
The author, Nuha al-Radi, is a cosmopolitan, Western-educated Iraqi woman who writes with surprising humor and stoicism about the reality of daily life in Baghdad during the first Gulf War and the subsequent bleak years under sanctions. She describes the difficulties of day-to-day survival but also the funny and macabre goings-on about town. Following her into exile in Jordan and later Beirut, the diary continues to November 2002. It ends with several dramatic new entries written as Baghdad is bombed again and U.S. troops advance towards the city.
The New York Times
Ms. Radi is a painter and sculptor not a writer, but she has an artist's eye for the telling detail: the birds flying upside down after an air raid, people gathering mementos from a rocket that has fallen into the garden of the Rashid Hotel, bicycles becoming the transport mode of choice as gasoline supplies dry up. — Michiku Kakutani
The Washington Post
Al-Radi looks at Iraq like a woman who insists on viewing a canvas only through a magnifying glass, intimately describing its texture while failing to see the wider scene. But however narrow its focus, Baghdad Diaries offers an unfiltered perspective on a widely misunderstood world. — Frank Smyth
Publishers Weekly
A London-educated Iraqi woman, al-Radi, recounts 10 years in her life, covering the Persian Gulf War in 1991, then the Western embargo on Iraq and finally the years she entitles "exile," which she spent primarily in Lebanon, occasionally visiting the United States. Al-Radi, an artist by training, writes powerful but not ostentatious prose, with abrupt, fragmented and simple sentences as she interweaves the violent, chaotic effects of war with everyday incidents. One may feel the urge to skim the detailing of run-of-the-mill events regarding, say, al-Radi's dog and his adventures. And the artistry and authenticity of al-Radi's voice will be marred for some by her ardent anti-Israel and anti-American sentiments. The author rightly addresses the devastation of war, the inevitable violence wrought on innocent civilians. But she does not address the context in which the Gulf War and the embargo took place. Mention of Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and ruthlessness toward his own people is reduced to a bare minimum. Al-Radi singles out Israel for criticism of its policies regarding Lebanon and the Palestinians, at one point comparing Israeli policies to Nazi tactics. There is no question that war is brutal, and al-Radi touchingly portrays the Iraqi plight, but in her eagerness to cast blame, she loses sight of the bigger picture. (May) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Penelope Power - KLIATT
Nuha Al-Radi, a potter, painter and eco-sculptor from a prominent and sophisticated Iraqi family, began her diary in 1991 at the beginning of the Gulf War, writing from her house in Baghdad. She was not privy to government plans (who was?) and her diary reflects the concerns of an ordinary citizen whose country is under attack. She describes the loss of electricity and the subsequent neighborhood feasts, as the people of Baghdad cleaned out their freezers and refrigerators and cooked the soon-to-be spoiled food. Friends and family leave for the safety of the country, hauling their freezers on trucks and barbequing on the way. Water and phone service are unavailable. The lush orchard surrounding her house becomes the site of the "loo" as water is too scarce to use for flushing. On the eighth day of bombardment she writes, "Depression has hit me with the realization that the whole world hates us." With the end of war comes the chaos of defeat. Wild dogs roam the streets and private yards. Shattered windows must be replaced but there are no available materials. The dirt and dust from the bombardment fills the streets and houses and the rain is black. The police force is decimated; thievery and car jacking become rampant. There is no army and the author comments, "We are told to rebel by the West, with what and how?" The subsequent embargo makes life difficult, and in some cases impossible. Medical care is non-existent; a visit to the hospital is useless, as there are neither supplies nor equipment. Despite the grim drain on the amenities of everyday life Nuha Al-Radi's sense of humor cannot be subdued. She gives up painting and begins to sculpt from cast-off automotive parts and stones. Her"Embargo Art" becomes well known. A U.S. representative promises to get her a U.S. tank to put in front of a famous Baghdad hotel; her intention is to paint it and invite people to write comments on it. She will call it "An Anti-Tank Missal," but the representative lets her down. In 1995 the artist left Iraq to show her art in Lebanon and has been an exile since. She says that Beirut is a gathering place for exiles as the Lebanese are famous for their grumbling and complaining and free speech is still allowed. On September 15, 2001 her entry reads "They know the names of the hijackers now and they are all Arabs; God help us." A March 2003 postscript for the Vintage edition records this painful entry: "In the name of peace and humanity, thousands have to be killed. In the name of liberation, in the name of democracy, there will be a military occupation. Would someone please tell me where the democracy lies in 'Either you are with us or against us'?" KLIATT Codes: SA;Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 1998, Random House, Vintage, 217p.,
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