Deadly Force - Softcover

Stroud, Carsten

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553575449 ISBN 13: 9780553575446

Publisher: Bantam, 1997

Synopsis

Carsten Stroud brings a reads-like-a-novel style of journalism to this nonfiction book on the U.S. Marshals' fugitive apprehension unit. In Deadly Force he follows marshal Luke Zitto in his vendetta-like pursuit of two men whose brutal careers in crime turn out to be unexpectedly linked. In going after the "Yellow Man," a hatchet-wielding murderer with ties to organized crime, Zitto will at last find himself in a position to also nail the man who raped a U.S. marshal, a close friend of Frank. But the hurdles he faces in taking down these men lead him to a terrible conclusion: at least one of them is being secretly protected by the U.S. government.
Stroud's gripping prose turns this tale of urban warriors and predators into a classic of law enforcement.

About this title

Review

From the Tom Waits lyrics at the beginning, to the final lines when the manhunter stands over the handcuffed form of his prey, thinking, "Bring on the next contestant," Deadly Force delivers the heart-pounding speed of an action movie. The story takes place in three bursts--11 hours in January '95 in New York City, a flashback to 2 days in May '94 in Washington, D.C., then 9 days more in January '95 to wrap up the chase. But the hero, U.S. Marshal Luke Zitto, doesn't just "get his man": through the voice of the author, Carsten Stroud, he spouts off about suits and bulls and furballs, tells one wild story after another, and illustrates, through his own misbegotten career, what he calls a "corrosive flood of institutional paranoia throughout the federal justice establishment."

Despite the sexy flash of its language, it's a solid, convincing book. You'll learn a lot here about the history of the U. S. Marshals and about the turf wars between the FBI, CIA, and several other three-letter agencies. The highly dramatic style, though, makes it hard to tell how much is factual. Maybe that's not a drawback, if Marshal Zitto's paranoia is justified. --Fiona Webster

From the Publisher

New York Times bestselling author Carsten Stroud has written agripping and graphic true story as riveting as any novel: the story of thedriven, hard-edged federal marshals whose job is the pursuit and capture of thenation's most dangerous and violent criminals.

Members of the oldest law enforcement agency in the country, the U.S. Marshalswere once regarded as little more than security guards. Now they're on thefrontlines of law enforcement. Their mission, made famous in the 1993 filmThe Fugitive, is to take down hardcore felons. In Deadly Force,Carsten Stroud leads us deep into their sometimes savage, sometimes darklyhumorous world.

Luke Zitto was stagnating in his job with the Witness Protection Program whenhis wife left him for one of the white-collar felons he was protecting.Reassignment to Fugitive Operations gave Luke a new beat on some of thecountry's meanest streets--it gave him his war.

Now the fugitive Luke wants most is an icy and elusive criminal who raped afederal marshal, a woman Luke is close to, and may be involved in a string ofother atrocities. How Luke, his colleagues, and local cops in Washington andNew York pursue this man, sometimes risking their jobs in the politicalquicksand of the Justice Department, is a thrilling and provocative story offrustrations and hunches, finks and snitches, that leads to a tension-packedfinal takedown.

Powerful, brutally real, Deadly Force is award-winning journalistCarsten Stroud's first nonfiction work on American law enforcement since hisclassic bestseller on the NYPD, Close Pursuit. No one could have toldthis story better.
Copyright © 1996 by Absaroke, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0553575449
• ISBN 13: 9780553575446
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 480