Pena Files: One Man's War Against Corruption and the Abuse of Power

For a quarter of a century, Pena has investigated fraudulent federal officials, white-collar conspiracies, organized crime, and other prominent cases for an exclusive clientele. From his roots as a Mexican emigre, he has become the highest-paid investigator in the world, an elite troubleshooter who, in the course of his Mission: Impossible-like investigations, has posed as everything from a Mafia hit man to a billionaire construction magnate. Driven by his desire to root out corporate crime and expose dirty tricks in the federal government and the judiciary, he has tangled with crooked judges and kidnappers, counterfeiters and brutal terrorists, as well as greedy corporate magnates.
In The Pena Files Pena thrills readers with the inside details of his most compelling and controversial cases, many of which have exposed profound and widespread federal corruption, such as: the covert destruction of the richest and most powerful Mafia empire in organized crime history. Along the way Pena discovered an intimate tie between organized crime and the U.S. State Department; corporate looting at PepsiCo and Frito-Lay that may have led to the White House, a possible connection so sensitive that Pena's life was threatened and the case ultimately killed; the exposure of such widespread corruption inside the Internal Revenue Service that Pena was able to persuade Congress to convene hearings that changed the way the IRS polices itself.
The Pena Files provides a shocking tour of the underbelly of the American justice system. From corrupt senior IRS officials to power-mad federal prosecutors, the rogue's gallery in The Pena Files includes some of the most prominent public officials in the country. Dodging bullets, rattling terrorists, eluding a would-be assassin in an exciting car chase, Pena coolly takes on Mafia kingpins and cutthroat Communist rebels. But in the end Pena reveals that his most challenging - and dangerous - case has been against the United States government, forcing him to use all the tools of his trade to protect himself from the full weight of the feds, intent on crushing him because of his one-man war against IRS corruption.

Octavio Pena was born in Mexico in 1941 and migrated to the U.S. in his early 20s. After quitting a few dead-end jobs, he answered an ad in the New York Times looking for people to work part-time for Lynch International, a large private-investigation firm, and immediately found his true calling. Pena quickly became a star at the agency, and his autobiography is filled with enough derring-do to make James Bond look like a sissy. Whether he's infiltrating a band of Rastafarians in Jamaica to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a wealthy American, or battling the mob to collect $5 million that one of its members owed to Northville Industries, Pena's exploits read like a television movie. He and his coauthors McKenna (a freelance writer) and Matera (Strike Midnight) are not shy about describing Pena's assignments in highly hyperbolic terms, a style that becomes annoying at times. Still, even though some of Pena's accounts sound more like fiction than fact, there are a number of stories that will keep readers rapidly turning the pages to find out how our hero solves his many life-and-death cases. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In an account burdened by hazy reportage and sloppy writing, private investigator Pe¤a's caseload, dazzling though it may be, reads like so many tall tales. Pe¤a, an investigator with the detective agency Lynch International since 1966, gives the inside scoop on some of his investigations--the case of the Frito Lay kickbacks, the nasty corporate espionage war between Jordache and Guess? Jeans. With two coauthors in addition to Pe¤a, the narrative clearly suffers from the too-many-cooks syndrome; Pe¤a's ``files'' are an awkward meld of B-movie dialogue (``Man, was I na‹ve'') and amateurish attempts at setting the scene. The first few chapters, which focus on organized crime as represented by the the Scallino and Franzese families, seem included less for their value or relevance than for the fact that Matera, who covered these particular goombahs in his book Quitting the Mob, clearly enjoys the story. The dozens of references to 500-lb. head goon Larry Iorizzo as ``the fat man'' grow wearisome, and unsubtle insights like ``Everybody knows that attorneys have the morals of alley cats'' are scattered through the tough-talking text. Some of the later cases, particularly the Jordache-Marciano crime, promise a fascinating look at the tangled web connecting the IRS, private industry, big politics, and the media. But the intricacies of the case are lost amid glossed-over details, cornball dialogue, and Pe¤a's frantic push to let readers know how bad the cops and the FBI are, compared with him. With three authors, it might be expected that at least one could have managed to show rather than tell. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

A young man comes to the U.S. from Mexico and, with intelligence, hard work, and integrity, becomes CEO of a private investigations firm. An old-fashioned success story? Yes, but it's Horatio Alger juiced for the corrupt and cynical 1990s. Pena's cases have pitted him against the Mafia, Central American terrorists, corporate thieves, and most frighteningly, the IRS. At the outset, this nonfiction work strains credulity. It's hard to accept that a private investigator could do everything Pena claims to have done. But as the pages pass at a breathless pace, and well-known corporate and personal names are dropped in profusion, readers will remember that truth is the defense against libel. In the chilling concluding incident, Pena describes a pattern of thuggery, intimidation, and bribery in the IRS that makes the Mafia look noble. He names names and details how senior IRS officials sold their offices to ravage a competitor, manipulate the Justice Department, destroy honest IRS employees, and stonewall Congress. Like Pena, readers will be sadder and wiser. Thomas Gaughan