Armed and Dangerous: The Hunt for One of America's Most Wanted Criminals [Hardcover]

William Queen (Author), Douglas Century (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 3, 2007

From the New York Times bestselling author of Under and Alone comes an intimate and riveting account of federal law-enforcement agent William Queen’s relentless hunt for one of America’s most cold-blooded criminals.

As an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, William Queen must tackle a number of challenging cases, including going undercover to investigate a group of violent skinheads and infiltrating and busting a ring trafficking in high-powered explosives, drugs, and firearms. In the winter of 1985, he faces his toughest mission to date: he must apprehend Mark Stephens, a notorious narcotics trafficker who has been terrorizing the communities around Los Angeles with frequent rampages involving machine guns and hand grenades. A recluse living in the treacherous backwoods outside the city, Stephens is a cunning survivalist. Nobody has been able to catch him, but Queen is determined to take him down. Queen’s unique expertise is not taught in any police academy or ATF training seminar–he honed his outdoorsman abilities as a kid. Stephens may have finally met his match in the unwavering Queen, who is adept at hunting and trapping and living for weeks in the wild. Queen will use these skills–along with surveillance, confidential informants, and intelligence gathering–as he doggedly tracks his dangerous quarry, a chase that culminates in a gripping showdown high in the San Bernardino Mountains.

A fascinating look into the daily life of an ATF agent and a taut portrayal of a monthlong manhunt, Armed and Dangerous depicts a classic race against time–lawman versus outlaw–in a harrowing true story of life-or-death suspense.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After his bestselling debut, Under and Alone (also coauthored by Century), Queen, a retired Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent, returns with a less successful effort. Here Queen goes back to his early days with ATF, describing his obsessive 1985 quest to take down Mark Stephens, equal parts gunman, mountain man, drug trafficker, and out-and-out thug. As laudatory as the effort to apprehend Stephens was, the story is too slight to sustain even a brief book, which might explain why Queen fills it out with discussions of unrelated investigations he pursued while waiting for approval to go up into the mountains after his quarry. He also seems to devote as much time to his arguments with his superiors as to the effort to ascend the rugged terrain in the mountains of Southern California where Stephens was hiding out, and the anticlimactic conclusion of their encounter is disappointing. Queen relies on an uncorroborated account from an ex-con and associate of Stephens's for a section that makes Stephens seem truly psychotic. The passing references to the toll the agent's hard-charging style took on his marriage could have been better developed. (July 3)
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From Booklist

ATF agent Queen seemed the only one likely to apprehend pot-grower and accomplished survivalist Mark Stephens in 1986. As polished by Century, Queen's rat-a-tat prose suggests the automatic weapons' fire Stephens had employed in "terrorizing the towns of California's Inland Empire" before relocating permanently to the wilderness. Besides his adeptness at living in the wild, Stephens made his own machine guns ("a hobby, an interesting pastime") and grew pot plants 10 to 12 feet tall. Queen matched Stephens in survival and tracking skills, and the two men's similarities greatly enliven the story of their conflict. In fact, the standoff after which Stephens was taken into custody might have ended more quickly had Stephens not thought that Queen, "with his long, curly hair looked more like a drug-crazed hippie bent on stealing his dope" than like a lawman. A ripping good manhunt saga, detailed and suspenseful, not at all dimished by the deflationary fact that Stephens plea-bargained down to "a single possession of illegal weapons count" and got only five years in federal prison. Tribby, Mike

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Random House; First Edition edition (July 3, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400065771
• ISBN-13: 978-1400065776
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,120,689 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Best Seller, July 7, 2007

By 

C. Carter "A real book fan" (North Carolina) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Armed and Dangerous: The Hunt for One of America's Most Wanted Criminals (Hardcover)

I was blown away by Queen's first book "Under and Alone" and this ATF Agent kept me awake once again with "Armed and Dangerous". You get a real life look at what real law-enforcement types have to go through to do their jobs. You learn that they not only have to fight the bad guys but their bosses so they can go after the bad guys. In this book Queen actually has to get to the 'top of the mountain' to catch a crazy drug dealer that has kept all other law enforcement agencies at bay. A great read.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Inflated & Overblown, October 21, 2007

By 

Bradley F. Smith (Miami Beach, FL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Armed and Dangerous: The Hunt for One of America's Most Wanted Criminals (Hardcover)

Your first clue that there is not much here is the big type size. Someone tried to stretch this tale into a book, but the material is inadequate. Queen spends page after page building up to the big moment when he defies death and captures some pyscho in the San Bernardino mountains more than 25 years ago. The problem is the arrest was fairly routine. There is a lot of extraneous detail about unrelated investigations leading up to the main case, obviously an effort to stretch the book. I hope Queen has some more substantial stories left in him, or else his best book, about his undercover stint as a Mongol motorcycle gangbanger, may be his only claim to fame as a writer.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Armed and Dangerous, July 7, 2007

By 

V. Kennedy "book crazed" - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Armed and Dangerous: The Hunt for One of America's Most Wanted Criminals (Hardcover)

This is a true story about an ATF agent's efforts to bring a drug dealer to justice. It might not sound that hard, but the fact is that the perp lives in an inaccessible hideout in the mountains outside LA. No one can flush him out long enough to capture him. The guy's going to kill someone with one of his submachine guns if he's not stopped. It's like reading a thriller instead of a true to life drama that really took place. It gives some interesting insight into the way ATF and the police handle matters like this. It's a good read.