The Confession of Joe Cullen [Hardcover]

Howard Fast (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The prolific novelist ( The Pledge ) weighs in with his 46th book, a crime thriller-cum-political allegory. Mel Freedman, Jewish police lieutenant in a largely Catholic/black New York City precinct house, and his Puerto Rican sidekick, Ramos, stumble onto what looks like a Washington-run cocaine-smuggling operation in Central America. Their tip-off is Joe Cullen--Vietnam vet, pilot-for-hire and guilt-ridden Catholic--who saw a priest thrown out of a helicopter in Honduras. After more murders, Cullen flees the N.Y.C. police, who want him as a suspect; he's also evading the drug cabal which may include an army colonel who resembles Oliver North and a multimillionaire WASP society figure. This tough-guy tale has a soft heart: Freedman dates his ex-wife; a pretty assistant D.A. falls head-over-heels for fugitive Cullen. Although the characters at times resemble props in a morality play and the plot is schematic, Fast's grimly chilling fa ble delivers a resounding message about the decline of America's values, its corrupt leaders and the duplicity of a U.S. government that, clandestinely or openly, supports death squads and dictators in Latin America.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Joe Cullen makes more than one confession: to the police, to a priest, and to a hooker. The confession concerns the death of a priest in Honduras, and the details weave a startling web of intrigue involving the CIA and the Feds trading guns to the Contras for cocaine. When the hooker and the priest confessed to are killed, Lieutenant Freedman of the New York City Police involves himself in tracking down the brains behind the whole scheme. While this fast-moving story succeeds on the level of a thriller, there is also substantive probing into guilt and mysticism in Catholicism. An unexpected and welcome book from the author of April Morning ( LJ 4/1/61) and many other well-known works. Highly recommended.
- Robert H. Donahugh, Youngstown and Mahoning Cty . P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Random House Value Publishing (January 15, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517079437
• ISBN-13: 978-0517079430
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,871,585 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Exciting novel based on real-life disappearance of priest., October 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Confession of Joe Cullen, The (Mass Market Paperback)

The Confession of Joe Cullen is a fast-moving novel with good characterizations and dialogue. It takes off from real newspaper accounts of the 1983 disappearance of a Catholic priest, Fr. James Carney, in Honduras. The author then weaves a story of the guilty man's confession, police investigations, and murders.

Because of his views and his commitment to justice, the real Fr. Carney was deported from Honduras in 1979 and lived in Nicaragua for several years. He was very encouraged by the social gains of the Sandinista revolution, but his heart remained in Honduras. During this time he wrote To Be a Revolutionary (listed by Amazon.com), while pastor of a rural parish. Fr. Carney entered Honduras in 1983 as chaplain to a revolutionary group.The column was surrounded by the Honduran army; some were captured and later released; others were killed; and many (like Fr. Carney ) disappeared. His remains have never been found, and we do not know how he died or disappeared.

In a New York Times Magazine article (June 5, 1988) entitled "The Honduran Army's Death Squad: How Much Did the U.S. Know?" author James LeMoyne quoted Florencio Caballero (a deserter from the Honduran army, now deceased) as saying that he personally interrogated Carney after the priest's capture: "Around the time Ms. Murillo was seized, Florencio Caballero said, he interrogated an American priest, Father James Carney...." Caballero's account that "Father Carney and nearly 70 of the captured guerrillas were executed" was "seconded by a Honduran officer."

During recent years the U.S. government has declassified and released large amounts of material, in response to an official request by the Honduran government. However, almost 50% of this material is blacked out, including paragraphs in sensitive areas where Father Carney is described as being captured by the Honduran military, tortured, and dismembered. In 1997 the C.I.A. acknowledged that this version "cannot be ruled out." (The official Honduran army version in 1983 was that perhaps Carney had starved to death in the mountains. Nevertheless, the army presented his stole, chalice and bible to his relatives but said they had not recovered his body.) One declassified C.I.A. page presents a report by an unnamed Honduran soldier who says that he carried Father Carney's head in his knapsack; recently Honduran newspapers have quoted a peasant leader who says that Honduran military officers told him that Carney's head is preserved in a jar of alcohol in what is now the Ministry of Defense building. For more information about Fr. Carney and the efforts to find his remains and to discover what happened to him, please contact Joseph Mulligan at [e-mail]