Finders Keepers: The Story of a Man Who Found $1 Million [Hardcover]

Mark Bowden (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2002

Following best-selling and award-winning books such as Black Hawk Down and Killing Pablo, Mark Bowden has won widespread acclaim for his ability to report true-life events in riveting detail, with a singular eye for human drama. Now Finders Keepers recounts a mystery that captivated the city of Philadelphia when $1 million went missing. Hard times had left Joey Coyle -- a likable longshoreman from the close-knit working-class neighborhood of South Philadelphia -- living with his ailing mother and struggling to support a drug habit. One afternoon, Coyle was on his way to score drugs when, just blocks from his home, he found two curious yellow containers lying in the street. As it turned out, they had just fallen off the back of an armored van, and they contained $1 million in unmarked money from a casino. From the moment the cash disappeared, Detective Pat Laurenzi, with the help of the FBI, worked around the clock to find it. As the story exploded onto the front pages, the entire city was swept up in the hunt. Joey Coyle, meanwhile, shared the money with everyone from his girlfriend to complete strangers to the neighborhood's most notorious mob boss, who allegedly helped launder it. Coyle would live his next week in a drug-fueled whirlwind, planning his future as a rich man even as he grew terrified that he was about to be captured, even killed. Finders Keepers is the remarkable tale of an ordinary man faced with an extraordinary moral dilemma, and the fascinating reactions -- from complicity to concern to betrayal -- of the friends and neighbors to whom he turns. Loaded with intrigue and suspense, this is a gripping new book from a versatile and evocative chronicler of American life.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bowden follows two bestsellers (Black Hawk Down; Killing Pablo) with a tragicomic tale based on a series of articles he wrote for the Philadelphia Inquirer, where he was a reporter for two decades. Joey Coyle, at 28, is down and out, amiable but aimless, an unemployed longshoreman from South Philly who, despite his cheerful exterior, has a gnawing sense of inadequacy that he masks with methamphetamine. In February 1981, Joey has a spectacularly lucky or spectacularly unlucky, as Bowden shows with the tale's unfolding day: driving with a couple of guys from the neighborhood, he finds two sacks containing $1.2 million in cash. Despite major media attention on the money's disappearance from an armored car, Coyle decides to keep it. What ensues is partly a police procedural (will the cops find Joey?), but the drama, as Bowden relates the story, lies mainly in Coyle's rapid, drug-mediated deterioration into panic and paranoia as he attempts to launder and stash the money. Bowden's narrative is succinct and fast-moving, spare but complete, and ends in a farcical trial, in which Coyle tries an insanity defense, followed by Hollywood's muddled attempt to turn the story into a feel-good movie starring John Cusack. The tale has a sad conclusion, as Coyle's attempt to live up to his new role as a kind of urban hero fails. This is a smaller tale than Bowden's earlier ones, but a satisfying one, smartly told. (Oct.) Forecast: As Bowden writes, who doesn't dream of finding $1 million? This should have wide appeal, aided by Bowden's reputation.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Bowden's newest effort recounts true events that happened in early 1980s Philadelphia to Joey Coyle, a drug-addled, down-and-out longshoreman. One day, while on the way to score drugs, Joey and his two buddies spotted an armored van that had just spilled over $1 million in unmarked bills out onto the street. Without a second thought, Joey got out of the car and snatched up the bags. By all accounts (but especially his), this was Joey's lucky day until his drug-induced paranoia set in and his troubles really started. His frantic and pathetic attempts to launder the money are carefully chronicled by Bowden (Black Hawk Down; Killing Pablo), who pieces together all the facts and tries (as best he is able) to retrace the steps of Coyle and others whom he subsequently involved in his laundering efforts. Bowden's quick and intense story is like a joyride in print, but while interesting it is not as essential a purchase as his other works. Recommended for larger collections.
Rachel Collins, "Library Journal"
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press; 1 edition (October 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 087113859X
• ISBN-13: 978-0871138590
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,190,578 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mark Bowden is the bestselling author of Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War, as well as The Best Game Ever, Bringing the Heat, Killing Pablo, and Guests of the Ayatollah. He reported at The Philadelphia Inquirer for twenty years and now writes for Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, and other magazines. He lives in Oxford, Pennsylvania.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What if a complete idiot found a million dollars?, November 6, 2002

By 

H. Rex Hammock (Nashville, TN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Finders Keepers: The Story of a Man who found $1 Million that fell off a Truck (Audio Cassette)

Another great book from Mark Bowden. But this time, I listened to the book as the author narrates it himself. He does a great job delivering this fascinating tale that he briefly covered as a young newspaper reporter. Later in his career, he did a retrospective series about the episode that became the basis for the very forgettable movie starring John Cusack, Money for Nothing. Bowden does a terrific job of reconstructing for the reader (or listener) the very private lives and moments of the story's principles. While few of the characters are very sympathetic, they nonetheless are, at least presented by Bowden, fascinating to follow. It's no Blackhawk Down, but it's a well-woven yarn.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Breezy book with an edge, December 27, 2002

By 

Frank (Stockton CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Finders Keepers: The Story of a Man Who Found $1 Million (Hardcover)

I received this as a Christmas present, and what a neat present it was!
I started reading this obviously fictional book about this unemployed meth addict Philadelphian dockworker named Joey who finds $1.2 million in unmarked unsequential $100 bills laying on the street -- a $1.2 million which literally fell off the back of the truck. He immediately enters into all these improbable and zany adventures, capped by an arrest at the airport as he's getting ready to fly to Acapulco! During his trial, his attorney opts for a temporary insanity defense, which the jury buys because the guy's buddies testify he "went bananas" for a week when he found the money.
Yet this comedy has an edge to it -- the tragedy of "men who were raised to go to work out on the docks like their fathers and uncles and older brothers, only there's no work for them on the docks anymore, and there's nothing else they know how to do.... It's a story about addiction, about the belief that there is a shortcut to true happiness."
When I got to the Epilogue, I was quite surprised to find that this obviously fictional story was true! The author tells what happened after the trial, and how Joey's story was literally Disneyfied -- and how his good fortune turned out to be his tragic ruin.
The typeface used is a bit distracting since there is no "1" -- and unlike ancient typewriters, instead of the small "L," the capital "I" is used: thus $100 is $I00 and 314 Dunfor Street is 3I4 Dunfor Street.
This is a great book because it encompasses universal themes -- Joey is a Greek tragic figure whose internal flaws, despite his good fortune, emerge to undo him. Many of us, likewise, have envisioned what we would do if sudden riches came upon us.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A funny true crime story?, February 25, 2005

By 

George (Martinsville, Va United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Finders Keepers: The Story of a Man Who Found $1 Million (Paperback)

Can there be such a thing as a funny true crime story?

Mark Bowden answers the question with a solid yes, with this tale of down and out Philidelphians whos stumble upon a box of armored car money.

It s aquick read that takes time to delve into the backgrounds of the major charachters enough to make us sympathetic to them and even pitty them at times. Well reported and not overwritten, which must have been ahrd because some of the charachters cried out for a lot of sterotypical descriptions.