Amazon.com Review
A tough former New York City cop turned private eye now turns himself into an author in this gritty (but often humorous) account of the armed and dangerous life. James Wagner ("Wags" to just about everybody, it appears) spent 22 years at the NYPD, but apparently felt like he hadn't had enough adventure in his life. After putting out word that "Wags is for hire," he gets his first job shepherding some jet-setting Arab princes around New York for a few days, and finds himself hooked as the money and perks start to roll in. The rest of the book details Wags's rise and fall as a big-time "security consultant," from voyaging to Denmark to return a kidnapped child to his father to his entanglement with the Mob at a fancy strip club. Not all of Wags's adventures are a matter of life or death: in one memorable passage, he plays bodyguard-valet to an eccentric woman ("heir to a computer software fortune") who travels everywhere with her pet parrot perched on her shoulder and has a penchant for disengaging her prosthetic hand at inopportune moments during meals.
It's easy to fret over Wags's well-being as he whisks readers from one seriocomic adventure to the next, often with his erstwhile associate "Hondo," a former Army Ranger who favors Armani suits and, of course, prefers action to talk. And there's a sense that Wags was often confused about the particular direction in which his life was careening at any given moment. But Jimmy the Wags is a rollicking memoir, and Wagner and coauthor Patrick Picciarelli make a real-life tough guy come off just like you'd want him to be: straight out of an Elmore Leonard novel, equal parts Joe Pesci and James Bond. --Tjames Madison
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Written with Picciarelli (like Wagner, a former cop), these streetwise recollections have the sound of tales told from a barstoolAimpossible to confirm (names are changed) and perhaps massaged a bit. Retired after 22 years as a New York City cop but still craving action, Wagner became a PI and found himself in some sticky situations. There were the cash-toting Saudi princes who required Wags and other bodyguards to take them eating and shoppingAand then asked Wags to procure hookers and cocaine (he sat out the latter task). He flew to Denmark and to Turkey to snatch kids in child-custody disputesAboth missions required as much fistic persuasion as derring-do. He trailed some elusive philanderers, guarded a crazed, drunken heiress and stymied an extortion attempt by wannabe wiseguys by doing his Joe Pesce imitation. Wags wound up as head of security for a high-price, mobbed-up topless bar. After he left, owing his boss a favor, he helped collect some extortion debts and found himself arrested after his co-collectors decided to rob patrons of a massage parlor. He got probation and gave up his license but still works in security. Though Wags regrets he joined the collectors, he seems proud of some other dubious activities. While these reminiscences contain a few too many hard-boiled clich?s, they're engaging enough if you have a beer in your fist.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
