Amazon.com: Jimmy the Wags: Street Stories of a Private Eye (9780688165116): James G. Wagner, Patrick Picciarelli: Books

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Jimmy the Wags: Street Stories of a Private Eye [Hardcover]

James G. Wagner (Author), Patrick Picciarelli (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)


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Book Description

April 21, 1999
After twenty-two years as a New York cop, Jimmy the Wags thought he's seen it all, but it wasn't until he retired and set up as a private eye that his real education began. Now, in his own inimitable voice, he tells a true-life story with all the action, adventure, and atmosphere of Wiseguy or Serpico -- a colorful cautionary tale that reads like fiction.

His first private job was to bodyguard a gaggle of Saudi princes and right away Wags was on a roll: debt collections, a blackmail case, and a divorce surveillance that gives new meaning to the phrase "man's best friend"; movie stars, private jets, car chases, even a helicopter getaway under fire during an international child custody kidnapping.

As the stories pile up, the money gets better and the players get bigger...until he settles in as security chief of an upscale strip club and suddenly finds himself trapped between the Mafia and a psychotic enforcer for the Russian mob.

An up-close-and-personal look at a world we rarely see, from an honest-to-God character whose walk on the wild side ended up on the wrong side of the law.


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Editorial Reviews

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

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.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 224 pages
  • Publisher: William Morrow and Company, Inc.; 1st edition (April 21, 1999)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0688165117
  • ISBN-13: 978-0688165116
  • Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,532,828 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

27 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (27 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A very action packed extremely funny book!!!!!!!!!!!, October 31, 1999
This review is from: Jimmy the Wags: Street Stories of a Private Eye (Hardcover)
This was one of the most interesting books I have read. It very exciting and very funny. This is for anyone is interested in private eyes. Or just looking for some good stories. It is one of the best books i've read in a long time, I highly recommend it.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Jimmy the Wags, July 10, 2000
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I could not put this book down. I laughed from start to finish. What a great way to spend a summer afternoon!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars From cop to mob shake-down enforcer: a slippery slope indeed, June 24, 2002
By 
saskatoonguy (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Canada) - See all my reviews
This New York ex-cop entertains us with tales of his career as a private investigator, which he defines unusually broadly, to include such jobs as bodyguard, collection agent, mafia go-fer, and manager of a topless bar. There are some great stories here, and the book is hard to put down.

However, I was very disturbed by the contrast between the author's claims to wanting to do the right thing and the fact that he was doing some very illegal things, which he obviously had no trouble rationalizing to himself. The most extreme example is when he works as a "collection agent," extorting money from businesses for the mafia. Wagner is genuinely shocked - shocked! - that some trigger-happy prosecutor might want to put him in jail for this! After all, Wagner tried to make sure he wasn't in the room when actual violence occurred, although there were exceptions, and anyway, these were massage parlours and unlicensed bars - so obviously he wasn't doing anything wrong?! It's astonishing how such an intelligent and articulate man could have so completely lost his moral compass without realizing it. Even when Wagner acknowledges he had slid down the slippery slope of wrongdoing, one gets the impression his regrets are more pragmatic, rather than ethical, in nature.

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