Customer Reviews

The Price of Experience: Power, Money, Image, and Murder in Los Angeles

5 star:		(7)
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3 star:		(1)
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This is one of the great overlooked books of the 90's. It was overlooked, I believe, because of its length and the timing of its release: over a decade after its subjects, Joe Hunt and the Billionaire Boys Club, were in the media spotlight. What a shame because it a flat out masterpiece. As far as true crime books go this is a landmark and the top of the heap. Not only is it incredibly researched and hard to put down, but it is an amazing cultural history of Los Angeles and its reflection of America during the Reagan era. Out of the hundreds of books I have read concerning Los Angeles and American society and culture in general, none depicts so well out obsession with power, money, and image as Sullivan's book does. A hundred years from now I hope it will be read in American Studies, History, and English classes in universities along with such thematically similar books as The Great Gatsby, Sister Carrie, Davis' City of Quartz, Ellroy's LA Quartet and such films as The Godfather, Goodfellas, Chinatown, Mean Streets, LA Confidential, and American Beauty. Let's hope it stays in print. Read this classic.

An absolute masterpiece. Unbelievably researched and beautifully written. It's a shame this book never caught the public eye, obviously because the BBC was such a dated subject at the time of publication. There is not a single tome in my entire collection that has brought me as much pleasure and insight. Far more than a mere true crime book, this epic is a stunning cultural history of Los Angeles. In fact, stating that "The Price of Experience" is merely a true crime book is like saying THE GODFATHER is merely a gangster film. Almost everyone I know that has read it agrees it is the finest non-fiction book ever written.

This was one of the most engrossing books I've ever read. The story of a brilliant, highly principalled, amoral, ambitous, and effective person.

The story of how he acted as his own lawyer and got himself off of murder was utterly fascinating.

The story of someone who you could imagine could do anything he set his mind to. Absolutely anything.

He is really a fascinating character, and if you think about success or ambition, I am sure you will find this a facinating tale.

This is a fascinating book and Sullivan recounts, in vivid detail, the rise and fall of the Billionaire Boys Club. Everything from the description of social dynamics at the Harvard School (which hold true today) to the financial dealings of the BBC to the astonishing and shocking trials makes it a pleasure to read. It is truly a remarkable story, and it is narrated superbly by Sullivan. A must-read for anyone who wants to understand the 1980s or Los Angeles, or has a passing interest in one of the most enthralling trials in modern California history.

My only regret is that there's not an updated version to tell us what became of Joe Hunt, Dean Karny, Jim Pittman, Ben Dosti and the other characters in the BBC.

Before reading The Price of Experience, I had seen television documentaries/docu-dramas and read a primer on the topic. But if you don't know anything at all about the BBC and Joe Hunt, or you want to know a lot more, this book is all you'll ever need to read...ever!!! Sullivan goes into such great detail on every individual involved, including murdered scammers Ron Levin and Headiah Eslamenia, that the reader feels like he now knows each of them personally and could talk about them at great length with anyone. Buy this book because if you don't, you'll merely waste gas driving to the library to borrow it again and again. A modern true crime masterpiece! Both an engrossing narritive and an exhaustive reference book on the Billionaire Boys Club case all at the same time. An off the charts winner. You won't be sorry.

How this book has failed to be recognized as a masterpiece is beyond me. The Price of Experience is an astounding accomplishment. The only other true crime books that can even bear comparison to it are In Cold Blood and the first half of The Executioner's Song. In fact, it denigrates The Price of Experience to classify it as simply a true crime book. Sullivan's rendition of Los Angeles in the 1980s provides the most vivid and memorable images of both the time and the place that I have ever found on the printed page. And his portrait of Joe Hunt is the the most compelling and insightful depiction of evil as a series of decisions--a process--that I can recall in contemporary literature. The characters ALL are exquisitely drawn and Ron Levin ranks among the most amusing miscreants ever captured in print. The Price of Experience deserves to remain in print for years to come and to appear on college syllabuses across the country.

This is a top notch, extremely well written examination of human behavior, the inherent desire to trust, and the need for direction in life. The fact that people who didn't need Joe Hunt followed him almost without reserve is a study in itself. Randall Sullivan clearly defines parallels such as wealth and insecurity, power and paranoia, and greed and gullibility. Detailed assessments of real people, their motivations and what they were willing to do to achieve them stand along side of the characterization of a transitional time in America (the 1980s), when morals, standards of conduct, and accountability would be changed forever in the journey toward a new century.

The basic characteristic of this book, rather the one that I most associated with it, was LENGTH. The narration is a variable too, the author's language tends to change from a complete recitation of facts to the inner feelings of some of the characters. Another characteristic is that this book runs through at least three story threads as the author covers the stories linking Joe Hunt and his associates first to the murder of Ron Levine and later with the appearance of Reza Islaminia and the murder of his father, Hedayadd Islaminia. The BBC has its spectre of characters, and almost one by one, the author writes the account of their deeds, most of the time recitating the facts and never jumping to any conclusions. At times, it seems like an excerpt of judicial records.