Secret Police: Inside the New York City Department of Investigation [Hardcover]

Peter Benjaminson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A former Department of Investigation insider accuses Mayor Giuliani in a new book of turning the city corruption-fighting agency into a "lap dog" for City Hall. --New York Daily News, January 14, 1997

Controversial publisher Lyle Stuart, who thrives on igniting a furor, is at it again. He's taking on the mayor in a new book about corruption in New York City: "Secret Police: Inside the NYC DOI." --New York Post, August 11, 1996

In his book, Benjaminson contends the investigation commissioner during the Dinkins administration, his boss Susan Shepard, was so independent of City Hall that she managed to succeed at the difficult task of policing her bosses. --New York Newsday

The story of a DOI that for the first time in its history is left unfettered by politics is the subject of Benjaminson's book. --Our Town, June 26, 1997

Amazon.com Review

Peter Benjaminson has come up with the next best thing to "Graft Squad" that the pages of a book can provide. He was the executive assistant to the DOI's commissioner during most of the Dinkins administration and part of the next. He has written an entertaining and insightful account of what he clearly sees as the Department's brief Golden Age under the former Mayor. Between the occasional dig at the performance of the Department in the current regime, Mr. Benjaminson, who is a seasoned investigative reporter and author, has a good time in Secret Police reminiscing over all the DOI handcuffs that ratcheted around the wrists of crooked city workers and bureaucrats and sent many a political overlord diving for cover ...

From a purely entertainment perspective, the best stories in secret Police have to do with the relatively minor issues of corruption. Take for example the former sanitation police officer who tore up summonses for a price and continued to steal them from his office even though he knew a surveillance camera had been installed inside. He put a cardboard box over his head before he entered the room, but DOI agents were hiding outside when he came out ... Secret Police presents the reader with enough public sector chicanery to make even the president of the Republic of Texas shake his head in disbelief. -- Alan Mass, New York Law Journal, May 27, 1997

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 253 pages
• Publisher: Barricade Books; First Edition edition (February 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569800901
• ISBN-13: 978-1569800904
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,224,008 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

UPDATE 11/​11/​11 - PETER'S MOST RECENTLY PUBLISHED BOOK, "THE LOST SUPREME: THE LIFE OF DREAMGIRL FLORENCE BALLARD" (LAWRENCE HILL BOOKS/​CHICAGO REVIEW PRESS, 2008) IS NOW BEING MADE INTO A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE.

Peter Benjaminson was born in Washington, D.C. and was a reporter and City-County Bureau Chief for the Detroit Free Press from 1970-76.

While at the Free Press, he wrote the book Investigative Reporting, with Dave Anderson (Indiana University Press, 1976 and Iowa State University Press, 1990), the first how-to book in that field. It was in print for 20 years.

In 1979 he wrote The Story of Motown (New York: Grove Press), the first book ever written about the Motown Record Company.

From 1979 to 1981 he was a reporter for the Atlanta Journal and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He taught journalism at Binghamton University, New York University, and Columbia University from 1981-91.

In 1984, he wrote Death in the Afternoon: America's Newspaper Giants Struggle for Survival (Andrews, McMeel) the first and only book about the death of afternoon newspapers in America's big cities.

In 1992, he wrote Publish Without Perishing (National Education Association and National Writers Union); and in 1997, he wrote Secret Police (New York: Barricade Books).

From 1991-1994 he was the spokesman for the NYC Department of Investigation. He was Assistant Editor of the Chief Leader Newspaper in New York City from 1994-1998 and the spokesman for the NYC Correction Officers Benevolent Association from 1998-2003. In 2003 and 2009 he was the spokesman for Members for Change in NYC Teamsters Local 237.

In 2008 he wrote The Lost Supreme: The Life of Dreamgirl Florence Ballard (Lawrence Hill Books/Chicago Review Press.) He is now working on what will be the first bio ever of Motown Superstar Mary "My Guy" Wells.





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