Customer Reviews

Serpico

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'd like to begin by saying that Serpico is a very great man. Without question he is one of my heroes. I respect his complete integrity. I think this book should be required reading. It shows the importance of integrity. However, I have one major criticism of the book. When Peter Maas wrote it, he had his own agenda. He wrote the book after he wrote The Valachi Papers. Valachi placed Italian-Americans in a negative light. So Maas wanted to focus on an extremely positive American of Italian descent. The only problem is that he did so at the cost of giving fair credit to other people who were involved. In the book and film, Serpico's former friend, David Durk, is reduced to a very secondary role. In fact, the book suggests that Durk's reasons for fighting corruption alongside Serpico are politically motivated. I've read other books about Serpico and Durk. Serpico was certainly incorruptible and a paragon of virtue. However, he would not have gone to the Knapp Commission if Durk had not persuaded him to do so. The two fought corruption together. A proper book would have been entitled SERPICO AND DURK. Maas story is quite exciting. Serpico was very much a street cop. Durk, on the other hand, although equally incorruptible, was a desk cop. They are both men of the highest caliber, and both deserve equal praise. Although I'm disappointed about the treatment of Durk, I still think Serpico is must reading. (P.S. Amazon, you should refer readers to Durk's biography, which is entitled CRUSADER. It's certainly not nearly as exciting as SERPICO, but Serpico does play a large part in the book.

So you want to be a New York City cop? Read this book and make your decision. Even if your aspirations are not towards law enforcement in the big city, read it anyway. This true story takes the reader from the idealistic beginings to the hopeless conclusion of Frank Serpico's police career that spanned eleven years. From the fitting of his first police uniform, heart pounding rides in Brooklyn radio cars, plainclothes assignments, repeatedly explaining to fellow cops that he is not on the take, feeling his frustration and sometimes elation at every small battle he encounters and one brick wall after another in the way of trying to make things right in a city that sometimes doesn't know it's left, from it's right. Anyone who has taken on a unpopular cause will relate to the desparity and loneliness that was felt by Frank Serpico during a great deal of his career. This book was well researched and well written and is still fresh twenty five years after it was first published. It is very detailed and a true depictation of the everyday life of a cop in New York City.

Peter Maas artistically tells a story of a man who always wanted to be a "good cop." Unfortunately, the dream is shattered when Frank Serpico confronts wide-spread corruption in the NYC Police Department. The famous Knapp Commission is a result of Serpico's complaints about corruption on the force.

Unfortunately, Peter Maas's story could be told about many large urban police departments. Make no mistake about it, corruption, bigotry, and racism are all a part of law enforcement. It was the case back in the 60's - 70's, and it is still the case today. Consequently, Peter Maas's story about "one good cop" fighting a sea of corruption is still relevant today.

The story drags at times. But, otherwise, it is quick reading. It is definitely a story that needs to be read. Hence, I recommend this book. Police corruption is still a current topic. But, more importantly, Serpico's story is one of hope. At least there is "one good cop" out there trying to make a difference. And, knowing this, has made a difference in the way I view law enforcement professionals. That is, they are not all bad.

SERPICO is a fine true crime retelling of the story of Frank Serpico (Detective NYPD, retired) who battled against endemic corruption among New York's Finest in the 1960s.

Peter Maas, who brought us THE VALACHI PAPERS, has written a satisfying but somewhat lightweight recounting of the facts and circumstances of Serpico's career. Maas misses, mostly, in failing to involve the reader fully in the tremendous emotional travail that Serpico felt during his long, frustrating, and ultimately inconclusive one man crusade against police corruption.

As a New Yorker, this reviewer has respect for "The Finest." Serpico was hardly the only honest cop in New York circa 1966. But he was one of the only cops to seek to exorcise the demons that beset the police force, root and branch. In this era of high goverment scandal, SERPICO is an important book.

Frank Serpico became a Patrolman in 1960, and as he was transferred around the City on various assignments came into contact with cops who routinely shook down criminals---mostly small numbers men and bookmakers with fuzzy Mafia connections---for tens of thousands of dollars per month per precinct, while allowing them to operate. The 1960s fixation on illegal gambling as a major urban problem is an almost charming quirk of this book.

The practice was so typical that his fellow officers automatically put Serpico "on the pad." When he refused to take graft he became an object of suspicion. This sense of mistrust was not lessened by Serpico's eccentric (for a cop) lifestyle. Rather than espousing the usual working middle class values of the police community, the life of cigarettes, coffee, doughnuts, wife, kids, and a house in the suburbs, Serpico was a gadfly who loved opera and the ballet, lived in Greenwich Village at the height of the Summer of Love, smoked a pipe, drank tea, traveled internationally, spoke several languages, grew a beard, and, while in plainclothes, affected the dress of the street people and informants with whom he interacted. In addition, Serpico had no "rabbis," no protective contacts within the Department, and did not cultivate the company of most other cops.

The truth is that Serpico probably could have served out his career well, but without dramatic distinction, had his fellow officers not been so intent on bringing him into the fold in relation to graft, and had they not become threatening after his refusal to involve himself. Maas does not point to any one incident that convinced Serpico to become an anti-corruption zealot. Rather, Serpico's zealotry grew as his repeated attempts to report illegal activities were rebuffed by the NYPD administration and then the City bureaucracies.

Whether intentionally or not, Maas sketches Frank Serpico as almost unbearably self-righteous and looking for a fight as he intentionally busted "protected" criminals, had sometimes dangerous confrontations with other cops, refused to be the fall guy for several internal whitewash investigations, and finally went to "outside agencies," including the New York Times. Maas even recounts Serpico's impromptu conversation with a Mafioso, also named Frank Serpico, who seemed genuinely puzzled by his alter-ego's behavior.

Serpico's expose to the Times rocked the NYPD to its foundations. Mayor John Lindsay was forced to appoint the independent Knapp Commission to investigate Serpico's allegations, and the resultant scandal caused the reorganization of the police department from top to bottom as a small army of Commissioners, Inspectors, Detectives, Plainclothesmen and ordinary cops on the beat were convicted or forced to resign.

In the midst of this upheaval, Serpico, on narcotics detail, was shot in the face by a pusher. Although he survived and recovered, Serpico's career as a police officer was effectively ended, both by the injury and by the tepid reaction of the police community. It is an open question whether Serpico's partners the night he was shot held back from assisting him, thus putting him further in harm's way, but there is no question that a certain segment of his fellow officers wished him ill and were glad to see him gone.

Since the early 1970s, Serpico has continued to be a spokesman for honesty and ethics in government, and speaks, still, to this present day.

A really unbelievable story how an NYC cop blew the whisltle on police corruption, continued to work with those same cops and dealy with red nyc tape. I bought this book just prior to photographing Frank Serpioco and he signed it which was pretty cool.

Some criticisms of the book are that there are no photos. it is always interesting to see images of the bed guys and what Serpico looked like compared to the Al Pacino image I have of him.

Also--some of the detailed Knapp Commission discussion became pretty boring to read through. As with the Donnie Brasco book, the discussion of the good guys(lawyers, commisioners) became tedious. It if for me, more interesting to read how the bad guys were caught and what bad things they were doing that got them caught.

Serpico! The name that brings chills to my bones. Serpico and Donnie Brasco are my two heroes in the world of criminal justice. Serpico's life mission is not just cleaning out the bad guys, but bad guys posing as good guys, COPS! And the way he risks his life in the process, simply tells a story of a moral beam behind the corruption of the so called blue wall of silence.

"Serpico" is a powerful piece of reporting by Peter Maas, one of the best true crime writers in America. Hard to believe that the events of this book occurred thrity-odd years ago. The tales of corruption in the New York City police department could have come from the headlines of any big city newspaper today. Maas's genius is how he puts you with his subject to the extent that you are not even aware that he's guiding you through the story. Anyone with an interest in law enforcement should read this book and take it for what it is, a warning against the temptations of the job. As such, it is far from comforting.

Frank Serpico was thought to be a hippie. His fellow NYPD officers did not like hippies. Frank also drank hot tea, went to art shows, wore a beard, dated black woman & smoked a pipe. His fellow officers did not like that either. All he ever wanted to be as a detective.

In Sept. 1959 Frank joined the PD. After a few years he got his dream and was promoted to detective in the Plain Clothes squad. His dream turned into a nightmare. Most of the guys were on that take and Frank was 100% against graft of any kind. His not taking money and his undercover work was probably the cause of him being shot and nearly dying. Frank retired 6-15-72 his heart broken.

Peter Maas is a good author and has brought us storys on Sammy the Bull & Joe Valachi etc. This book is a good easy read. We dont learn much about the inner Frank, his thoughts and dreams. I always hoped he would write a book and tell us the story in his words. Even in 2009 it would be a best seller. The movie was Great.

Frank was married 4x and lives alone now in NY. He has 1 son Alex born 3/15/80. He still is active and speaks out against police corruption. He is 73yrs old.

This book was great.Reading this book gave me an indept look into this man's life and the police force.While reading I wondered to myself if i would do the same as he did,stood up for what he believed.He didn't care about what others thought only what mattered to him.This book was a very excellent read and I would suggest it to everyone I know,especially to espiring police officers.

The truth is often unpleasant. This verity is the highlight of the society surrounding Frank Serpico.
It's remarkable how anyone could sustain the mental pressure that was brought upon this person. We're just reading about it. Serpico was living through this very real tension.
Maas does a good job of setting up Serpico as the oddball in the group from his unconventional dress sense to his unwillingness to comrpomise his integrity and partake of the pervadiong corruption.
His journalistic streak does creep in from time to time and the narrative can occasionaly drag while he is setting up some sequences. This would put it at 4 stars
The purpose of the protagonist is an example that is well brought out by the book and that's why I think most people interested in some civic or public office should read it as a source of inspiring personal integrity - this gets it 5 stars.