Customer Reviews

Wild Cowboys: Urban Marauders & the Forces of Order

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This is not an easy book to classify. The reviews from NYT and Kirkus are not flattering but I feel those reviewers lost the plot a little. Just calling this book an "unremittingly wooden tale" suggests that it was intended as entertainment rather than as piece of scholarly research.

Robert Jackall focuses his sociologist's eye on a localized crime wave amongst Dominicans living in Washington Heights. He begins with the brutal acts of wanton murder that lie at the center of the book. From there he casts his net ever wider until the reader slowly grasps the big picture.

To someone such as me, living in Britain, this is a very alien landscape. The casual acts of extreme violence, the industrial scale drug dealing, and the regular open gunplay on the streets of the Big Apple read almost like something from a Hollywood script rejected for lack of authenticity. The title, Wild Cowboys, is well chosen both for the gang that adopted the name and for its portrayal of urban mayhem.

By the end of the book the reader has a good grasp of the complex social relationships on the block, the reasons for all the extravagant machismo, and the extraordinary difficulty facing police officers investigating such crimes. Jackall does an excellent job of tracking relationships - even if he does let his unalloyed admiration for NYPD officers shine through rather often. But, hey - those guys need all the help they can get after their recent regular bad press.

I did struggle a little in the middle of the book when I thought I was going to be overwhelmed by names of new characters constantly joining the tale. However, ends are brought together well at the conclusion when Jackall traces how a wall of criminal solidarity cracks wide open to resolve itself in a series of guilty pleas.

If the cast list of War and Peace put you off reading Tolstoy - give this one a miss!

In WILD COWBOYS mr. Jackall has captured a very accurate portrait of the world I work in every day. As a law enforcement officer working in New York City I can confirm that based on my own experiance, the confusing list of actors and aliases that some editorial reviewers have complained of are, in fact,common in complex criminal conspiracies and I feel that Mr Jackall has done a fair job of trying to present a clear picture of the Red Top crew. His portrayal of a world where lethal violence is commonplace and telling someone your real name is the highest form of trust is unequalled.A reader who wants a picture of the difficulties involved in the investigation of an actual complex criminal conspiracy rather than the neat melodramas wrapped up in an hour of television would do well to to read Wild Cowboys.

This book tells the story in full detail and in murder after excruciating murder of how one gang of Dominicans in New York's Washington heights section brought primal fear and lawlessness to the northern tip of Manhattan back in the bad old days.

The Wild Cowboys is a very accurate account of one of the most violent eras in the history of New York City, and Mr. Jackall does an exceptional job in its documentation. Mr. Jackall's book sheds light on an era where New York City was registering over 2100 homicides a year, and one drug gang, the Wild Cowboys, were responsible for score of those victims. Washington Heights was the epicenter of this unprecedented crime wave in New York City and the Wild Cowboys were indeed the most notorious of the city's marauders of that bygone era. As one of the homicide detectives working in Washington Heights at the very time Mr. Jackall was present and witness to this mayhem, I strongly recommend this book for most of all, its accuracy.

This book is an eye-opener 2 the underworld's violent reality for those from and not from the streets. The "Wild Cowboys" aka "Lenny's Boys"the legendary notorious street icons from "Washington Heights" aka "Home of the Haze" are shown in detail 4 the most part seperating fact from fiction.To some this book, based on the "Cowboys," can justify their criminal exploits through the rebellious determination to achieve the status most minorities are denied, the Real American Dream, through sheer force and brutality by what all young and ambitious Dominicans, and minorities in general, can relate to which is The Code of the Streets.This book gives you a taste of the legend the next generation Dominican hears growing up now in Washington Heights. This book can villafy The Cowboys legendary criminal enterprise and unmerciful murederous tactics by showing the "priveleged" side of American society what must be done to "Live" as opposed to survive in the on-going struggle to achieve what the "Brady Bunch" etc. take 4 advantage. But all in all this book gives the reader a startling look in2 a ruthless "gang" and the grim reality of these New York streets. Where Hustlerz and killaz are the most visible successful role-models youngsterz get they can relate to. I hope this review shows you the realness contained in this book. P.S. the negative role-model answer is not getting rid of them because thats impossible, btw the war on drugz has not and will never work. The answer requires 2 much non-racist politics 2 exist in a social structure dominated by a race that will not sacrifice their luxury 4 our equality. So sadly the answer is in Sex, Drugz, and entertainment until we're even.
"dafabls1@aol.com" if u got a response holla.

...to make a story about a quadruple homicide tedious! The author clearly logged a lot of hours researching this book, hanging out with cops. Nonetheless, the end result is a book book that would work well as a drinking game: Take a sip everytime the author introduces another name, another bit of non-essential info. Down your mug o' beer/glass of milk everytime the author reveals his pro-cop abuse of power bias.

How disappointing.