Library Journal, June 1, 2008
"In anticipation of the FBI's centennial this summer, prolific author and law enforcement veteran Holden (To Be an FBI Special Agent) has produced a work for general readers on the ever interesting and controversial history of this primary investigative agency of the U.S. Department of Justice. The book may be defined as an unofficial history, but Holden was granted access to current agents and to the FBI's photo archive to produce a work profusely illustrated with about 300 photographs of equipment, FBI activities, and agents and criminals in action, all of which will fascinate. Chapters cover the early years when Teddy Roosevelt was President, J. Edgar Hoover's long tenure as director, his role in blacklistings and McCarthyism, the pursuit of organized crime, spies, the use of domestic surveillance, and standoffs gone bad. Some of the popular touches include movie posters and comic strips. The book includes all of the FBI's '10 Most Wanted Fugitives' lists and ends with a list of the 51 special agents who died in service, a brief chronology, and definitions of acronyms and abbreviations. Those looking for more critical discussion of the bureau may want to examine Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones' The FBI: A History, but this book will have appeal in both public libraries and specialized collections."

FBI 100 YEARS: AN UNOFFICIAL HISTORY covers them all: the spies and saboteurs, the revolutionaries and fugitives, the mob bosses, gangsters, and petty criminals with colorful nicknames and big-time aspirations, the public and private life of J. Edgar Hoover as well as his now notorious secret files, the Hollywood blacklists, the political assassinations, Ruby Ridge, Waco, and domestic surveillance in post-9/11 America.

Henry M. Holden, author of To Be an FBI Special Agent, traces the history of Federal Bureau of Investigation, the principal investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice, including its  power, notable cases, and controversies through the years.

The dramatic story told in FBI 100 YEARS: AN UNOFFICIAL HISTORY also includes how the FBI reacted to the Red Scare of the 1950s and civil unrest in the 1960s, and does not shy away from examining some of the more controversial tactics and surveillance methods used by the Bureau over its century of crime fighting. Author Henry M. Holden explores dozens of categories of criminal activities that fall under its broad investigative authority, and takes a look at the FBI in American popular culture.

·         Teddy Roosevelt’s trust-busting detective force

·         Gangbusters and spybusters

·         J. Edgar Hoover’s secret files

·         Blacklists, blackmail, and McCarthyism

·         Civil rights and political unrest in the 1960s

·         Bringing down the syndicate: investigating organized crime

·         Ruby Ridge, Waco, and other disasters

·         Domestic surveillance and wiretapping