2003, Henry Holt, NY, 300 pages [my copy may have been missing a few pages from the back]

Joshua, a young reader, recently lent me this book with an admonishment not to get discouraged slogging through the second chapter [back story], and an assurance that The Brass Wall was a stirring read. I have just finished this true crime narrative written by Kocieniewski, a newspaper man with a gift for the interview that rivals that of Mister Simon, the former Baltimore newspaper man who wrote Homicide, The Corner, and The Wire, and must say that Joshua was correct.

The Brass wall begins with the pseudonymous Vincent Armanti, New York City detective #4126, as he realizes that his cover has been blown, and begins doing the mental math of his imminent extinction at the hands of the brutal Throgs Neck crew, who he was on the cusp of infiltrating at a bar named after the patron saint of alcoholics.

Vincent was an undercover narcotics detective who was working in a departmental rivalry nightmare that was the investigation of an arson that took the life of a decorated NYC firefighter. The fire marshals were helpful, and the FBI was necessary, but the internal affairs department was also involved and their detectives were notorious for their ineptitude.

Vincent recounts one time he was compromised by a bimbo off duty police detective while working undercover with a bunch of mobsters in a bar. As this terminally stupid woman—a known cop—kept insisting that she knew him from somewhere, he deflected suspicion by standing up and dropping his pants and asking if she recognized him now—which got rid of her and the creeping suspicion. Vincent’s story is a griping narrative of life in what has to be one of the most stressful jobs possible. Most of us would rather be fighting the Taliban than living amongst murderers who we are assigned to betray.

From Vincent’s ruinous personal life [a consequence of the job], and his roots in the Italian American community whose darker side was in the process of losing its hold on the underworld in the early 1990s and was devolving dangerously, to the lethal politics of the nation’s largest police department, The Brass Wall: The Betrayal of Undercover Detective #4126, is an eye-opening read. I particularly liked the author’s end notes in which he reconstructs his methodology.

Thanks Joshua.