Covert: My Years Infiltrating the Mob
Author: Bob Delaney
Featured on ESPN, NPR and CNN
In a riveting page-turner, NBA referee Bob Delaney reveals the clandestine life he led before becoming one of professional basketball’s most respected officials.
Soon after joining the New Jersey State Troopers in 1973, Delaney was offered a tantalizing undercover assignment: to infiltrate the Mob. And so he became Bobby Covert, the president of Alamo Trucking, a fully-operational business used by law enforcement as flypaper for snagging wise guys. While wearing a wire, Delaney dealt daily with mobsters who modeled themselves after their on-screen counterparts (at the height of The Godfather’s popularity), and even crossed paths with Joe Pistone, the real-life Donnie Brasco. After three tense years playing a role in which a single slip could cost him his life, Delaney had gathered enough evidence to convict more than 30 members of the Genovese and Bruno crime families.
Struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder from the strain of his undercover life, Delaney began officiating high school and intramural basketball games as a way to rebuild his life, eventually working his way up to the NBA, where he has been a referee for over two decades. This is his amazing true story.
Publishers Weekly
NBA referee Delaney's fascinating account of his prior life as a New Jersey state trooper who infiltrated organized crime will be a must-read for those drawn to Joe Pistone's similar account in Donnie Brasco(or the movie adaptation starring Johnny Depp). In 1975, Delaney was a relative novice in law enforcement when he was tapped by a superior to help build cases against major Mafia families by creating and running a fake business, Alamo Trucking. With the aid of St. Petersburg (Fla.) Timessportswriter Scheiber, Delaney captures perfectly the daily routine and perils of undercover work, and describes the psychological challenges he faced during the three years of Project Alpha: "The granite foundation of my self-image... had given way to shifting sands of doubt and worry." While less heralded than Pistone's work, Delaney's achievements-which yielded multiple convictions of members of the Bruno and Genovese families-were significant precursors to the Feds' massive 1980s assault on La Cosa Nostra. Becoming a basketball referee after these proceedings was a return to an early passion of the high school all-state forward and captain of his college team-but the fear, he says, still comes back sometimes. 8 pages of b&w photos. (Feb. 5)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationJim Burns - Library Journal
Delaney, who has been an NBA referee for almost two decades, tells of the nearly three years he spent, while a New Jersey state trooper in the mid-1970s, posing as Bobby Covert, president of a trucking company set up for the sole purpose of observing the Mafia. With the assistance of an informant wise to the ways of the mob, Delaney/Covert so successfully ingratiated himself with a wide array of mobsters that more than 30 were convicted on the basis of information he gathered. Delaney offers a compelling account of a nerve-racking double life in which one slip could result in death, but equally compelling is his recall of his reactions in the operation's aftermath: relief at it ending, giving way to guilt at having ratted on some gangsters with whom he had actually become friends, followed by fear for his life, and then actually missing the rush of doing undercover work. ESPN has bought the movie rights, so there should be ample demand. Recommended for all public libraries.
Kirkus Reviews
Delaney chronicles his three years as an undercover agent, their difficult aftermath, and his professional rebirth as an NBA referee. In 1973, the author followed his father into the New Jersey State Police. He climbed the ranks from rural police officer to state trooper and in 1975 was recruited for Project Alpha, a joint FBI/State Police operation investigating the Jersey mafia. Assuming the name Bobby Covert, he pretended to run a sham company called Alamo Trucking, through which he and mobster-turned-whistleblower Pat Kelly tried to ensnare the bad guys without getting found out-or rubbed out. Delaney lived to testify against many of the mobsters rounded up by Project Alpha and at later Senate hearings on waterfront corruption. He found re-entry into conventional law enforcement difficult, however, and had some turbulent years before molding himself into a respected NBA referee. A solid yarn spinner with a fine eye for detail and an excellent memory, Delaney makes his memoir read like a novel. The experiences he describes bear obvious similarities to those of Joe Pistone, who infiltrated New York's Bonnano crime family under the name Donnie Brasco (later the title of Pistone's book and a subsequent movie); in fact, the two men met after their respective operations were over. But Delaney's Jersey-eye-view of his life in and out of the force-and on and off the basketball court-is distinctive enough to make comparisons irrelevant. NBA followers looking for dirt on Shaq and Kobe will be disappointed; the author devotes only one chapter exclusively to his NBA years. But those who appreciate a good Cosa Nostra story, and crime buffs in general, will find much to enjoy in this energetic,often humorous and always entertaining memoir. A slam dunk, a bull's eye and any other glowing Mafia or basketball metaphor you can think of.
Sarah Palin: Faith, Family, Country
Author: Susan Parr
"Who is Sarah Palin?" This was the first question many asked when John McCain appointed her to be his vicepresidential running mate in the 2008 election. This book gives many interesting answers to this question as it explores Governor Palin's background, faith, values, family, experience, and dreams.
Readers will be delighted by the personal anecdotes that come from Governor Palin's life. The stories that are shared by her friends and family members provide particularly poignant insights into her personal integrity, value system, commitments, and faith.
Your interest in Sarah Palin will be piqued as you gain insight into her life via never-before-published photographs, interviews with friends and family members, and her own words. Readers will discover that Governor Palin is a well-liked woman of faith, a natural-born leader who strives to incorporate integrity and honesty in all her decision making, and a very talented individual in a variety of fields.
You are on CNN, live. The host leans across to you and asks, "What's the major difference between Christianity and the other major religions? They are basically all the same, aren't they?" Millions are awaiting your reply. Do you know how you would answer that? Most of us are not as prepared as we should be, for this all-important task. Discover what almost all religions have in common: By trying to earn their way to Heaven, their followers are robed in "works-righteousness." Learn how to gently remove that robe, so those seeking eternal salvation can be clothed in the righteousness that comes only through faith in Jesus Christ.
Each religion includes:
• Basic Beliefs
• ConversionTestimony
• Sample witnessing conversation
Table of Contents:
Introducton: Everybody's Talking About Sarah ix
Chapter 1 Sarah's Early Years 1
Chapter 2 Sarah Barracuda 5
Chapter 3 The Greatest Influence 13
Chapter 4 "Toddy for the Body" 19
Chapter 5 An Effective Leader 27
Chapter 6 Dodge the Issues? No Way! 31
Abortion, Adoption, & Birth Control 31
Budget & Economy 34
Civil Rights 38
Corporations 43
Crime 44
Drugs & Alcohol 50
Education 53
Energy & Oil 60
Environment 77
Families & Children 84
Foreign Policy 86
Free Trade 87
Government Reform 90
Gun Control 93
Health Care 95
Homeland Security 100
Jobs 104
Principles & Values 108
Social Security 114
Tax Reform 115
Technology 120
Chapter 7 The Big Reveal 123
Sources 135
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