Synopses & Reviews
A gripping account of an extraordinary international narcotics case as it unfolds on the streets of New York City, The French Connection is an absorbing and sometimes frightening documentary of the world's most successful narcotics investigation. A best-seller and the basis of the classic film of the same title, The French Connection remains one of the finest and most fascinating chronicles of police work ever written.
When New York City detectives Eddie "Popeye" Egan and his partner Sonny Grosso routinely tail the nephew of a fugitive mob boss, after observing some wild spending at the Copacabana, they quickly realize they're on to something big - an impending delivery of narcotics. The mobster's incongruous connections are with several distinguished Frenchmen, including the director of the world's largest heroin network and a star of French television. For many suspense-filled months, through opulent Manhattan nightclubs, dark tenements in Brooklyn and the Bronx, tree-lined streets of the genteel Upper East Side, and in Paris, Marseilles, and Palermo, the duel is on - the prize 112 pounds of pure heroin. Over three hundred investigators from local, state, federal, and international agencies are ultimately involved in the hours of weary surveillance, the skilled intuition, the luck - both good and bad - and the danger.
Review
From the author of
The Green Berets, another engrossing book-this time a "documentary" of some true-life detective work that reads like superior suspense fiction. Detectives First Grade Edward Egan and Salvatore Grosso of New York City caught a late show at a nightclub (Egan's girl friend was hat-check girl there) and while at their table happened to spot some known hoods paying court to the host of a large party. The host was one Patsy Fuca, obviously a somebody. More out of instinct than anything else, the two detectives followed Fuca when he left. Thus began one of the most amazing narcotic investigations in police annals, an investigation which involved grueling months of shadowing underworld characters, piecing together clues, and finally closing in for the payoff: the seizure of the largest cache of heroin ever picked up in New York. Crime syndicate heads in Canada and France were found involved in the international affair. Moore's characterizations of the two detectives are excellent, and his minute-by-minute descriptions of their amazing work lift right off the page.
--Publishers Weekly, February 17, 1969
Review
"One of the most interesting true crime books ever written, comparable only to
The Boston Strangler. We learn everything from the most intimate details of the detectives' personal lives to the methods employed in wiretapping, stakeout, and the use of informers "Robin Moore's book is a superb piece of journalism."
--Los Angeles Times
Synopsis
With a new introduction by the author. The true, absorbing and sometimes frightening documentary of the world's most successful narcotics investigation, The French Connection is one of the most fascinating crime accounts of our time. When New York City detectives Eddie "Popeye" Egan and his partner Sonny Grosso routinely tail Pasquale "Patsy" Fuca, after observing some wild spending at the Copacabana, they quickly realize that they are on to something really big. Patsy is not only the nephew of a mob boss on the lam but also a key negotiator in an impending delivery of narcotics from abroad. His incongruous connections are with several distinguished Frenchmen, including Jean Jehan, the director of the world's largest heroin network, and Jacques Angelvin, a star of French television. For many suspense-filled months, through opulent Manhattan nightclubs, dark tenements in Brooklyn and the Bronx, tree-lined streets of the genteel Upper East Side, and in Paris, Marseilles, and Palermo, the duel is on -- the prize 112 pounds of pure heroin, worth ninety million on the streets. Over three hundred investigators from local, state, federal, and international agencies are ultimately involved in the hours of weary surveillance, the skilled intuition, the luck -- both good and bad -- and the danger.
Synopsis
The gripping account of an extraordinary international narcotics case, as it unfolds on the streets of New York City.