Jimmy the King
Murder, Vice, and the Reign of a Dirty Cop
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
An incredible four-decade account of murder, power, and corruption in one of the country’s largest police departments
In 1979, the gruesome slaying of a thirteen-year-old boy riveted the suburbs of Suffolk County, New York. As the county hustled to bring the case to a dubious resolution, a wayward local teenager emerged with a convenient story to tell. For his cooperation, Jimmy Burke was rewarded with a job as a cop.
Thus began Burke’s unlikely ascent to the top of one of the country’s largest law enforcement jurisdictions. And while in power, Burke botched dire investigations like that of the famed Gilgo Beach serial killings and the county’s MS-13 gang scourge.
Until a pilfered bag of sex toys brought his empire crashing down.
Jimmy the King is the story of the rise, reign, and paranoiac fall of a corrupt cop and his regime. This book will leave you questioning who modern policing serves, who it protects, and who it preys upon and abandons.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Washington Post investigative reporter Garcia-Roberts (Blood Sport: A-Rod and the Quest to End Baseball's Steroid Era with Tim Elfrink) surveys decades of violence, corrupt governance, and injustice in New York's Suffolk County through a searing look at the rise and fall of James Burke, whose tenure as the chief of the county's police department ended in scandal. Despite a checkered past and numerous misrepresentations about his credentials, Burke was hired by the Suffolk Police and promoted to chief in 2012. Supported by a crooked DA, Thomas Spota, and Spota's anti-corruption deputy, Christopher McPartland, Burke spearheaded a "county law enforcement system that operated like an organized crime syndicate." Burke's assaulting a prisoner suspected of stealing items, including sex toys, from Burke's vehicle set in motion a chain of events that culminated in Burke's 2016 guilty plea to assault and the 2021 sentencing of Spota and McPartland on federal charges, including obstruction of justice. The author's encyclopedic knowledge of this case, first garnered as a member of the Newsday team whose series on Long Island police misconduct was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and storytelling skills yield a revelatory and shocking look at entrenched corruption. This is a true crime classic that should raise serious questions as to how Burke and his enablers eluded justice for so long.
