Diary of a DA: A True Story of the Prosecutor Who Took on the Mob, Fought Corruption, and Won

This is one of the finest chronicles of the prosecutor in the service of big city justice. Stern examines the hard-fought journey from a New York City rookie in the Manhattan district attorney’s office to U.S. attorney for the district of New Jersey, a trial attorney at the Justice Department’s Organized Crime and Racketeering section, and finally the federal bench. Beginning his career in 1962, he rose through the ranks to become an accomplished staffer handling the prosecution of small-time heroin addicts, homicides, and complex financial crimes. “Expressing no interest in anything but a courtroom,” the author pulls no punches about his ambition to advance from handling cases in front of a judge to trying cases before a jury,. but a detour to handling homicides lands him in the middle of the infamous Malcolm X killing. This legal memoir’s greatest achievement is his determined persistence as a gangbusting lead trial attorney for the Justice Department, taking down mob fronts, labor foul play, and the mayors of Jersey City, Atlantic City, and Newark. Extremely well written, Stern’s account of his personal and professional quest to uphold the law and justice is finely realized and quite impressive. (Sept.)