Jimmy the King: Murder, Vice, and the Reign of a Dirty Cop

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. Agent: David R. Patterson, Stuart Krichevsky Literary. (May)