cover image The Last Undercover: The True Story of an FBI Agent’s Dangerous Dance with Evil

The Last Undercover: The True Story of an FBI Agent’s Dangerous Dance with Evil

Bob Hamer, . . Hachette/Center Street, $23.99 (351pp) ISBN 978-1-59995-101-0

There have been many books concerning FBI undercover agents on perilous assignments, but this one by a veteran FBI agent goes most of them one better with his full-tilt voyages into the darkest fringes of society. After his training and recruitment into the criminal netherworld, Hamer assumed several identities—such as drug dealer and contract killer—to penetrate the closed societies of the Chinese, Russian and Iraqi mobs. However, Hamer’s controlled theatrics are most compelling as he infiltrates the security-obsessed North American Man/Boy Love Association disguised as an aging pedophile, to crack the group and their extensive international network. The sneak peek into that dank society of “chicken hawks” is illuminating in its depiction of child sexual abuse. With his practiced lies and disciplined behavior, Hamer is a peerless undercover agent, although his book sometimes breaks its narrative focus and wanders into several cases at once. Still, this book possesses power and conviction without being pretentious or pious. (Sept. 12)