Awards

• Winner of San Diego Book Awards (Memoir) 2009

Overview

Bob Hamer has worked for the FBI for 26 years as an undercover operative posing as everything from a drug dealer to an aging pedophile. His last undercover assignment - and his hardest - was infiltrating NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Love Association. Now he looks back on a career rich in the kind of action that makes for great cinema, telling of the challenges to his most basic assumptions about himself, how he stared the dark side of humanity in the face - and never blinked. In a job which can blacken a man's soul, he remained true to his faith and always put his family before his work. We will learn why perfection in his commitment to his undercover roles was crucial for survival. We will learn why, despite his ability to remain calm and composed in the most dangerous situations imaginable, he had to reach for his deepest reserves of self-control and discipline while running the NAMBLA investigation. He descended into a shadowy world most of us have only glimpsed in novels or movies. Now, in his own words, Bob Hamer tells us how, for over 25 years he ran the gauntlet and successfully concluded his LAST UNDERCOVER.

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9781599951010

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Reviews

There have been many books concerning FBI undercover agents on perilous assignments but this one by a veteran FBI agent goes one better...This book possesses power and conviction without being pretentious or pious [PUBLISHERS WEEKLY]

First-person account of the author's 26 years infiltrating gangs, organized-crime syndicates and other groups of lawbreakers.Hamer entered the FBI in 1980 after attending law school and serving in the Marine Corps as a judge advocate. He volunteered for undercover work, drawing strength for this demanding job from his devoted wife and children, and from an unwavering belief that God, for whatever reason and however undeserved, had wrapped His protective arms around me. As with every book of this ilk, it is difficult to verify the details; the author notes that the Bureau required him to submit the manuscript for pre-publication review and ordered that the names of all FBI agents be deleted. Hamer's account, however, rings truer than many other books by undercover law-enforcement agents. Bravado is almost entirely absent, and a ruminative vein runs through the case accounts. The author worked undercover to expose the criminal activities of Los Angeles-based street gangs, plus various ethnic-centered organized-crime groups, including Sicilians, Mexicans, Russians and Asians. The main narrative thread concerns his infiltration of the North American Man/Boy Love Association. The group's members, adult men who desired sexual relations with boys, usually pre-teens, apparently convinced themselves that these relationships were not merely carnal and were in violation of the law only because of narrow-minded legislators, judges and police officers. Working the case year after year sickened Hamer, but he explains that he reined in his anger by keeping in mind the importance of convicting such predators. To his credit, he portrays most of his targets as complicated human beings, rather than simple perverts. A few lengthy rehashes of conversations with his targets seem superfluous, but in general Hamer keeps the narrative interesting. Especially educational is his depiction of the lengths to which undercover agents must go to gather admissible evidence for an indictment and a trial.Above-average entry in the My Life Undercover genre. (Kirkus Reviews)

There have been many books concerning FBI undercover agents on perilous assignments but this one by a veteran FBI agent goes one better...This book possesses power and conviction without being pretentious or pious PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

'There have been many books concerning FBI undercover agents on perilous assignments but this one by a veteran FBI agent goes one better...This book possesses power and conviction without being pretentious or pious' - PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Author Information

FBI veteran Bob Hamer has worked undercover in organized crime, gangs, terrorism, and child exploitation. Although he prides himself on his career of successful undercover assignments, he has also served as case agent or co-case agent on some of the most headline-grabbing investigations by the Los Angeles office of the FBI. These inclulde: the LA Mafia Family case; the Eddie Nash case; and the July 4th shooting at the EL AL ticket counter at LAX. Bob and his family live in Los Angeles, CA.

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