The author describes his time as chief counsel to the Knapp Commission, which investigated police corruption in New York City.

In fifty years of prosecuting and defending criminal cases in New York City and elsewhere,Michael F. Armstrong has often dealt with cops. For a single two-year span, as chief counsel to the Knapp Commission, he was charged with investigating them. Based on Armstrong's vivid recollections of this watershed moment in law enforcement accountability—prompted by the New York Times's report on whistleblower cop Frank Serpico—They Wished They Were Honest recreates the dramatic struggles and significance of the Commission and explores the factors that led to its success and the restoration of the NYPD's public image. Serpico's charges against the NYPD encouraged Mayor John Lindsay to appoint prominent attorney Whitman Knapp to chair a Citizen's Commission on police graft. Overcoming a number of organizational, budgetary, and political hurdles, Chief Counsel Armstrong cobbled together an investigative group of a half-dozen lawyers and a dozen agents. Just when funding was about to run out, the "blue wall of silence" collapsed. A flamboyant "Madame," a corrupt lawyer, and a weasely informant led to a "super thief" cop, who was trapped and "turned" by the Commission. This led to sensational and revelatory hearings, which publicly refuted the notion that departmental corruption was limited to only a "few rotten apples." In the course of his narrative, Armstrong illuminates police investigative strategy; governmental and departmental political maneuvering; ethical and philosophical issues in law enforcement; the efficacy (or lack thereof) of the police's anticorruption efforts; the effectiveness of the training of police officers; the psychological and emotional pressures that lead to corruption; and the effects of police criminality on individuals and society. He concludes with the effects, in today's world, of Knapp and succeeding investigations into police corruption and the value of permanent outside monitoring bodies, such as the special prosecutor's office, formed in response to the Commission's recommendation, as well as the current monitoring commission, of which Armstrong is chairman.

Nelson Rockefeller's Dilemma reveals the fascinating and influential political career of the four-time New York State governor and US vice president. Marsha E. Barrett's portrayal of this multi-faceted political player focuses on the eclipse of moderate Republicanism and the betrayal of deeply held principles for political power. Although never able to win his party's presidential nomination, Rockefeller's tenure as governor was notable for typically liberal policies: infrastructure projects, expanding the state's university system, and investing in local services and the social safety net. As the Civil Rights movement intensified in the early 1960s, Rockefeller envisioned a Republican Party recommitted to its Lincolnian heritage as a defender of Black equality. But the party's extreme right wing, encouraged by its successful outreach to segregationists before and after the nomination of Barry Goldwater, pushed the party to the right. With his national political ambitions fading by the late 1960s, Rockefeller began to tack right himself on social and racial issues, refusing to endorse efforts to address police brutality, accusing, without proof, Black welfare mothers of cheating the system, or introducing harsh drug laws that disproportionately incarcerated people of color. These betrayals of his own ideals did little to win him the support of the party faithful, and his vice presidency ended in humiliation, rather than the validation of moderate ideals. An in-depth, insightful, and timely political history, Nelson Rockefeller's Dilemma details how the standard-bearer of moderate Republicanism lost the battle for the soul of the Party of Lincoln, leading to mainlining of white-grievance populism for the post-civil rights era.

As heard by kids everywhere on the Echo Dot Kids Edition, the Classroom 13 books are a hilarious new chapter book series-perfect for reluctant readers and fans of Roald Dahl, Captain Underpants, and Sideways Stories from Wayside School. The Disastrous Magical Wishes of Classroom 13 is the second title in a series about the students of a very unlucky classroom. The easy-to-read chapters are full of humor, action, secret codes, and fun-and will prompt hours of conversation among friends, families, and classmates. The final chapter encourages young readers to write their own chapter and send it in to the author, Honest Lee. When unlucky teacher Ms. Linda LaCrosse finds a magic lamp, she releases a genie-um, I mean, a Djinn--who agrees to grant each of her students ONE WISH! You might think this was fantastic, but it was not. It was a frightful idea! With magic wishes come hungry dinosaurs, stinky pizza, photographing paparazzi, and other huge mistakes. As the students of Classroom 13 are about to learn, you should be careful what you wish for.

Renaissance Lawman: The Education and Deeds of Eliot H. Lumbard details the life, education, and public service career of Eliot Howland Lumbard. A lawyer, who most of his life, lived and worked in Manhattan and whose legal career spanned more than fifty years beginning in the early 1950s. Lumbard is easily identified as a renaissance lawman for having gained considerable expertise in the operations of the political and justice systems, and for proceeding to capitalize on this knowledge to become both an advocate and initiator of progressive reforms for criminal justice. His contributions on behalf of public safety have been largely forgotten but throughout this intriguing biography Martin Alan Greenberg successfully juxtaposes many of Lumbard's professional activities with many of the major historical developments and challenges of his time. The chronicled events emphasize what motivated the people in his generation to behave as they did since the world today is a much different place than what Americans were experiencing in the first three decades after WW II. Cultural and technological changes have combined to make our present-day world quite different from over a half-century ago. Renaissance Lawman proves to be especially rewarding to a wide-range of readers interested in police work, criminal justice history, public service leadership, and legal ethics. There are no other comparable books on the market. Lumbard certainly had a unique legal career and his impactful contributions have seldom, if ever, been duplicated – even if his contributions, on behalf of public safety, have been largely forgotten.