"A monumental account of an urban travesty....[It] has all the earmarks of a classic."
--Dennis Lehane, New York Times bestselling author of Mystic River and Shutter Island Dick Lehr's The Fence, subtitled, "A Police Cover-up Along Boston's Racial Divide," is a shocking true story of racism, brutality, official lies and negligence, when the truth about the savage beating of black plainclothes policeman by white officers was hidden behind a "blue wall of silence." Respected journalist Lehr, winner of the Hancock Award, the Loeb Award, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and bestselling author of Black Mass and Judgment Ridge, sheds a brilliant light on all aspects of this powerful, disturbing event and its aftermath.
About the Author :
Dick Lehr is a professor of journalism at Boston University. He is the author of eight previous works of nonfiction and a novel for young adults. Lehr coauthored the New York Times bestseller and Edgar Award Winning Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI and a Devil's Deal, which became the basis of a Warner Bros. film of the same name. His book The Birth of a Movement: How Birth of a Nation Ignited the Battle for Civil Rights became the basis for a PBS/Independent Lens documentary. Two other books were Edgar Award finalists: The Fence: A Police Cover-up Along Boston's Racial Divide and Judgment Ridge: The True Story Behind the Dartmouth Murders. Lehr previously wrote for the Boston Globe, where he was a member of the Spotlight Team, a special projects reporter, and a magazine writer. While at the Globe, he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in investigative reporting and won numerous national and local journalism awards. Lehr lives near Boston.
Review :
"Gripping. . . . Tackles a broad issue with the zeal of a seasoned investigative newspaper reporter." - Lynet Holloway, Black Voices
"The Fence makes a compelling case . . . [it] is more than an account of crime, punishment and the blue wall. Lehr weaves the life stories of several key characters into the book." - Bay State Banner
"Weaving mini-biographies of key players into the unrelenting police coverup and Cox's determined quest for justice, he paints a gritty portrait of urban life that reads like a crime novel--replete with plot twists and vivid, deeply flawed characters. . . . The author's solid grounding in the history and diverse cultures of Boston, which he has covered for 25 years, adds context to the unfolding events." - Dave Holahan, Hartford Courant
"The Fence should be required reading in . . . expanded integrity training courses for Boston Police supervisors." - Boston Globe
"Dick Lehr has written a long overdue assessment of the brutal attack by law enforcement officers on an African American plainclothes officer, Michael Cox, which illuminates a tragic example of the failure of our criminal justice system. You will not be able to put this down and hopefully it will compel you to make sure that incidents like this never happen again on our watch. Every police officer, judge, lawyer and citizen should read this book." - Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., Harvard Law School Jesse Climenko Professor of Law, Executive Director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute For Race and Justice, and author of All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half-Century of Brown v. Board of Education and When Law Fails
"Like cancers that never seem to be cured, the inextricably linked ills of racism, public corruption and police misconduct continue to surface in Boston (and indeed in America). In his disturbing new book, Dick Lehr vividly presents another example of how difficult it is to face up to, let alone resolve, these conflicts." - Los Angeles Police Chief Bill Bratton
"Lehr has vividly rendered two tragic stories, exposing a police culture of silence that victimized one of its own while also showing the "by any means necessary'' mentality of federal prosecutors that destroyed another innocent officer's reputation. Still missing here are truth and accountability." - Chuck Leddy, The Boston Globe
"Jolting, nightmarish and potent, this true cop yarn bests any bogus reality show or overblown tabloid tale with its hardboiled spin." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Think Serpico translated to Boston. . . . A cautionary tale about the abuse of power and a timely civics lesson on the virtue of standing up to authority." - Kirkus Reviews
"Intriguing . . . an admirable, in-depth description of police corruption." - Library Journal
"As gripping a tale as "The Fence" is, it should be mandatory reading for anyone looking to be a cop in Boston . . . or anyplace else." - Peter Gelzinis, Boston Herald
"This could be a case study in the perils of profiling. It isn't so much forgotten history, as buried. Perhaps this outstanding book can fix that." - Adrian Walker, Boston Globe
"Dick Lehr gets inside the heads of cops, criminals, prosecutors and politics better than anyone I know. The Fence is a revealing expose of the blue wall of silence that endangers us all." - Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law School
"The Fence is a monumental account of an urban travesty. Dick Lehr's depiction of one of the darkest chapters in recent Boston law enforcement history and the savage injustices perpetrated on two hero cops--one black, one white--has all the earmarks of a classic." - Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River
