Pete Earley – författare

Now a National Bestseller!What if the Russians really are colluding with Americans...on the left?#1 New York Times bestselling author Newt Gingrich makes his return to political fiction with this rollicking tale of high-stakes international intrigue—the first book in a new, contemporary series, filled with adventure, betrayal, and politics—that captures the tensions and divides of America and the world today. Valerie Mayberry is the FBI’s counterintelligence expert on domestic terrorism.Brett Garrett is a dishonorably discharged ex-Navy SEAL, now a gun for hire, working as a security contractor in Eastern Europe. When a high ranking Kremlin official must be smuggled out of Russia, Mayberry and Garrett are thrown together to exfiltrate him and preempt a deadly poisonous strike.As these unlikely partners work to protect their human asset, their mission is threatened by domestic politics: leftist protests, congressional infighting, and a culture riven by hatred. Collusion raises many of the most significant issues facing America in real life today. How big a threat is Russia? Are American leftist activists susceptible to influence from abroad? How far will our enemies go to disrupt our politics and weaken the nation? Can we trust the media to differentiate between the good guys and the bad guys? Newt Gingrich and Pete Earley have entertained and educated readers with three previous works. From its explosive opening through several twists and turns to its heart-stopping end, Collusion is their most timely and powerful novel yet.

Mayberry and Garrett, introduced in the national bestseller Collusion, are caught in the middle of a deadly crisis with a pending nuclear bomb attack and little help from the government that sidelined them both.When an exiled Iranian scientist is assassinated in Washington, DC, the former FBI counterintelligence agent and ex-SEAL are pulled back into the world of clandestine ops—and the fate of the entire East Coast is at stake. Joining ranks with a heralded Mossad agent, Mayberry and Garrett pursue a skilled international killer hired to murder a legendary Israeli spymaster. Their pursuit draws them into an international conspiracy led by a power-hungry Russian oligarch intent on destroying Washington, DC, and the Navy''s most important Atlantic base. The oligarch plots to unleash a nuclear onslaught first devised by the KGB but shelved by Kremlin leaders during the Cold War. On top of this, Iran''s sudden offer to help the United States raises suspicions about its possible role in a global shakedown. With too many enemies emerging and too little time, the two Americans are forced to operate outside official channels to stay ahead of naive US politicians and foreign enemies out to entangle their efforts in red tape. Operating in an international tinderbox, Mayberry and Garrett must decipher which players are allies and which are posers—in time to thwart a cataclysmic nuclear attack on US soil and prevent an international incident that could ignite a third world war. And they must keep themselves alive.

In this lively and probing book, award-winning author Pete Earley traces the extraordinary evolution of Las Vegas -- from the gaudy Mecca of the Rat Pack era to one of the country''s top family vacation spots. He revisits the city''s checkered history of moguls, mobsters, and entertainers, reveals the real stories of well-known power brokers like Steve Wynn and legends like Howard Hughes and Bugsy Siegel, and offers a fascinating portrait of the life, death, and fantastic rebirth of the Las Vegas Strip. Earley also documents the gripping tale of the entrepreneurs behind the rise and fall and rise again of one of the largest gaming corporations in the nation, Circus Circus -- to which he was given unique access. In his trademark you-are-there style, he takes us behind the scenes to meet the blackjack dealers and hookers, the heavy hitters and bit players, the security officers, cabbies, and showgirls who are caught up in the mercurial pace that pulses at the heart of this astounding city.From the Paperback edition.

For decades no law enforcement program has been as cloaked in controversy and mystery as the Federal Witness Protection Program. Now, for the first time, Gerald Shur, the man credited with the creation of WITSEC, teams with acclaimed investigative journalist Pete Earley to tell the inside story of turncoats, crime-fighters, killers, and ordinary human beings caught up in a life-and-death game of deception in the name of justice.WITSECInside the Federal Witness Protection ProgramWhen the government was losing the war on organized crime in the early 1960s, Gerald Shur, a young attorney in the Justice Department’s Organized Crime and Racketeering Section, urged the department to entice mobsters into breaking their code of silence with promises of protection and relocation. But as high-ranking mob figures came into the program, Shur discovered that keeping his witnesses alive in the face of death threats involved more than eradicating old identities and creating new ones. It also meant cutting off families from their pasts and giving new identities to wives and children, as well as to mob girlfriends and mistresses. It meant getting late-night phone calls from protected witnesses unable to cope with their new lives. It meant arranging funerals, providing financial support, and in one instance even helping a mobster’s wife get breast implants. And all too often it meant odds that a protected witness would return to what he knew best–crime.In this book Shur gives a you-are-there account of infamous witnesses, from Joseph Valachi to “Sammy the Bull” Gravano to “Fat Vinnie” Teresa, of the lengths the program goes to to keep its charges safe, and of cases that went very wrong and occasionally even protected those who went on to kill again. He describes the agony endured by innocent people who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time and ended up in a program tailored to criminals. And along with Shur’s war stories, WITSEC draws on the haunting words of one mob wife, who vividly describes her life of lies, secrecy, and loss inside the program. A powerful true story of the inner workings of one of the most effective and controversial weapons in the war against organized crime and the inner workings of organized crime itself–and more recently against Colombian drug dealers, outlaw motorcycle gang members, white-collar con men, and international terrorists–this book takes us into a tense, dangerous twilight world carefully hidden in plain sight: where the family living next door might not be who they say they are. . .From the Paperback edition.

An account of life in Leavenworth Prison, based on interviews with inmates and others, describes the lives of a sexual predator, a gang member in for forty-two years, a sociopath in ""no human contact"" status, and others.

Told through the lens of two murders that changed modern-day prison corrections in America, award-winning New York Times bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize finalist Pete Earley delivers an eye-opening exploration of reprehensible crime, draconian punishment, and seemingly impossible reform in the tombs of the country’s most isolated super max prison. In 1983, Thomas Silverstein and Clayton Fountain, both serving life sentences at the U.S, Prison in Marion, Illinois, separately murdered two correction officers on the same day. The Bureau of Prisons condemned both men to the severest punishment that could legally be imposed, one created specifically for them. It was unofficially called “no human contact.”   Each initially spent nine months in a mattress-sized cell where the lights burned twenty-four hours a day. They were clothed only in boxer shorts, completely sealed off from the outside world with only their minds to occupy their time. Eventually granted minimal privileges, Fountain turned to religion and endured twenty-one-years before dying alone of natural causes. Silverstein became a skilled artist and lasted thirty-six years, longer than any other American prisoner held in isolation. Amazingly, both men found purpose to their existence while confined in the belly of the beast.   Pete Earley—the only journalist to be granted face-to-face access with Silverstein—examines profound questions at the heart of our justice system. Were Silverstein and Fountain born bad? Or were they twisted by abusive childhoods? Did incarceration offer them a chance of rehabilitation—or force them to commit increasingly heinous crimes?  No Human Contact elicits a uniquely deep and uncomfortable understanding of the crimes committed, the use of solitary confinement, and the reality of life, redemption, and death behind prison walls.

When the Cold War ended, the spying that marked the era did not. An incredible true story from the Pulitzer Prize-nominated New York Times bestselling author of Crazy.Between 1995 and 2000, "Comrade J" was the go-to man for SVR (the successor to the KGB) intelligence in New York City, overseeing all covert operations against the U.S. and its allies in the United Nations. He personally handled every intelligence officer in New York. He knew the names of foreign diplomats spying for Russia. He was the man who kept the secrets. But there was one more secret he was keeping. For three years, "Comrade J" was working for U.S. intelligence, stealing secrets from the Russian Mission he was supposed to be serving. Since he defected, his role as a spy for the U.S. was kept under wraps-until now. This is the gripping, untold story of Sergei Tretyakov, more commonly known as "Comrade J."

From New York Times bestselling author Pete Earley—the strange but true story of how a young man’s devastating brain injury gave him the unique ability to connect with the world’s most terrifying criminals. Fifteen-year-old Tony Ciaglia had everything a teenager could want until he suffered a horrific head injury at summer camp. When he emerged from a coma, his right side was paralyzed, he had to relearn how to walk and talk, and he needed countless pills to control his emotions. Abandoned and shunned by his friends, he began writing to serial killers on a whim and discovered that the same traumatic brain injury that made him an outcast to his peers now enabled him to connect emotionally with notorious murderers. Soon many of America’s most dangerous psychopaths were revealing to him heinous details about their crimes—even those they’d never been convicted of. Tony despaired as he found himself inescapably drawn into their violent worlds of murder, rape, and torture—until he found a way to use his gift. Asked by investigators from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to aid in solving a murder, Tony launched his own searches for forgotten victims with clues provided by the killers themselves. The Serial Killer Whisperer takes readers into the minds of murderers like never before, but it also tells the inspiring tale of a struggling American family and a tormented young man who found healing and closure in the most unlikely way—by connecting with monsters.

Former Washington Post reporter Pete Earley had written extensively about the criminal justice system. But it was only when his own son-in the throes of a manic episode-broke into a neighbor''s house that he learned what happens to mentally ill people who break a law. This is the Earley family''s compelling story, a troubling look at bureaucratic apathy and the countless thousands who suffer confinement instead of care, brutal conditions instead of treatment, in the "revolving doors" between hospital and jail. With mass deinstitutionalization, large numbers of state mental patients are homeless or in jail-an experience little better than the horrors of a century ago. Earley takes us directly into that experience-and into that of a father and award-winning journalist trying to fight for a better way.

In "one of the best" political thrillers from two Washington insiders (Nelson DeMille, NYT bestselling author), America's leaders must hunt down a master terrorist in hiding and neutralize the threat of political betrayal.The greatest nightmare for the free world today would be an extremist in hiding, controlling and coordinating radical Islamic groups at the highest level around the globe. In Duplicity, two bestselling authors -- former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Pulitzer Prize finalist Pete Earley -- weave a grim and gripping tale of this worst case scenario. From home front fears to an international crisis, this thriller is terrifyingly plausible, ripped straight from the headlines.When President Sally Allworth decides to reestablish America's Mogadishu embassy in Somalia weeks before Election Day, her challenger says she is playing politics with American lives. That turns out to be true when the embassy is attacked and hostages are taken. Station chief Gunter Conner and Marine captain Brooke Grant end up the unlikely survivors of this Benghazi-style strike. And suddenly, they are the only hope for saving their captured colleagues.With his in-depth political knowledge of friends and foes on the political stage, only Newt Gingrich could weave such a spellbinding tale of events and personalities, one that could actually happen . . . if America's leaders aren't wary of a world full of duplicity.

Islamic terrorism is growing on American soil, and in Newt Gingrich's new novel, TREASON, an attempted assassination at the highest level points to treason at the highest corridors of power. Captain Brooke Grant, Sergeant Walks Many Miles, and Representative Thomas "The Chairman" Stanton have been hunting down Islamic terrorist mastermind, The Falcon, and he has now marked them for death. His terrorists in place in America are training to execute his revenge--and they are happy to die for their cause. TREASON will leave readers on the edge of their seats as The Falcon continues to terrorize the U.S.

THE WORLD'S MASTER TERRORIST, known only as the Falcon, has infiltrated Washington's highest corridors of power, threatening the very existence of our democracy in this realistic tale of modern day TREASON. Major Brooke Grant has been waging war against terrorism since her parents were murdered during 9/11, keenly aware that her enemy transcends borders. But a coordinated attack on the president at the funeral of a Washington power broker leads her to a terrifying revelation: the enemy is closer than she'd ever imagined and is hiding in plain sight. The Falcon has gained a weapon no terrorist has ever wielded before: an American-born traitor burrowed inside the U.S. government itself.TREASON is a story of a nation fighting for its life not only against outside threats but also against an internal threat-a fanatical jihadist who uses liberty as a shield while trying to destroy the civilization created in its image. Major Grant's deadly chess match with the Falcon turns personal when he issues a fatwa against her and those she loves. Can she unmask the traitor and stop the Falcon's most skilled assassin sent to kill her before he strikes? Or will she fall victim to betrayal by a false friend in this gripping tale of treachery, courage, and ultimately patriotism where good battles evil? Only Newt Gingrich, who brings decades of experience in national security and politics to bear in his collaboration with journalist Pete Earley, can spin such a vivid mix of reality and fiction, daring readers to guess where the line between the two is crossed.

The Close sisters are descended from very prominent and wealthy ancestors. When the Close sisters were very young, their parents joined a cult called the MRA, or Moral Rearmament. The family was suddenly uprooted to a cult school in Switzerland and, ultimately, to the Belgian Congo where their father became a surgeon in the war ravaged republic, and ultimately the personal physician to President Mobutu. Shortly after the girls returned to the US for boarding school, Jessie first started to exhibit symptoms of severe bipolar disorder (she would later learn that this ran in the family, a well-kept secret). Jessie embarked on a series of destructive marriages as the condition worsened. Glenn was always by her side throughout. Jessie's mental illness was passed on to her son, Calen. It wasn't until Calen entered McLean's psychiatric hospital that Jessie herself was diagnosed. Fifteen years and twelve years of sobriety later, Jessie is a stable and productive member of society. Glenn continues to be the major support in Jessie's life.In RESILIENCE, the sisters share their story of triumphing over Jessie's illness. The book is written in Jessie's voice with running commentary and an epilogue written by Glenn.