The Bulldog Detective

November 27, 2023
The director of the forerunner to the FBI strides right off the pages in dogged pursuit of wily counterfeiters, German spies, America’s first Mafia families, and ruthless anarchist bombers in this lively account. Historian Simon (America’s Forgotten Terrorists) tracks William J. Flynn (1867–1928) through his most important cases. As head of the eastern division of the Secret Service, Flynn worked closely with New York City police chief Teddy Roosevelt to marshal an all-Italian team of investigators to hunt Mafia criminals. As chief of the Secret Service in the years leading up to WWI, Flynn oversaw counterespionage against German saboteurs. When anarchists dispatched package bombs to high-value targets across the country in June 1919, Flynn was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation and headed that year’s notorious Red Scare arrests of thousands of purported leftists. The disappointing denouement of Flynn’s government career was the noontime Wall Street bombing on Sept. 16, 1920, that left 38 dead, and which remains unsolved. Later in life, Flynn launched a private detective agency (clients included a racehorse and a Hollywood movie star) and a mystery and true crime magazine that published an early Agatha Christie detective story. Simon covers a great deal of ground in his brisk and vivid narrative. Cloak-and-dagger enthusiasts will find much to savor.

December 1, 2023
An informative biography of an effective, little-known New York City police detective who ran the early Secret Service before it became the agency to protect presidents. Simon, the author of The Alphabet Bomber and Lone Wolf Terrorism, unearths the fascinating story of a determined and, by most accounts, incorruptible detective who garnered national fame for his ability to take down counterfeiters, Mafia members, and terrorists. Born to working-class parents, William Flynn (1867-1928) toiled as a jack-of-all-trades before joining the Secret Service in 1897. "After years of persistence," writes the author, "he was finally on the career path he'd dreamed about as a child." The service was then focused on tracking counterfeiters, who were rampant at the time. "I think it was the romance of the counterfeiter's life that made me lean toward this branch of criminology," Flynn wrote. After Flynn brought down the "Sausage Man," who was passing counterfeit $5 bills at butcher shops, and cracked the notorious Morello-Lupo counterfeiting ring, Mayor William J. Gaynor tagged him to become second deputy commissioner of the NYPD. He radically reorganized the structure of the department to mirror rigorous Scotland Yard standards. Appointed to run the national Secret Service just as World War I broke out, he remained largely in New York City, where he targeted German saboteurs. Eventually, notes Simon, he became disenchanted by the bureaucracy, and he left the force in 1917. For two years, he ran the incipient FBI, then called the Bureau of Investigation, but he could not solve the Wall Street bombing of 1919, got caught up in the Palmer raids (led by a young J. Edgar Hoover), and left the BI to start his own detective agency. His detective magazine, Flynn's, delineating his many exploits, was hugely popular even after his death. A terrific feat of research that unearths a valiant crime fighter.

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December 22, 2023

Historian and former RAND analyst Simon (America's Forgotten Terrorists: The Rise and Fall of the Galleanists) presents the career of William James Flynn (1867-1928), who served as the director of the Bureau of Investigation (the antecedent to the FBI) from 1919 to 1921. Preceded by two others, but with a sobriquet that speaks to his dogged determination, Flynn led federal offensives against organized crime, anarchists, terrorists, and spies. As the head of the BI (which assumed the name FBI in 1935), he was on the scenes of the unsuccessful inquiry into the 1920 Wall Street bombing and the all too resonant Palmer raids. In constant competition with William John Burns, who succeeded him, he launched his own detective agency, as did Burns. An incorruptible hard-liner, he later wrote articles about his exploits, plus crime novels and scenes for cliff-hanger film serials. VERDICT Readers intrigued by recent FBI histories such as Beverly Gage's G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century should access this first comprehensive biography of one of Hoover's predecessors. It has the rapid pace of a spy novel. For specialists and generalists alike.--Frederick J. Augustyn Jr.

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