3 out of 4 stars
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Dual Mission by Nino Perrotta is the author’s memoir describing his important role in the financial investigation that took down John Angelo “Junior” Gotti, the son of the well-known New York City mobster, John Gotti.
Nino Perrotta, son of Italian immigrants, grew up working and spending lots of time in his parents’ deli after school. At the same time, he was forever daydreaming about fighting the Mafia when he’d become an adult. Much to his father’s disappointment, once he left school, instead of taking over the deli, Nino started a career as a law enforcement professional. Over the years, he was promoted until he landed a job with the New York State Organized Crime Task Force as a special investigator focusing on John “Junior” Gotti. Finally, Nino Perrotta’s childhood dream came true.
The book chronicles his work as a detective, and later on as a Secret Service agent, concentrating on his fight against financial crimes committed by the Mafia. A few chapters also talk about his second type of assignment (hence the title of the book) as a security detail for presidents and government officials from within and outside the United States.
In his memoir, the author also recounts a few operations in which he took part in Bulgaria and Romania. The way he depicts the two Eastern European countries is quite unflattering. He describes Bulgaria as grey. Nothing tastes the way food tastes in Italy. There is no real Italian parmesan in Bulgarian restaurants. Coffee is horrible. Everything is ugly, apart from the beautiful Bulgarian women (something the author mentioned several times in the book). When he talks about Romania, he mostly describes the begging gypsies who would mutilate their children’s bodies and send them on the streets to beg or steal. Now, when people read Dual Mission, those horrible gypsies will be forever etched in their minds, when in fact, the “?igani” are but a minuscule minority and not representative of the country at all.
Throughout the book, the author uses lots of details when describing the places he has been to, people he has met, and work he has done over the years. Through his pages, I have learned about the heavy rivalry that happens among the various official agencies (especially the FBI vs everyone else). More than once, the FBI would withhold information crucial to solving a particular case Nino Perrotta was working on, which was quite frustrating. While talking about his work as an investigator, the author often switched to anecdotes from his younger years spent living with his parents. The switch, which would occur from one paragraph to the next, was often unexpected, and it took me a sentence or two to realize that we’re no longer in the present.
At only some 250 pages, Dual Mission is in need of an editing job. The manuscript is full of grammatical, spelling, and punctuation mistakes. Commas are omitted after introductory phrases, but you can find them splitting phrases that should not be split. The author uses “alluded” repeatedly instead of “eluded” and leaves out articles before nouns, like “in country” instead of “in the country.” Then we have phrases such as “mistrusted the police in American” (instead of America), and “Tony was very street savvy, and a quality one can only get” (which begged the removal of “and” to correct the meaning). A good editor could also tighten up the pages for a smoother flow of the narrative.
The book offered an interesting glimpse into the life of an officer of the law who took upon himself to weaken the Mafia’s power. He set out to do a job, and he was really successful at it. However, the many editing errors left me no choice but to lower the rating to 3 out of 4 stars. I do recommend it to people who love reading about going against the Mafia and to readers who enjoy biographies and memoirs.
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Dual Mission
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