Trilogy: Three True Stories of Scoundrels and Schemers (ebook)
Trilogy: Three True Stories of Scoundrels and Schemers
by Peggy Adler
Nominated for a 2024 Indie Book Award
Nominated for a 2024 IPPY Award (Category #50, Current Events I [Political/Economic/Foreign Affairs] & #91, Audiobook: Non Fiction - Personal)
https://ippyawards.com/
BOOK REVIEW - REVIEWER'S BOOKWATCH/WILLIS BUHLES"S BOOKSHELF:
Critique: A simply fascinating read for anyone with an interest in criminology, governmental scandals, and social science research projects, "Trilogy: Three True Stories of Scoundrels and Schemers" is a fully detailed and dramatic reveal of a once national alarming scandal that in this era of Trump had faded from the collective memory of the country. While a unique and highly recommended for personal, professional, community, and college/university library collections, it should be noted for students, academia, and non-specialist general readers that "Trilogy: Three True Stories of Scoundrels and Schemers" is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $5.00).
Editorial Note: Peggy Adler is the author of "Peggy's Puzzles", Volumes One and Two, (BearManor Media, 2023),"Pallenberg Wonder Bears - From the Beginning" (BearManor Media, October 2022); the pictorial history "Images of America CLINTON" (Arcadia Publishing, 2019); five titles for New York City publishers (The John Day Company & Franklin Watts). She has also illustrated two dozen books and provided art for the Bronx Zoo; the Humane Society of the United States; Little, Brown & Company; the Journal of Theoretical Biology; the Journal of Algebra; the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics; and World Scientific Publishing. Additionally, She organized and hosted the 2015 Edgar Rice Burroughs Bibliophile Convention (aka Dum Dum), which ran for four days in Clinton, Connecticut and was attended by members of the Burroughs' family and the staff of ERB, Inc, along with authors and illustrators of Burroughs related books and almost 100 bibliophiles, who came from all over North America to celebrate his genius. In 2019, her book "Images of America Clinton" won a Literary Award Competition sponsored by the Connecticut Society of Genealogists as Best Research Publication and two years earlier, Marquis Who's Who presented her with their Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. Previous honors include the 2001 General Richard G. Stilwell Award by the Association of Former Intelligence Officers for her work with their New England Chapter.
– Willis M. Buhle, Reviewer
SYNOPSIS: In 1991, Peggy Adler, author of Trilogy: Three True Stories of Scoundrels and Schemers, was retained by self-proclaimed CIA agent, arms dealer and money launderer, Richard Brenneke, to co-author his autobiography. She soon discovered evidence in his files contradicting claims regarding his presence at October Surprise conspiracy meetings and went on to out Brenneke as a con artist in a February 1992 article in the “Village Voice”.
Adler then researched a series of additional articles for the "Voice", which went on to prove that the so-called "October Surprise" was a hoax.
In mid-1992, upon learning that the United States House of Representatives had created a Task Force to Investigate Certain Allegations Concerning the Holding of American Hostages by Iran in1980, which would be investigating whether or not there actually had been an “October Surprise”, she turned over to them the seventy cartons of documents she’d hauled east from Brenneke's home in Portland, Oregon, in order to write his memoirs. Subsequently, she worked as a consultant to the Task Force and assisted in drafting and editing the Brenneke section of their final report.
Chapter one of this book recounts the Brenneke story, from 1973 forward, including her own odyssey with this scoundrel. Chapter two reveals how Oliver North and Richard Secord’s Iran-Contra pal, Albert Hakim, was well aware that it was possible to get money out of a Swiss bank account without ever being a signatory – for he’d facilitated just that, years before. And Chapter three traces Roger Ailes relationship to the Willie Horton commercial that helped sink George Dukakis’ hope for the presidency.
The back of the book is laden with all the necessary documentation to back up what Adler has written. Or as Ken Zercie*, the Director of Training at the Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science said in the blurb on Trilogy’s back cover, “the book is a well-researched, logically laid out study of individuals bent on defrauding the United States Government and the American people. The extent to which some will go, not only taunts the creditability of the actors involved, but also the officials and public who fall prey to their schemes. The motivating factor of money and reward appears to have overly influenced the individuals in these stories, in order to betray society and defraud us all”.
* Kenneth B. Zercie, Sr,, M.S.F.S., Adjunct Professor at UNH and Director of Training at the Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science. Formerly, Director at the DPS (DESPP) Division of Scientific Services, overseeing the daily administration and operation of the Forensic Science Laboratory for the State of Connecticut, Department of Public Safety.