Race Against Evil: The Secret Missions of the Interpol Agent Who Tracked the World's Most Sinister Criminals A A Real-Life Drama

by David Race Bannon

Book Overview

David Race Bannon's missions take him from investigating the bombing of KAL flight 858 and infiltrating prisons in Korea to the disappearance of London's most notorious child pornographer to searching... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0882822314
• ISBN13: 9780882822310
• Release Date: August 2006
• Publisher: New Horizon Press
• Length: 334 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Seeking Bannon

Race Against Evil is a fascinating, highly readable and weighty addition to the relatively small number of worthwhile books about Interpol. It is a remarkable achievement that any student of the intelligence community should read.Often regarded as a mystery, Interpol (the world association of national police forces for mutual assistance in the fight against international crimes and criminal conspiracies) is analysed and exposed in this book by a retired officer of the organisation, and its inner workings scrutinized. Untold tales of undercover work, conspiracies and outstanding bravery constitute Bannon's personal account, in which he avoids more than a brief description of Interpol in the 1930s and the murky years when it fell into the hands of the Gestapo, focusing instead on its renaissance in the 1980s.Interpol is one of the world's most elusive organisations. Its operations remain veiled from scrutiny and to write about Interpol risks harassment and prosecution, as former members and current commentators know to their cost. Like Britain's most celebrated spymaster, William Stephenson (known by the telegraphic address, Intrepid, used for the British Security Coordination (BSC) office he ran in New York), David Bannon has been taking flak for his autobiography, Race Against Evil. But the life of the professional spy is by nature one of secret accomplishment and shadowy triumph. Trying to shine a light into this world, especially twenty years on, is a daunting exercise. If it accomplishes nothing else, it should serve to remind us of the dark world faced by such individuals. Like so many Interpol agents, Bannon contributed silently, exercising his skills behind the scenes. The nature of the business is that he and his colleagues went largely unsung. It's part of the mythology. Efforts to emerge from the shadows naturally engender scepticism. Large, reliable news services have validated many of the facts presented in the book. Only one source - a small weekly (circ. 9,000) in the southern United States - questioned Bannon's intelligence adventures, doing so without interviews, research or qualified reportage and therefore it is irrelevant to an educated discussion of the verifiable facts presented in the book. There is little question that Bannon has an honourable record and that he served Interpol admirably. His publications in Asian affairs and many translations - he read history at Seoul National University - are easy for any competent researcher to confirm. The larger question relates to the substance of his clandestine career. In this, the enigmatic nature of Interpol has pretty well doomed Bannon from the start. The fact that Interpol is still shrouded in public contradictions and official secrecy makes for a challenging research environment. To this day, many of the people from Bannon's Interpol circle cling tenaciously to their code of secrecy. It is very difficult to pry information from them. Of great interest are Bannon

Unforgettable Account

Race Against Evil is David Bannon's unforgettable account of how be became part of the mysterious underworld that is child slavery--the first and only account by an Interpol agent--and it is as amazing and intriguing as the flamboyant, deadly, terrifying world it portrays. Bannon's inclusion of excerpts from actual Interpol documents bring the events of this tale chillingly to life. He narrates this thrilling account of his own experiences as an undercover Interpol agent who successfully infiltrated the dangerous world of child slavery. During an eighteen-year period, but particularly for about five years in the 1980s, Bannon adopted flexible personae to "buy in" to child trafficking networks. Though it reads like a thriller, this work also provides listeners with much concrete information about Interpol intelligence and financial operations, as well as the grotesque world of child sex slavery. Bannon's descriptions of sex slavery rings are shocking, but since his book's publication, the problem has garnered international attention. Delegates to the U.N. General Assembly heard U.S. President George W. Bush condemn the international trade in sex slaves on Sept. 23, 2003. The State Department estimates that at least 800,000 women, children and men are sold across borders each year, Bush said, some "as young as five, who fall victim to the sex trade. This commerce in human life generates billions of dollars each year." Bannon's exposure of the existence of rings in the borders of the U.S. has elicited criticism, but the president didn't gloss over the facts. "This problem has appeared in my own country," Bush said, "and we are working to stop it." Bannon is not the only one to label child sex slavery as evil. President Bush condemned the "special evil in the abuse and exploitation of the most innocent and vulnerable." He said, "We must show new energy in fighting back an old evil," adding, "The trade in human beings for any purpose must not be allowed to thrive in our time." To understand the terrible human cost of this evil commerce in children, Bannon's Race Against Evil is essential for public libraries with crime collections.

Qualified to judge

I am a retired DEA Field Division SAC. After I heard David Bannon on the radio, I met him at a booksigning. Despite all his training to appear innocuous, I immediately recognized from his posture, the way he scanned the room with his eyes but not his whole body, his bearing, that Bannon had spent a lot of time with criminals -- in prison, undercover for Interpol, and chasing child slavers for an Interpol department called Archangel. Bannon was also abstemious, devoted to his daughter, and a conservative college professor whose many legitimate conferences and publications camouflaged his other work. Bannon's account of this complex, compartmentalized life is a rich stew of anthropological detail, confusion, and shame. It was only after Bannon quit Interpol and a national magazine published his story, around his daughter's twelfth birthday, that the author revealed the reasons for his long disappearances and scarred body: he had been an assassin, rumored to be responsible for more than a hundred killings. This heartsick memoir charts Bannon's attempt to come to terms with his past.Bannon's detractors are unqualified to judge him. They have not met him and know nothing of international criminal traffic. Even I am not educated about the inner workings of Interpol, but I have spent enough years undercover with the DEA to judge the man. I looked into his eyes and saw the man beneath the charming exterior. He knows things that only someone on the inside can possibly know, and he expresses emotions that only those of us who have seen evil face-to-face can possibly understand. I believe him.

VIOLENT CRIMES, VIOLENT SOLUTIONS

Grim tales of crime and punishment told in moving first person. In his literary foray into the dark territory of violent sex crime, Bannon invites readers behind the scenes of Interpol. But this is hardly another dark organization expose redux. The stories are fresh, and the depictions are not as grisly as those of other true crime books. The crimes and their perpetrators are no less monstrous, however, in chronicles that are as compelling as they are disturbing. From the media-popular assassination teams to a remorseless leader of a child slavery ring, to an overwhelming sense of remorse and moral confession, this title captures the best and worst of humanity. More importantly, in a genre where the reader is commonly a voyeur, Bannon goes to great lengths to avoid revictimizing survivors of violent crime and relatives of those whose lives have been lost. Over and over, Bannon renders sincere, indelible portraits of victims and their families, both before and in the aftermath of these crimes, exploring the labyrinth of disbelief, bottomless grief, rage and, sometimes, the strength they have mustered to endure the everyday. Their emotional turbulence is both stunning and provocative. At once gallant and crusading, Bannon has provided a tempered and clearly written work. Bannon has good reason to hate criminals who prey on the young: he watched them kill his fiance during a firefight. Here, Bannon profiles his own journey from missionary to assassin and details several incidents where his work helped put an end to the careers of "these beasts," child molesters and murderers. Not all his subjects are sexual deviants, however, for Bannon, who frankly recalls counter-terrorist assignments, seemingly would reserve a circle of hell for anyone who harms innocents. Fans of true-crime writing will find it of interest. Photos of Bannon in uniform and key individuals are provided, as well as an appendix with testimonials from colleagues.

Literate Thriller

Major Bannon's book is a nail-biting thriller and a revealing expose of the inner workings of Interpol. More importantly, it is a literate revelation of a man's painful role in fighting international crime in the only way he knew. Bannon has carefully crafted a story that is legitimate in every detail and is told in an exciting style that keeps the pages turning. Not since John le Carre and John D. MacDonald has there been such a literate anti-hero and not since Truman Capote and Ann Rule has non-fiction been so well told. It's easy to miss that Bannon is a great storyteller because his art never once inhibits the book, which flies along at such a riveting pace that it will leave the reader breathless at such unsung heroism and heartsick at the cruelty of life.Bannon's relationships are detailed with tact and honest candor. He uses well-known cliches as a method to quickly involve us in characters; then he subverts these stereotypes to reveal the depth of the real people he met. Bannon's literate craftsmanship allows us to experience his first impression; then we discover with him that that cliches, like first impressions, are only sketches of the deeper person within. This is particularly true of his boss, Commissioner Defferre, who is revealed as a complex man burdened with a mission and a relationship with the author that is heartfelt and complicated. Bannon shares much of the dark, caustic humor shared by his colleagues in moments of stress or rest. What may seem like a corny joke to the reader is actually revealed as darkly clever and refreshingly honest when understood in the context of the horrors surrounding the people in the book. The shallow and less witty who fancy themselves literate and require that every pun has three meanings will never comprehend the lives of these great men and women whose honesty and humor kept them sane in the face of such tragedy. Descriptions and dialogue do much more than simply propel the thrilling action of Major Bannon's life. The book is filled with the sights and sounds of the places he worked. There are so many cultural and artistic bits of information woven into the story that it's easy to miss them. Korean poetry, American television, Belgian comic books, performance art, folk tales, and fascinating descriptions of what it felt like to eat and walk in these wonderfully different places. When we travel with him to a country or city, whether a castle or temple, park or graveyard, Major Bannon crafts in the history of the place and it's importance not only to the story but also to the people who lived there. It is the people that make this book so unforgettable. Bannon's greatest gift is the way he blends dialogue into the action. We have a real sense of what it was like to be with these interesting people and to feel, as they so often did, the comfortingly human need to say unrelated absurdities or acidic truths at the most inappropriate times. They were faced with the unthinkable and