Murder for Hire: My Life As the Country's Most Successful Undercover Agent
Jack Ballentine became a Phoenix police officer in 1978 and quickly rose to the top as one of the world’s most successful undercover operatives. His specialty: posing as an undercover hit man. None of the people who hired him had any inkling that he was actually a cop, and his work led to a perfect rate of twenty-four convictions out of twenty-four indictments on murder conspiracy charges.\ Murder for Hire is Ballentine’s story. He worked with criminals of all sorts, from vengeful spouses and...
Search in google:
The memoir of an undercover operative with the Phoenix Police Department who posed as a hit man. During his 15 years in the position, Jack Ballentine had a 100% conviction rate for all of the criminals he dealt with. Kirkus Reviews Memoir of an undercover cop who posed as a hit man. A three-time winner of Police Officer of the Year, Ballentine began his unusual specialty soon after joining the Phoenix PD. "Within a couple years I was whisked off to a sting operation where I made a living undercover buying stolen property from burglars, thieves, and fences," he writes. "Then came the murder-for-hire business." He developed physical bulk and a repertoire of underworld identities, including "biker-gang warlord, Mafia hit man, soldier of fortune, disgruntled Vietnam vet, and Aryan Brotherhood prison convict." According to the author, he effortlessly dominated the Arizona underworld, working out of seedy bars and strip clubs, developing networks of informants who referred to him a steady stream of "clients." In every chapter he encounters such individuals, like an impoverished couple who tried to have their sociopathic son killed, or a "Black Widow" type who wished to destroy her husband. The anecdotes inevitably end with the surveillance team swooping in and slapping on handcuffs. Ballentine claims that he wrote this book to purge the strange double life that undercover work demands-"Never before have you seen undercover operatives in this light, as well as with whom they work"-and his account seems plausible. He effectively captures the violence and degradation of underclass criminality, where the lives of drug dealers, bikers, white supremacists, prostitutes, strippers and career criminals intersect. However, despite flashes of verisimilitude, the repetitive narrative fails to flesh out specific casework or time frames. The subplot of his marriage to a woman outside this dark world adds little drama. An intriguinglife story in need of a ghostwriter.
From Jack Ballentine’s Murder for Hire\ I constantly battle with who I am and what I should sound like when I get calls. It becomes even more difficult in the early-morning hours when the phone rings and I’m in a deep sleep. I found it best to always answer, “Yeah,” and then let the caller carry on until I gather myself and I locate the character I need to be. It’s a tough transition from biker warlord to Mafia hit man. The phone rings all the time and I hardly ever know who the caller is . . .\ I always play hard-to-get. I make you believe that you want me more than anyone else. No matter what I say or do, you stay with me and don’t go anywhere else—-unless you aren’t really that committed to having someone killed. I get inside your head immediately and get you to a point that you know you shouldn’t be with me because I’m really bad, but you like and want me so much that you won’t let me go. People have told me over the years they had been searching a lifetime for someone like me. That’s when I know I totally have you believing my act.
Acknowledgments ix\ Preface xi\ 1 The Other Side of Hell 1\ 2 Slaying the Serpent 7\ 3 Love Struck 18\ 4 Abandoned by the Man 30\ 5 Kristie and the Candy Store 39\ 6 Gun for Hire 45\ 7 Deadeye and the Shark 61\ 8 Can't Run Fast Enough 75\ 9 Four Eyes Are Better than Two 81\ 10 The Karate Kid 90\ 11 The Inner Circle 114\ 12 This Was the One 128\ 13 Ma and Pa Kettle's Revenge 137\ 14 Coming in from the Outside 146\ 15 A Massage to Die For 158\ 16 The Scar Face Chase 176\ 17 Just Like a Kid in a Candy Store 191\ 18 Lost in Nightmares 217\ 19 Waiting a Lifetime for You 233\ 20 Time for a Change of Scenery 250\ 21 Wayne's Strange, Twisted World 259\ 22 Regrets? I Have One 278\ 23 Finally, Home Again 285\ Index 291
\ Kirkus ReviewsMemoir of an undercover cop who posed as a hit man. A three-time winner of Police Officer of the Year, Ballentine began his unusual specialty soon after joining the Phoenix PD. "Within a couple years I was whisked off to a sting operation where I made a living undercover buying stolen property from burglars, thieves, and fences," he writes. "Then came the murder-for-hire business." He developed physical bulk and a repertoire of underworld identities, including "biker-gang warlord, Mafia hit man, soldier of fortune, disgruntled Vietnam vet, and Aryan Brotherhood prison convict." According to the author, he effortlessly dominated the Arizona underworld, working out of seedy bars and strip clubs, developing networks of informants who referred to him a steady stream of "clients." In every chapter he encounters such individuals, like an impoverished couple who tried to have their sociopathic son killed, or a "Black Widow" type who wished to destroy her husband. The anecdotes inevitably end with the surveillance team swooping in and slapping on handcuffs. Ballentine claims that he wrote this book to purge the strange double life that undercover work demands-"Never before have you seen undercover operatives in this light, as well as with whom they work"-and his account seems plausible. He effectively captures the violence and degradation of underclass criminality, where the lives of drug dealers, bikers, white supremacists, prostitutes, strippers and career criminals intersect. However, despite flashes of verisimilitude, the repetitive narrative fails to flesh out specific casework or time frames. The subplot of his marriage to a woman outside this dark world adds little drama. An intriguinglife story in need of a ghostwriter.\ \
