Covert: My Years Infiltrating the Mob by Bob Delaney, Dave Scheiber (With), Bill Walton (Foreword by)

The Barnes & Noble Review

It was easy enough to turn off the TV after an hour of watching restaurateur Artie Bucco get pushed around by beefy fellas back when The Sopranos was on, but it's a little more uncomfortable to read about the same kinds of goings-on in Bob Delaney's fascinating chronicle of his life undercover as a mobster back in the mid-'70s. Even with all the dated James Bond hidden-microphone tricks, the constant bullying of various hoods, and the endless array of Mob names (Pappy, Lucky, Fat Anthony, Johnny Dee, Charlie Cup of Coffee, et al.), what may be the most fascinating section of the book is Delaney's re-entry into the real world after three years of living as a mobster. The massive arrests have been made, the court gavels have been pounded, but the still-young Delaney feels guilt for turning in friends and a resultant psychich tumult: "The granite foundation of my self-image preceding my undercover assignment had given way to shifting sands of doubt and worry," he writes. It's enough to finally send him back onto the basketball courts that he loved as a kid, back where he can lose himself fully in a different set of rules that take him to the top of that field as an NBA ref, where he finds a way to live with the conundrum of being a man with a price on his head who travels from one massive arena to the next each night. Be glad he's chosen to take that risk as well as tell his tale. --Mark J. Miller

From the Publisher

Featured on ESPN, NPR and CNN

In a riveting page-turner, NBA referee Bob Delaney reveals the clandestine life he led before becoming one of professional basketball’s most respected officials.

Publishers Weekly

NBA referee Delaney's fascinating account of his prior life as a New Jersey state trooper who infiltrated organized crime will be a must-read for those drawn to Joe Pistone's similar account in Donnie Brasco(or the movie adaptation starring Johnny Depp). In 1975, Delaney was a relative novice in law enforcement when he was tapped by a superior to help build cases against major Mafia families by creating and running a fake business, Alamo Trucking. With the aid of St. Petersburg (Fla.) Timessportswriter Scheiber, Delaney captures perfectly the daily routine and perils of undercover work, and describes the psychological challenges he faced during the three years of Project Alpha: "The granite foundation of my self-image... had given way to shifting sands of doubt and worry." While less heralded than Pistone's work, Delaney's achievements-which yielded multiple convictions of members of the Bruno and Genovese families-were significant precursors to the Feds' massive 1980s assault on La Cosa Nostra. Becoming a basketball referee after these proceedings was a return to an early passion of the high school all-state forward and captain of his college team-but the fear, he says, still comes back sometimes. 8 pages of b&w photos. (Feb. 5)

“Delaney’s story. . . becomes more intense than overtime in the playoffs.”—Boston Globe

“Delaney’s heroic performance during his perilous assignment represents the finest traditions of the New Jersey State Police. My father, the first superintendent of the New Jersey State Police Department, would have been proud of him.”—General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, U.S. Army (ret.)
 

“A slam dunk, a bull’s eye and any other glowing mafia or basketball metaphor you can think of.”—Kirkus

"Gripping...Fans of such undercover-themed books as Donnie Brasco, or organized-crime exposés like The Valachi Papers, will devour this one.”—Booklist

Jim Burns - Library Journal

Delaney, who has been an NBA referee for almost two decades, tells of the nearly three years he spent, while a New Jersey state trooper in the mid-1970s, posing as Bobby Covert, president of a trucking company set up for the sole purpose of observing the Mafia. With the assistance of an informant wise to the ways of the mob, Delaney/Covert so successfully ingratiated himself with a wide array of mobsters that more than 30 were convicted on the basis of information he gathered. Delaney offers a compelling account of a nerve-racking double life in which one slip could result in death, but equally compelling is his recall of his reactions in the operation's aftermath: relief at it ending, giving way to guilt at having ratted on some gangsters with whom he had actually become friends, followed by fear for his life, and then actually missing the rush of doing undercover work. ESPN has bought the movie rights, so there should be ample demand. Recommended for all public libraries.

Kirkus Reviews

Delaney chronicles his three years as an undercover agent, their difficult aftermath, and his professional rebirth as an NBA referee. In 1973, the author followed his father into the New Jersey State Police. He climbed the ranks from rural police officer to state trooper and in 1975 was recruited for Project Alpha, a joint FBI/State Police operation investigating the Jersey mafia. Assuming the name Bobby Covert, he pretended to run a sham company called Alamo Trucking, through which he and mobster-turned-whistleblower Pat Kelly tried to ensnare the bad guys without getting found out-or rubbed out. Delaney lived to testify against many of the mobsters rounded up by Project Alpha and at later Senate hearings on waterfront corruption. He found re-entry into conventional law enforcement difficult, however, and had some turbulent years before molding himself into a respected NBA referee. A solid yarn spinner with a fine eye for detail and an excellent memory, Delaney makes his memoir read like a novel. The experiences he describes bear obvious similarities to those of Joe Pistone, who infiltrated New York's Bonnano crime family under the name Donnie Brasco (later the title of Pistone's book and a subsequent movie); in fact, the two men met after their respective operations were over. But Delaney's Jersey-eye-view of his life in and out of the force-and on and off the basketball court-is distinctive enough to make comparisons irrelevant. NBA followers looking for dirt on Shaq and Kobe will be disappointed; the author devotes only one chapter exclusively to his NBA years. But those who appreciate a good Cosa Nostra story, and crime buffs in general, will find much to enjoy in this energetic,often humorous and always entertaining memoir. A slam dunk, a bull's eye and any other glowing Mafia or basketball metaphor you can think of.

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