by Sara Gay Forden
In this richly detailed biography of the Gucci family, Forden, WWD's former Milan bureau chief, chronicles how a small Florentine luggage company founded 80 years ago survived bitter infighting, mismanagement and takeover battles to prevail as one of the premier names in fashion. The most riveting chapters reconstruct ex-chairman Maurizio Gucci's murder, for which his ex-wife Patrizia Reggiano and her psychic, among others, were convicted in 1998. Gucci depicts a couple driven by greed and jealousy. Maurizio changed the locks to their Saint Moritz estate without her knowledge. Patrizia took money for daughter Alessandra's deb party and spent it on plastic surgery. While Forden bogs readers down with financial minutiae, she sprinkles in enough fiendishly appalling bits to make this a tantalizing read. (Morrow, $26)
Bottom Line: Good Gucci goo
by Tami Hoag
Page-turner of the week
'Tis the season to be jolly–but just try telling that to Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska. With Christmas fast approaching at the start of Tami Hoag's cunning new thriller, the Minneapolis homicide detectives have plenty to deal with, including, in Liska's case, a heartbreaker of an ex who won't stay ex enough. Then the team catches the kind of case every cop dreads: the suicide of one of its own.
Or is it? Some things about the hanging death of Internal Affairs officer Andy Fallon, son of department legend and Kovac mentor "Iron Mike" Fallon (who was paralyzed in a shootout 20 years earlier), strike Sam as off-kilter. And as he and Liska begin to dig a bit into both the gay Andy's private life and the highly sensitive case he was working on, Kovac becomes increasingly convinced that he's looking at a murder–and that some of his fellow officers are prime suspects.
With the same sleight of hand displayed in last year's Ashes to Ashes, Hoag sets her sharply drawn characters on a harrowing journey. Though it all comes together a bit too neatly at the end, her wintry tale of crime and punishment packs a powerful chill. (Bantam, $25.95) Bottom Line: Good cops + bad cops = killer suspense
The U.S. Women's Soccer Team and How It Changed the World
by Jere Longman
Like the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey triumph over the Soviet Union, the American victory over China in the 1999 women's soccer World Cup has turned into a license to commit hyperbole, as demonstrated by the subtitle of this impressively detailed but overly fawning account by New York Times sportswriter Longman. The U.S. team's win is re-created almost minute by minute, and the biographies of the team's coaches and players are thoroughly explored. If you can't get enough of the heroics of Brandi Chastain, Mia Hamm, Briana Scurry and the whole valiant squad, this book's for you. But the author also digresses into such side issues as the practice of female circumcision in Africa, the inner workings of the U.S. Soccer Federation, what he calls society's "residual panic about lesbianism" and how, in Longman's politically correct view, discussion of the players' attractiveness devalues and trivializes their athletic skills. (HarperCollins, $24) Bottom Line: Extended fan letter
Anthony Summers
Richard Nixon a wife abuser?
No stranger to controversy, biographer Anthony Summers has written incendiary books about J. Edgar Hoover and Marilyn Monroe. Now, in The Arrogance of Power: The Secret World of Richard Nixon (Viking), Summers, 57, claims that Nixon self-medicated with the mood-altering drug Dilantin and also beat his wife, Pat, during times of personal crisis–a charge that Nixon Library director John Taylor has called "inconceivable."
How sure are you of the beatings?
I want to emphasize that they are just a tiny part of the book. We interviewed in excess of 1,000 people–and leads about the beating began to dovetail. A close friend of [deceased L.A.] journalist Bill Van Petten said Van Petten told him that after Nixon's gubernatorial defeat in 1962, he beat Pat so badly she couldn't go out the next day. Others, including former Nixon aide John Sears, added what they learned. San Diego banker Arnholt Smith told me of a night when Pat just wept and said, "Arnie, is it ever going to stop?" She told him she was considering divorce.
What about the Dilantin?
Jack Dreyfus, the Wall Street financier, said he had dinner with Nixon after the 1968 election and advocated Dilantin for depression. Nixon said, "Could I have some?" Dreyfus says he gave Nixon 1,000 pills then–and more later.
Why are people still fascinated by Nixon?
Because he was such a complex character. No other President has imploded in folly to the degree he has and yet resurrected himself time and time again.
- Contributors:
- Erica Sanders,
- Pam Lambert,
- Ralph Novak,
- K.C. Baker.
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
