The Passage

Journey with the author through the labyrinth of Boston’s once infamous Combat Zone – a four block area of concentrated crime, vice and pathos. Peer into the murky world and inner workings of organized crime – prostitution, gaming, pornography and bookmaking. Trace the rudimentary beginnings of his undercover personality known as Mike Russo, whose persona would last a decade. Mike Russo would evolve from a flat unidimensional ‘observe and report’ investigator into a fully immersed and developed character – a free floating, socially conscious, intellectual type with strong feelings against the war in Vietnam and a propensity towards political radicalism. Traits sorely needed for the specialized intelligence gathering that would enable the cops to stay one step ahead of the disruptive elements of the social protest era being violently played out in the streets of Boston and Cambridge. In the end the author would collide with his pseudo-self forcing him to confront his own conscience and choose, not between right from wrong – but right from right. This book ends on a soul-searching and highly dramatic note! He lived this life.