Edgar Award winner as Best True Crime Book of the Year
Price reduced: Half off!
Francis J. Moriarty, San Diego Union: "The controversial nature of this book lies not only in the subject matter but also in Weiss' decision to delve into the real story behind the killings-the nasty mass of innuendo and sordid truth. Double Play will stand as our record, not only of what happened, but why."
Publishers Weekly: "This is a masterful history and analysis of the murders of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk by ex-supervisor Dan White."
San Francisco Supervisor Dan White assassinated Mayor George Moscone and fellow Supervisor Harvey Milk but received only a slap-on-the-wrist sentence for manslaughter, a verdict that provoked thousands of outraged San Franciscans to riot.
What hidden passions drove White to kill Moscone and Milk? How did he literally get away with murder? An exciting true crime thriller, Double Play provides often-shocking answers based on years of research and hundreds of interviews. The book earned the Edgar Award as Best True Crime Book of the Year.
This expanded and updated edition reveals for the first time White's life after his release from prison, the first detailed accounting of White's suicide and the reasons for it, his secret plan to kill two more politicians, how his defense attorneys feared losing the trial over an unnoticed piece of evidence, what happened to the major characters in the 30 years after the assassinations, and how the killings catapulted a discouraged politician named Dianne Feinstein into national prominence and changed San Francisco irrevocably. This edition also provides more information about and photos of Harvey Milk, much unavailable anywhere else.
80 photographs and 10 illustrations are included, most never before published.
Companion DVD features television interviews with Moscone and White, police dispatch recordings of officers responding to the murders and hunting for the killer, Dianne Feinstein telling how she found Harvey Milk?s body, and the never-before-available recording of White's gut-wrenching confession to the double murder of George Moscone and Harvey Milk
John Rothman, KGO Radio:
"The new edition, which is filled with pictures and a DVD, is remarkable. It reads like a thriller, and tragically, it's true. And it is better than fiction. It's true, stunning, powerful, compelling history brought to life."
San Francisco Sheriff Mike Hennessey:
"I can't tell you how many copies of this book I bought just to give to friends who I want to understand this time in San Francisco history. I was in City Hall the day of the murders; I was in the marches and at City Hall the night of the riot. The story has been told many times, but never better than by Mike Weiss."
Gregor Preston, Library Journal:
"Well-researched ... the most comprehensive account of the case to date. This is a fair, perceptive analysis, offering new information, of a highly-charged story whose reverberations are with us still. Recommended."
Judith Moore, Associated Press:
"How did a man who killed the mayor of one of the world's largest cities and a member of the city's elected governing body manage to get out of jail five years later? This is an important book for what it reveals."
Stephen J. Scherr, co-counsel for Dan White:
"Mike Weiss has pulled off his own double play, vividly describing the political and personal background of the San Francisco City Hall killings, and then perceptively analyzing the murder trial that followed. His book Double Play is the best account ever written of the triple tragedy known as the Dan White case."
Ron Hansen, San Jose Mercury News:
"Double Play is so impressively researched and its psychological insights seem so right ... an account of the tragedies that at last gives us some knowledge about not only what happened but why."
Patricia Holt, San Francisco Chronicle:
"One couldn't ask for a better detailed or better researched retelling of events. Weiss [is] an intelligent reporter who has dug through mountains of material. His portrayal of [Dan] White's unbelievably rigid code of morality and his enormous naiveté as a politician is superbly carved out here, as is the astonishing way White's fellow supervisors (Dianne Feinstein in particular) bailed him out of political and financial scrapes time and time again, only to rope him into a position of dependence and compromise. At the trial, Weiss is most often quite knowledgeable as he interprets the strategies (and the genius) of Douglas Schmidt as effectively as he points out the appalling weaknesses of assistant district attorney Thomas Norman's prosecution."
Kirkus Reviews:
"Weiss, who covered White's trial for Rolling Stone, provides as clear an explanation of the tragedy's background as we are likely to find. Solid reporting."
Paul Krassner:
"Double Play is a true story in the finest tradition of investigative journalism. Mike Weiss has written the definitive book on a case of injustice that turned a pair of premeditated political executions into voluntary manslaughter."
Carol Bicak, Omaha World-Herald:
"Mike Weiss, a reporter who covered Dan White's murder trial for Rolling Stone and Time magazines, became obsessed with answering two questions: How did such an event come to pass? And how could the trial turn out as it did, with Dan White getting a mere slap-on-the-wrist sentence?? The stories and history are fascinating. He interviewed hundreds of people connected with the case and its principal players, was privy to police files and evidence, and studied City Hall records, court transcripts and psychological reports line by line. The chapters devoted to the trial are enough to make any reader look askance at the judicial system."
Salt Lake Tribune:
"A psychological tour de force."
Milwaukee Journal:
"Better than a novel is this tale of three men who became entangled in a deadly political struggle and put the City by the Bay on trial to determine the limits of its morality and justice. ... The author is a remarkable guide for the reader in following the twisted paths of Moscone, Milk, and White."
80 photographs, 10 illustrations, 2-hour DVD; 496 pages. Trade hardcover edition publication date November 1, 2010. Price reduced from $39.95 to only $19.95. Hardcover plus DVD ISBN 978-0-9825650-5-6.