Publishers Weekly
05/06/2019
Rolling Stone contributing editor Sullivan digs into the unsolved murders of rappers Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace (The Notorious B.I.G.) in this well-researched, if dense, follow-up to Labyrinth. Here, Sullivan alleges that there was a conspiracy by the Los Angeles Police Department to conceal its complicity in the assassination of Wallace, which involved dirty cops who worked in a unit that was assigned to gang-affiliated rappers, and, specifically, Marion “Suge” Knight, the owner of Death Row Records. Sullivan unveils a varied cast, including David Mack, a former LAPD officer and convicted bank robber; Bernard Parks, the African-American head of the LAPD, whose daughter was a drug mule for a gang leader; and Ahmir Muhammad, a reputed Nation of Islam assassin who the author posits was the person who shot Wallace. (Many believe that B.I.G.’s murder was payback for his alleged hit on Tupac, his onetime friend turned bitter enemy. But, as Sullivan points out, Voletta Wallace, Notorious B.I.G.’s mother, remained friendly with Tupac’s mom, Afeni Shakur.) Sullivan unveils witnesses who had never been interviewed and a dizzying array of data, which, while comprehensive, slows the pace. In 2005, Wallace’s mother filed a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles (which ended in a mistrial) and declared, “What I need from this lawsuit, is that the person or persons who murdered my son are brought to justice.” Sullivan writes passionately and smartly about his subject, but details stifle the narrative. (June)
From the Publisher
Praise for Randall Sullivan and LAbyrinth
“[Sullivan] has an incredible reputation as an investigative journalist. He has really gotten under the skin of hip-hop and police culture in Los Angeles and there are so many possibilities here.”—New American
“Sullivan does a masterly job of juggling the dense thicket of facts . . . But he’s also busy revving the engine, encouraging Poole to connect any dots left untouched.”—Salon.com
“Labyrinth is a jeremiad, leveling everything in its path.”—Los Angeles Magazine
“Compelling . . . No single source presents so complete or damning a record as LAbyrinth.”—Entertainment Weekly
“The evidence cited that links crooked cops to Death Row Records, and Death Row Records to murderers of rappers Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, is incredibly thorough and surprisingly credible.”—Flaunt Magazine
“Sullivan makes a strong case for thinking that the murders of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls are connected, and the LAPD Ramparts Division scandal is connected to them . . . You haven’t got the goods on any of these notorious cases until you read this intricate show-biz true crime thriller.”—Booklist
Kirkus Reviews
2019-03-17
A startling update on the still-unsolved murder of rapper Notorious B.I.G., focused on powerful figures' attempts to obfuscate the investigation.
Former Rolling Stone contributing editor Sullivan (The Curse of Oak Island: The Story of the World's Longest Treasure Hunt, 2018, etc.) delivers a follow-up to his revealing LAbyrinth, noting about that book's publication, "even in 2002, I was incredulous that arrests hadn't been made." In LAbyrinth, the author focused on detective Russell Poole's thwarted investigation, which uncovered "a cadre of LAPD officers—‘gangsta cops'—who were working for Death Row Records and aiding the record label's CEO, Suge Knight, in commission of crimes that ranged from drug dealing to homicide." This mushroomed into the tumultuous Ramparts scandal, which threw the LAPD into chaos; Sullivan shows how this scandal was "mostly trumped up" by Rafael Perez, one of the officers Poole had identified. Meanwhile, the departmental resistance Poole faced led to his retirement and decline; upon his death in 2015, Sullivan notes, "There was a sense about him of someone forever attempting to keep hope alive." The author otherwise focuses on the legal battle between the city and Voletta Wallace, the bereaved mother of Notorious B.I.G., whose lawsuit forms the spine of this narrative. Sullivan documents how the lawsuit's tortuous and inconclusive path nevertheless revealed concealment of evidence and other official misconduct. Simultaneously, an FBI inquiry into the case was squelched, with one agent noting, "If LAPD is involved in the Biggie murder, and the Biggie murder is solved, LAPD is done. They're over with. Financially, they cannot survive." In a circuitous narrative that lacks some of the propulsive energy of LAbyrinth, Sullivan identifies many such strange manipulations of the investigative process. Though readers must navigate such baffling bureaucratic roadblocks and a dizzying cast of characters, the author convincingly continues to support Poole's essential thesis: that a team of criminal cops planned the rapper's assassination and then enjoyed political protection.
A mostly engaging and disheartening capstone to a narrative of murder and malfeasance that has crossed into cultural infamy.
