Robert K. Tanenbaum - Material Witness

Acknowledgments

To my partner and collaborator, Michael Gruber, whose genius flows throughout this book and who is primarily responsible for this manuscript;

To my basketball coaches in high school and college, Paul Ryan and Rene Herrarias, who painstakingly taught me the fundamentals of the game and gave me the chance to play;

To Detroit Pistons coach Ron Rothstein, who kept me apprised of the realities of the N.B.A.;

To Donald Sterling, who permitted me to practice with the Los Angeles Clippers.

Robert K. Tanenbaum is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty-five legal thrillers and has an accomplished legal career of his own. Before his first book was published, Tanenbaum had already been the Bureau Chief of the Criminal Courts, had run the Homicide Bureau, and had been in charge of the training program for the legal staff for the New York County District Attorneys Office. He also served as Deputy Chief Counsel to the Congressional Committee investigations into the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. In his professional career, Tanenbaum has never lost a felony case. His courtroom experiences bring his books to life, especially in his bestselling series featuring prosecutor Roger Butch Karp and his wife, Marlene Ciampi.

Tanenbaum was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He attended the University of California at Berkeley on a basketball scholarship, and remained at Cal, where he earned his law degree from the prestigious Boalt Hall School of Law. After graduating from Berkeley Law, Tanenbaum moved back to New York to work as an assistant district attorney under the legendary New York County DA Frank Hogan. Tanenbaum then served as Deputy Chief Counsel in charge of the Congressional investigations into the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.

The blockbuster novel Corruption of Blood (1994), is a fictionalized account of his experience in Washington, D.C.

Tanenbaum returned to the West Coast and began to serve in public office. He was elected to the Beverly Hills City Council in 1986 and twice served as the mayor of Beverly Hills. It was during this time that Tanenbaum began his career as a novelist, drawing from the many fascinating stories of his time as a New York ADA. His successful debut novel, No Lesser Plea (1987), introduces Butch Karp, an assistant district attorney who is battling for justice, and Marlene Ciampi, his associate and love interest. Tanenbaums subsequent twenty-two novels portrayed Karp and his crime fighting family and eclectic colleagues facing off against drug lords, corrupt politicians, international assassins, the mafia, and hard-core violent felons.

He has had published eight recent novels as part of the series, as well as two nonfiction titles: The Piano Teacher (1987), exploring his investigation and prosecution of a recidivist psychosexual killer, and Badge of the Assassin (1979), about his prosecution of cop killers, which was made into a movie starring James Woods as Tanenbaum.

Tanenbaum and his wife of forty-three years have three children. He currently resides in California where he has taught Advanced Criminal Procedure at the Boalt Hall School of Law and maintains a private law practice.

Tanenbaum as a toddler in the early 1940s. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York.

A five-year-old Tanenbaum in Brooklyn, near Ocean Parkway.

Tanenbaums family in the early 1950s. From left to right: Bob; his mother, Ruth (a teacher and homemaker); his father, Julius (businessman and lawyer); and his older brother, Bill.

Tanenbaums high school varsity basketball photo from the 5960 season. He played shooting guard, center, and forward, and earned an athletic scholarship to the University of California, Berkeley, where he continued to play.

Tanenbaum shooting during a basketball game his junior year of high school. He wore the number 14 throughout high school and college.

Tanenbaums senior portrait. In addition to basketball, he also played first base for his schools baseball team.

Standing outside a courthouse in downtown Manhattan are Tanenbaum, James Woods, NYPD detective Cliff Fenton, and Yaphet Kotto. Woods and Kotto played Tanenbaum and Fenton in the 1985 movie Badge of the Assassin, based on Tanenbaums book of the same name about a real-life murder mystery in 1971 Harlem.

Seen here in the late 1980s, Mayor Tanenbaum poses with Ed Koch, then mayor of New York City, while Tanenbaums son Billy stands in front wearing a hat given to him by Koch. The two mayors were meeting to discuss a tourist exchange program between Beverly Hills and New York City.

While mayor of Beverly Hills, Tanenbaum awarded Jimmy Stewart, seen here, with this proclamation of Outstanding Citizen of Beverly Hills in the late 1980s.

Tanenbaum and his wife, Patti.

Tanenbaum with Patti and their children Roger, Rachael, and Billy at home in California.

Tanenbaums author photo, which has graced the covers of many of his books.

T he dying man in the white Cadillac moaned and said a name that the driver didnt catch. He was not in any case interested, although he was mildly surprised that the man was still alive. The driver peered through the swishing wipers, looking for a good place, trying to control his irritability. He thought he was too old to be driving around with corpses; it was something he had done a good deal of in his youth, and he believed that he had more or less put away childish things.

The driver had planned at first to dump the car and the body in a parking lot at Kennedy, or alternatively, to drive down some mean street in south Jamaica and leave it. The problem was that the guy wouldnt die, and the driver had a long-standing objection to shooting people where there was even the slightest chance of a witness. In this way he had survived nearly all of his contemporaries. He was fifty-four, in good shape, and at the top of his profession.