Act of vengeance: The Yablonski murders and their solution

Act of vengeance: The Yablonski murders and their solution by Trevor Armbrister. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780841503755.

Shortly after 1 AM on December 31, 1969, three men entered the home of Joseph A (Jock) Yablonski-- an insurgent official of the United Mine Workers, who, that fall, had unsuccessfully challenged Tony Boyle for the presidency-- and gunned to death Yablonski, his wife, and his daughter. This is the story of how and why it happened, the inevitability of those slayings, and the consequences that followed. Opening with the three days immediately preceding the execution-- one of the most horrifying in recent memory -- Trevor Armbrister vividly reconstructs the seven-month-long conspiracy leading to it and delineates the bizarre characters involved, from the blundering hit men to the mastermind, Tony Boyle himself. And, with the discovery of the bodies on January 5, he describes the FBIs entry into the case and painstaking search over a period of four years for the full truth, as well as the brilliant prosecution of the conspirators. But this is more than a true crime story. It is an account with universal application of one mans decision to expose a deeply corrupt institution (whose faults he had long condoned), knowing that in doing so he was betraying a "family" trust. It is a wrenching portrait of one of the most powerful unions in the country deteriorated under the brutal rule of Boyle into a parody of itself. Finally, there is a penetrating glimpse into the eerie subculture of violence permeating the coal fields, a subculture many feel endemic to the American character. Prepared with the exclusive cooperation of the killers and of the Yablonski family as well as with full access to the FBI, "Act of Vengeance" is the inside story behind the headlines, a narrative equal to the most skillful inventions of suspense fiction and, more importantly, a social document of the first rank.