Bernard B. Kerik “was appointed
the 40th police commissioner of the City of New York by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani on August 21, 2000. Prior to his appointment,
he served as commissioner of the Department of Correction. He served with the New York Police Department in both uniformed
and plainclothes duty for eight years, and was awarded the prestigious Medal of Valor, among many other awards for meritorious
and heroic service. Before joining the NYPD, Kerik served as warden of the Passaic County jail, the largest county adult correctional
facility in New Jersey. Kerik spent three years in the U.S. Army as an MP, assigned to Korea and to the 18th Airborne Corps,
where he trained Special Forces personnel at the John F. Kennedy Unconventional Warfare Center in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.”
Bernard B. Kerik is the author of The Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit of Justice.
According to the book description of The
Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit of Justice, “An astonishing story of bravery and honor: One
man's quest -- against incredible odds -- to pursue justice . . . and to uncover the painful truths of his own background
From the sagging row houses of Paterson,
New Jersey, to the cocaine fields of Colombia, from the razor wire of Rikers Island to the streets of New York City, Bernard
Kerik has dedicated his life to a single goal: to fight the injustice he sees around him. A jail warden with a black belt
and a background in international security and anti-terrorism, he took a substantial pay cut to become a beat cop on the streets
of Times Square in 1986. A fearless narcotics detective, he went undercover to buy drugs in Harlem, seized millions of dollars
of cocaine from the drug lords of the Cali cartel, and was awarded the Police Department's Medal of Valor for saving the
life of a fellow officer. In the 1990s, as the city's Commissioner of Correction, he ended the hellish violence at Rikers
Island and transformed it into a model of its kind. Today, as Kerik directs a police force of 55,000 -- the largest municipal
force in the world -- his battles continue.
And yet Bernard Kerik's greatest
battle was not pitched on tough city streets, but within himself. For, even as he was driven to seek justice in every corner
of the world, this extraordinary man never looked back until he reached the top. And when he did, he faced the greatest unsolved
case of his life -- the tragic mystery of his own mother, who abandoned her young son forty-one years ago. The odyssey of
Bernard B. Kerik is a poignant tale with lessons for all about what it means to be a good and brave man, and just how each
of us should aspire to those ideals. A testament to courage in the service of honor, The Lost Son is a harrowing, inspirational,
and uniquely American story.
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According to one reader of The
Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit of Justice, “Bernard Kerik is no ordinary man. Bernard Kerik is a man of extraordinary
courage, character, determination, and integrity who has committed his life to fighting the world's injustices. He is
a man with a mission and his task, at times, seems almost an endless impossibility. From a Times Square beat cop and an undercover
police officer buying drugs in Harlem, to righting the wrongs of Rikers Island, Kerik is truly a man whose shoes would be
very difficult, if not impossible, to fill.
The book is well written and mind absorbing
from start to finish. One important message readers can take from this book is having the courage to stand up for what one
believes in and the fortitude to stand up for those who are not able to stand up for themselves. This is a tremendous book
written by a man of exceptional honor and valor. The book is deserving of far more than a five-star rating; it deserves all
the stars in the universe.”
According to one reader of The
Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit of Justice, “This is an engaging, well-written memoir of a man who came from
a disadvantaged background, a high school drop out who, with a little help from his friends, pulled himself up by his boot
straps, eventually becoming New York City's fortieth Police Commissioner in 2000.
Born to an alcoholic mother who worked
as a prostitute and was eventually murdered, Kerik grew up in the mean streets of Newark and Patterson, New Jersey, and eventually
dropped out of high school. A devotee of martial arts, he become a third degree black belt and joined the military, a career
choice that was to give focus to his life. From then on, it was a natural segue into law enforcement.
The book takes the reader on a trip
down memory lane through Kerik's colorful life from his inauspicious birth to the 2001 World Trade Center attack. Kerik
details his rise from warden of a Patterson, New Jersey jail to a member of the NYC police Department, then NYC Commissioner
of Corrections, and, ultimately, NYC Police Commissioner. Police buffs will especially enjoy Kerik's war stories of his
days as a foot soldier of NYPD, from his early days as a rookie cop to his faced paced, adrenalin rush days as a member of
the DEA/NYPD Task Force.”
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