The Seekers: Bounty Hunter's Story, a

A surprising admixture of run-and-gun thriller and spiritual meditation, this is the true story of America's most unorthodox (and successful) bail enforcement team. Unlike other bounty hunters, Armstrong's group isn't composed of trigger-happy tough guys. Instead, guided by a patchwork quilt of spiritual convictions--and the notion that ""if you treat a man like a man, he will respond in a manly way""--the Seekers track down felons in a respectful and usually bloodless way. The method works: the group, based in New Jersey, has an 85% capture rate--higher than that of any other law enforcement agency in the country. In this measured and thoughtful memoir, Armstrong--with the help of Bruno (The Iceman: The True Story of a Cold-Blooded Killer, etc.)--recounts his personal and professional odysseys. Born to a working-class black family in 1957, in Elizabeth, N.J., Armstrong worked as an Alaska fisherman before apprenticing with an old-school bounty hunter (who repeatedly fumbled textbook captures) and, eventually, founding the Seekers. Like many in cutting-edge law enforcement, the Seekers are techno-fetishists, utilizing the most up-to-date equipment (including arcane nonlethal weapons) for surveillance and paramilitary tactics in ""takedowns""; they also use the more old-fashioned tactic of infiltrating and bribing street people for information. Throughout, Armstrong writes of appealing to fugitives' ""better nature"" in order to reduce violent confrontations, and he describes dramatic scenes of capture. Incongruous or not, Armstrong's spiritual perspective comes across as nuanced and legitimate. But the spiritual side of this memoir does not detract from its excitement of the chase and ultimate capture,or from its evocation of the scars and dark places of post-industrial, drug-war America. (Aug.)