The Investigator: Fifty Years of Uncovering the Truth

One of Washington’s most in-the-know private eyes spills the beans in this canny memoir. Lenzner, a lawyer and founder of Investigative Group International, recalls his work as a Justice Department attorney hunting for the murderers of civil rights activists in Mississippi in 1964, probing the Watergate scandal for the Ervin Committee, and a slew of for-hire investigations into the identity of the Unabomber, Monica Lewinski’s background, the business dealings of Mitt Romney, and other high-profile cases. According to Lenzner, the investigator’s life is patient and dogged, a matter of tracking down legal records, sifting financial documents, building rapport with witnesses, piecing together a jigsaw puzzle of details into a coherent picture. There are few bombshells here; the biggest is his conjecture that the Watergate break-ins may have been mounted to conceal bribes paid by billionaire Howard Hughes to President Nixon. The truth Lenzner unveils, in part through shrewd thumbnails of everyone from John Dean to Kenneth Starr, is more about character and motive—the arrogant delusions that spawn and sustain malfeasance, and the resentments and idealism that spur informants and whistleblowers. The result is a low-key but absorbing study of the hidden impulses behind corruption and scandal. 16-page b&w insert. Agent: Gail Ross, Ross Yoon Agency. (Oct.)