The Killing Fields of East New York - by Stacy Horn (Hardcover)

About the Book

"On a warm summer evening in 1991, seventeen-year-old Julia Parker was murdered in the Brooklyn neighborhood of East New York. An area known for an exorbitant level of violence and crime, East New York had come to be known as the Killing Fields. In the six months after Julia Parker's death, 62 more people were murdered in the same area. In the early 1990s, murder rates in the neighborhood climbed to the highest in NYPD history. East New York was dying. But how did this once thriving, diverse, family neighborhood fall into such ruin? The answer can be found two decades earlier. In response to redlining and discriminatory housing practices, the Johnson administration passed the Housing and Urban Development Act in 1968. The Federal Housing Authority aimed to use this piece of legislation to help low-income families of color finally achieve homeownership. But they could never have predicted how banks, lenders, realtors, and corrupt FHA officials themselves would use the newly passed law to make victims of the very people they were supposed to help, and the devastation they would leave in their wake. A compulsively readable hybrid of true crime and investigative journalism, The Killing Fields of East New York reveals how white-collar crime reduced a prospering neighborhood to abandoned buildings and empty lots. Following the dual threads of the hunt for the network of criminals behind the first subprime mortgage scandal and the ensuing downfall of East New York, Stacy Horn weaves a compelling narrative of government failure, a desperate community, and ultimately the largest series of mortgage fraud prosecutions in American history."--

Book Synopsis

In this groundbreaking work of investigative journalism and true crime, Stacy Horn sheds light on how the subprime mortgage scandal of the 1970s and a long history of white-collar crime slowly devastated East New York, a Brooklyn neighborhood that would come to be known as the Killing Fields.

On a warm summer evening in 1991, seventeen-year-old Julia Parker was murdered in the Brooklyn neighborhood of East New York. An area known for an exorbitant level of violence and crime, East New York had come to be known as the Killing Fields. In the six months after Julia Parker's death, 62 more people were murdered in the same area. In the early 1990s, murder rates in the neighborhood climbed to the highest in NYPD history. East New York was dying.

But how did this once thriving, diverse, family neighborhood fall into such ruin? The answer can be found two decades earlier. In response to redlining and discriminatory housing practices, the Johnson administration passed the Housing and Urban Development Act in 1968. The Federal Housing Authority aimed to use this piece of legislation to help low-income families of color finally achieve homeownership. But they could never have predicted how banks, lenders, realtors, and corrupt FHA officials themselves would use the newly passed law to make victims of the very people they were supposed to help, and the devastation they would leave in their wake.

A compulsively readable hybrid of true crime and investigative journalism, The Killing Fields of East New York reveals how white-collar crime reduced a prospering neighborhood to abandoned buildings and empty lots. Following the dual threads of the hunt for the network of criminals behind the first subprime mortgage scandal and the ensuing downfall of East New York, Stacy Horn weaves a compelling narrative of government failure, a desperate community, and ultimately the largest series of mortgage fraud prosecutions in American history. The Killing Fields of East New York deftly demonstrates how different types of crime are profoundly entangled, and how the crimes committed in nice suits and corner offices are just as destructive as those committed on the street.

Review Quotes

"By narrowly focusing on East New York, Horn ... accomplishes a rare feat: making white-collar crime and government malfeasance the riveting centerpiece of a work of true crime." --The Nation

"Horn connects the dots as diligently as any detective between 1960s-era housing legislation, corruption in the mortgage and banking industries, and an explosion in violent street crime in Brooklyn's East New York neighborhood ...." --The Progressive

"The Killing Fields of East New York is a dense and fascinating read, laying bare so many of the issues that continue to plague America's cities and the ways in which race and class are wielded against people who strive to create healthy communities. The subject matter is sad, dark, frustrating, and complex, but Horn's coverage shines a much-needed light." --BookReporter.com

"Horn unspools a fast-paced and at times crackling yarn about the Brooklyn prosecutors and F.B.I. agents who pursued predatory lenders and brokers, as well as the bought-and-paid-for federal officials who enabled them. . . . The Killing Fields of East New York is a compelling reminder of the catastrophic consequences of white-collar crime." --New York Times

"Her vivid descriptions of East New York's descent, and her persuasive identification of the forces behind it, are as stirring as they are infuriating. This sobering account shines a vital light on an underdiscussed chapter of recent American history." --Publishers Weekly

"A badly needed look at a societal problem that goes largely unaddressed while politicians outdo each other with tough-on-crime rhetoric...Horn provides an invaluable roadmap to how, and why, urban "renewal'' can go tragically wrong."
--Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Horn (Damnation Island, 2018) presents a thoroughly researched narrative . . . Her investigation uses numerous resources including extensive interviews. Readers will be drawn into the conversational style that places them in a world that illustrates just what happens when money and power fall into the wrong hands." --Booklist

"In our age of sky-high housing costs and corporate takeovers of neighborhoods, Horn's book is more than a gripping read--it's a reminder that every city, neighborhood, and block has a story, one that's still being written to this day." --P.E. Moskowitz, author of How to Kill a City

About the Author

Stacy Horn is a journalist and author of nonfiction books, including Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad & Criminal in 19th Century New York and The Restless Sleep: Inside New York City's Cold Case Squad. Her last book, described on The Bowery Boys podcast as "your page-turning horror read for the summer," turned out to be excellent preparation for the horror read she was to write next. Mary Roach has hailed her for "combining awe-fueled curiosity with topflight reporting skills," while others have described her work as "immaculately researched" and "several notches above the typical reporter's insights." Horn's commentaries have been heard on NPR's All Things Considered, and she lives in New York City.