Book Review: CATCH AND KILL by Ronan Farrow

CATCH AND KILL: LIES, SPIES, AND A CONSPIRACY TO PROTECT PREDATORS by Ronan Farrow  (Little, Brown and Company, October 2019)  Hardcover, 608 pages. Large Print edition. ISBN # 0316454133 / 9780316454131  National Book Critics Circle Award Nominee for Autobiography 2019; Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Nonfiction 2019

Summary on the Goodreads website . . . . .

In a dramatic account of violence and espionage, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Ronan Farrow exposes serial abusers and a cabal of powerful interests hell-bent on covering up the truth, at any cost.

In 2017, a routine network television investigation led Ronan Farrow to a story only whispered about: one of Hollywood's most powerful producers was a predator, protected by fear, wealth, and a conspiracy of silence. As Farrow drew closer to the truth, shadowy operatives, from high-priced lawyers to elite war-hardened spies, mounted a secret campaign of intimidation, threatening his career, following his every move and weaponizing an account of abuse in his own family.

All the while, Farrow and his producer faced a degree of resistance that could not be explained - until now. And a trail of clues revealed corruption and cover-ups from Hollywood, to Washington, and beyond.

This is the untold story of the exotic tactics of surveillance and intimidation deployed by wealthy and connected men to threaten journalists, evade accountability and silence victims of abuse - and it's the story of the women who risked everything to expose the truth and spark a global movement.

Both a spy thriller and a meticulous work of investigative journalism, Catch and Kill breaks devastating new stories about the rampant abuse of power - and sheds far-reaching light on investigations that shook the culture.

My Five-Star review on the Goodreads website . . . . .

     An outstanding piece of journalism, one that will stand as a testament to the importance of the press and the important role the news media can play in shedding light on crimes and cover-ups. 

     Ronan Farrow kept at the story, even after NBC News did their best to try and kill it, eventually publishing in The New Yorker magazine. But even more inspiring is the women who risked it all to come forward and speak out against the sexual crimes they were victims of. 

     As Farrow sums it up in the closing chapters . . . "In the end, the courage of women can't be stamped out. And stories -- the big ones, the true ones, - - can be caught but never killed."

     Igor Ostrovskiy, who spied on Farrow for an agency hired by Harvey Weinstein and later became an important source for Farrow's investigation, puts it in proper perspective: "I like to be able to read the news and not think somebody's holding a gun to the reporter's head deciding what they write. Coming from a society (Ukraine) where the news was controlled by those in power, I never, ever want to allow this to happen to the country that gave me and my wife and my son a chance. . . . . .You know, the press is as much part of our democracy as Congress or the executive branch or the judicial branch. It has to keep things in check. And when the powerful control the press, or make the press useless, if the people can't trust the press, the people lose. And the powerful can do what they want."