Disloyal " (with Prejudice)
This is a story of the downward spiral of Michael Cohen, and the path he travelled as the Boss' fixer and Chief Counsel.
It is an "object lesson" in what may begin in the land of sycophancy groveling to an empty bucket almost always ends up in the dessert of treachery double-cross and disaster.
The Boss, played the world for a ship of fools, and at least for a brief moment, Cohen was its Captain.
Colorfully told leaving out the parts that people tend to skip Cohen is at his best when he begins to figure out what the boss is made of: a vacuous cheat, a cheap stake, bully legally, ethically and morally equally repulsive, debased and soulless: a genuinely depraved low-life.
And when, after assisting him plunge the dagger into the backs of so many others, the author senses that inevitably it is his turn in the barrel.
Cohen was willing to "take a bullet for the Boss," except when the Boss was firing the gun.
He ran for cover, but time had run out on his nine lives before the FBI knocked on the door.
He knew that he was too juicy a target to be left roaming free. And was overtaken by the Boss' bullet expendable; locked up for four years, which in the Boss' world of unmanaged Covid-19, amounted to just short of a death sentence.
He was released, re-jailed and released again in time to write this book.
It is a worthy effort, but does not tell us much we did not already know.
Although he was a self-described "attack dog with a law license," his ventriloquist-like sycophancy did take Cohen to unimagined heights. But if he had to do it over again, he would likely pass on the opportunity.
As he discovered too late that sycophancy is perishable: It has a finite half-life, one measured in footfalls, missteps, rage, one-nighters with porn stars, lies piled upon lies, prostitutes urinating on beds, remorse, double-crosses, cold-blooded treachery, and Russian operatives, all wrapped in dishonor.
Cohen proves that the life in the fast lane under the Boss, is morally lethal. Four stars