Most Wanted: Pursuing Whitey Bulger

Meet Col. Thomas J. Foley, author of Most Wanted: Pursuing Whitey Bulger, the Murderous Mob Chief the FBI Secretly Protected.

June

23, 2011. The news of the notorious gangster Whitey Bulger’s

capture—after sixteen years on the FBI’s Most Wanted list—swept the

nation. Many breathed a sigh of relief. But for Thomas J. Foley, a

former Massachusetts state police colonel and the investigator who

sparked Bulger’s flight from Boston, the moment was bittersweet. The FBI

may have caught Bulger, but as Foley had painfully discovered almost

two decades before, they were also responsible for his escape.

It

has been known that Whitey Bulger was a secret informant for the FBI,

but it has never been revealed—until now—that the FBI was actually

actively protecting Bulger from Foley, effectively derailing Foley’s

efforts to stop Bulger’s horrific crime sprees time and again. At one

point, the FBI even presented Foley with a plaque at a holiday party

that read “the Most Hated Man in Law Enforcement,” a not-so-subtle

suggestion that he and his team should lay off their investigation.

Most Wanted

is a true-life thriller, and Foley is the hero at its center. His

investigative efforts resulted in criminal convictions of a half-dozen

of Boston’s most notorious thugs and also led to the conviction of John

Connolly, one of the FBI agents who abetted Bulger; Connolly is now

serving a forty-year prison sentence. In this book, Foley, a cop’s cop,

honestly recounts how his wide-eyed admiration for the nation’s top law

enforcement agency was gradually transformed by dark realities he didn’t

want to believe.

About the Authors

In 2004, Thomas J. Foley

was awarded the United States Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional

Service for his role in the Whitey Bulger/John Connolly investigation. A

career officer with the Massachusetts State Police, Col. Thomas J.

Foley rose to become its highest ranking officer in 2001. Since retiring

in 2004, Foley teaches criminology at the University of New Hampshire.

John Sedgwick is the author of ten books, including two celebrated novels and the family memoir In My Blood. A longtime contributor to GQ, Newsweek, and the Atlantic, he wrote the first national expose of the exploits of Whitey Bulger in GQ in 1992.