Book Frank Serpico

Frank Serpico is a retired New York City Police Department detective who became the nation's best-known police whistleblower. He joined the NYPD in 1959 and, during the late 1960s and early 1970s, worked plainclothes assignments in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan targeting vice rackets. Beginning in 1967 he raised the alarm about systemic corruption inside the department, and when internal channels failed, he helped bring the story to the front page of The New York Times in 1970. The resulting national attention led Mayor John Lindsay to create the Knapp Commission, a five-member panel that investigated police corruption and heard Serpico's testimony. In 1972 he received the NYPD Medal of Honor. His story became the book by Peter Maas and the celebrated film Serpico (1973), in which Al Pacino portrayed him. After his NYPD years he lived in Europe for a time, and in 2013 an Italian police association honored him with the Saint Michael Archangel Prize, when he also became an Italian citizen. Serpico speaks with rare authority about integrity, ethics in public service and the personal cost of telling the truth.