Chasing Phil

Chasing Phil is an account of one of the FBI's earliest long-term undercover operations, undertaken when the Bureau's culture was still very much against undercover work. The other hurdle was that financial fraud was also not considered to be a crime damaging enough to warrant big FBI investigations. Despite these roadblocks, two young FBI agents persevered and cobbled together an undercover investigation of an incredibly prolific con man named Phil Kitzer.
While it is clearly well-researched and the investigation is an impressive one, the book is somewhat slow and has many abrupt transitions that don't seem to lead anywhere. It may be due to the piecemeal nature of the materials the agents were able to gather, as audio recording back then was difficult to do undetected. The book is interesting but not a page turner.