Out of print for more than 30 years, now available for the first time as an eBook, this is the controversial story of John Wooden's first 25 years and first 8 NCAA Championships as UCLA Head Basketball Coach. This is the only book that gives a true picture of the character of John Wooden and the influence of his assistant, Jerry Norman, whose contributions Wooden  ignored and tried to bury.

Compiled with more than 40 hours of interviews with Coach Wooden, learn about the man behind the coach. The players tell their stories in their own words.

Click the book to read the first chapter and for ordering information. Also available on Kindle.

Above Suspicion (6/10)

by Tony Medley

114 Minutes.

R.

Spoiler alert. I read Joe Sharkey’s excellent book, almost by accident. I listen to my books  now and downloaded this thinking it was something else, but I started it and it grabbed me. It is so well written and researched, I thought it was a novel, although there were clues that it was a true story throughout, and it was!

Then Hollywood got involved, and as Hollywood will, they buried the lead. Instead of telling the story of FBI Agent Mark Putnam (Jack Huston), the woman who produced the film (Amy Adelson) told it from the POV of Susan Smith (Emilia Clarke) and made her the protagonist.

The fascinating tale is that Putnam was a fledgling agent with a wife, Kathy (Sophie Lowe), who was assigned to duty in Pikeville, Kentucky. He retains Susan as a paid informant. She is a hillbilly, mother of two, but wild as the wind. In the book which is told from Mark’s POV, she seduces Mark, who reluctantly succumbs a few times. Kathy is a heroine in the book but is an afterthought in the movie. The intriguing theme of the book is that Mark, after killing Susan unintentionally, confesses to the crime when he didn’t need to and when the government had virtually no evidence and didn’t even know Susan was dead, although she had disappeared. Kathy fought like a tiger to get him to act smartly. That story takes up about the last third of the book but is taken care of in only the last fleeting minutes of the film and misses the point entirely.

In the movie, though, Mark is in a long, ongoing relationship with Susan and the movie implies that he intentionally murdered her. I loathe films that use real names but totally change the facts. Directed by Phillip Noyce with a screenplay by Chris Gerolmo, the true story told by Sharkey is a lot better than the story that Adelson chose to tell. If Hollywood wants to tell a different story based on facts, they should not use real names and it should be clearly labeled as fiction. I can’t imagine that Sharkey or Putnam could be happy with the result. Had I not read the book, I’d rate this 8/10), but since I did read the book and the movie disappointed me, I downgraded it. I highly recommend the book, however. Amazon Prime.