“I have heard enough fiction from Mr. Manzo, I donâ€t need to read his book too.”

If itâ€s possible for Governor Chris Christie to offer a book review, then he did so at a recent press conference in Camden when asked about “Ruthless Ambition: The Rise and Fall of Chris Christie,” the new book by former New Jersey State Assemblyman Louis Manzo, which can be seen as a nonfiction work that tells a story that’s stranger than fiction.

Part political expose and part memoir that is illuminating and even laugh-out loud funny, the book, released in April by Trine Day Publishing, examines Manzo’s arrest in July 2009 as part of a federal investigation known as Bid Rig III that swept up political official and religious leaders on charges ranging from accepting bribes to trafficking body parts.  Manzo would eventually be acquitted of the changes against him.

Manzo in the book uses information from various articles and books to look at how Bid Rig III originated in the New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s Office under its former boss (now current NJ Governor) Chris Christie, how it may have paved the way for Christie to assume the Garden State’s highest office in 2009, and helped him ascend in Republican Party politics to be considered as a potential candidate in the 2016 presidential race.

The book is well-sourced, especially with content from internal FBI reports about Manzo’s case that paints a dark, disturbing picture of how one agencyâ€s supposed upholding of the law seemed to deform into wholesale law-breaking to benefit an agenda. In the book, Manzo applies his knowledge of state politics to dissect Christieâ€s time as governor up to the current Bridgegate scandal.

With the fifth anniversary of the July 2009 arrests fast approaching, Manzo, a Jersey City native, spoke to the River View Observer about the origins of the book, Chris Christie as governor, and how Manzoâ€s arrest changed his life.

River View Observer: Has Chris Christie or the U.S. Attorney’s Office of NJ given you feedback about what they thought about the book?

Manzo: “No, no, I don’t anticipate it because I don’t think they want to publicize the book.” (See Christie quote at the beginning of story, New Jersey U.S. Attorney Officeâ€s comments at the end of the story)

RVO: What have been the reactions to the book from people whom you have met during your recent informal book tour who got to read Ruthless Ambition?

Manzo: “Very positive, people like the book, the current events, a lot of the inside stuff about my case. Lawyers love it especially with the exclusive documents and the technical information about the prosecutions. People in state government like the discussion about the pitfalls of Christieâ€s budgets over the years.”

RVO: How long ago did you start writing the book, and did you start out writing about Chris Christie or about your case?

Manzo: “I started writing in January 2010, after I started keeping a journal that I intended to become a manuscript about the case. A literary agent brought the manuscript to a publisher who liked it but felt it was too much about me and a national audience didnâ€t know me. Then I decided to add on material about Christie and incorporate that information into the story about my case.”

RVO: What was it like writing this book?

Manzo: “It was something that kept my mind off my problems as I always working every day. The research is an enormous undertaking; once you researched something, you have to find out and verify it. When I started researching, I found there a pattern to Christieâ€s prosecutions, which looked like they were put together by a Republican strategist.”

RVO: What do you think has been the impact of the July 23, 2009 arrests in terms of politics in this state and locally?

Manzo: “It has had an immense impact; it definitely put Christie in the governorship. Pundits cite that the Bid Rig arrests helped him get into office and make him what he is now. And it has an impact that’s makes this book especially important because when he goes to California or New Hampshire, Christie is not telling people how he got to the point where he is at now.”

RVO: Do you look back and think what would have happened if you had never crossed paths with Solomon Dwek (the federal governmentâ€s informant in the Bid Rig III case who eventually went to jail on unrelated charges)?

Manzo: “You ponder it every day. I would probably still have a business, I would probably still be doing something in Jersey City.”

Note: A spokesperson for the New Jersey U.S. Attorneyâ€s Office said U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman did not read the book, and commented on Manzoâ€s case, “Manzoâ€s prosecution, for conduct the court called “deeply objectionable,” was appropriate given the Hobbs Act case law at the time.”

 For more info, go to www.ruthlessambitionthebook.com

The post Local Author Takes on New Jersey Governor’s Political Career “Ruthless Ambition: The Rise and Fall of Chris Christie” in Stores Now first appeared on River View Observer.