The Combat Zone: Murder, Race and Boston’s Struggle for Justice with author Jan Brogan

At 6:00 PM on Thursday, November 7th, the Vineyard Haven Library will host an author talk with Jan Brogan, whose latest book, The Combat Zone: Murder, Race and Boston’s Struggle for Justice, was shortlisted for both an Agatha award and an Anthony for the best non-fiction of 2021. This event will be held on the upper level of the library with refreshments provided by the Friends of the Library. 

The Combat Zone explores the circumstances and aftermath of the 1976 murder of Harvard football player Andrew Puopolo in Boston’s infamous “Combat Zone.” With nearly opposite verdicts, the impact of the two trials that followed reverberated across both the city of Boston and the criminal justice system. The book also explores survivor grief, the offers the Puopolo family received to have the three Black defendants “whacked” in prison by the mob, and the fine line between justice and revenge.

Jan Brogan has been a journalist for over thirty years, during which time she worked as a correspondent for the Boston Globe and a staff writer for both the Worcester Telegram and the Providence Journal, where she won the Gerald Loeb award for distinguished business writing. She is also the award-winning author of four mysteries, Final Copy, A Confidential Source, Yesterday’s Fatal and Teaser. Steven Soderbergh and Philip Fleishman of Transactional Pictures have purchased the rights to A Confidential Source for development. Brogan continues to work as a novelist and a journalist. She teaches journalism at the Boston University Summer Journalism Academy, and memoir writing at an annual retreat in Provence. She lives with her husband in Dedham and Edgartown, Massachusetts.

For more information, please call the library at (508) 696-4211 or send an email to vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org.

Praise for The Combat Zone:

“The careful, meticulous research, the compassionate yet balanced tone, and the compelling narrative thrust make this book read almost like a legal or crime thriller. Brogan does a superb job of untangling this complex case.” –Stephanie Schorow, author of Inside the Combat Zone, The Stripped Down Story of Boston’s Most Notorious Neighborhood.

“Brogan’s work brings us into heart-wrenching, jaw-dropping contact with the reality of the crime and its times. It’s the best form of narrative nonfiction, in that it covers race, class, busing, criminal justice reform and courtroom drama, but never strays far from the emotional reality of the case for both victims and defendants.” –Craig Sandler, Statehouse News

“Brogan’s background as a journalist shows in her careful reporting and historical context…The grim history of racism in Boston, the crime and corruption of the Combat Zone, and the legal permutations of the case take up the bulk of the book. But its heart lies in a character who wasn’t even in the Combat Zone that fateful night – the victim’s brother, Danny Puopolo.” –Andy Smith: Special to the Providence Journal, USA TODAY NETWORK.

“A great strength of Brogan’s book is the broad context that she provides—one of overlapping divisions of race, class, and geography—to make sense of how the legal proceedings unfolded…Brogan writes with empathy for all involved in the events she so capably explores surrounding Puopolo’s death. In doing so, she considers matters of trauma and justice as well as the rights of victims and those of the accused.” –Joseph Nevins, Dig Boston

“In her new book The Combat Zone, author Jan Brogan handles the knotty details of this saga — including its unexpectedly far-reaching consequences — with the expertise and acuity of a veteran journalist and author of four mystery novels. Her first nonfiction book is more than simply a captivating exposition of the legal proceedings and adjacent matters. It is an incisive, vivid, jarring, and meticulous account of — as the subtitle says — “murder, race, and Boston’s struggle for justice,” –Blake Maddux, The Arts Fuse