Evening's Empire: The Story of My Father's Murder

Zachary Lazar has not only lived through personal tragedy; the murder of his father, but he's taken that event and turned it into an awesome story. Part history/ memoir/ investigative journal, the events surrounding Edward Lazar's death make for gripping reading. Set in Arizona in the 1960's, the author explores the real estate business connections of his father, which eventually led to his gangland-style murder. By sifting through newspaper articles, interviewing people who knew his father, as well as those familiar with the murder case, the author was able to put the pieces of a puzzle together. As a son who longed to know why his father was brutally murdered, he was finally able to surmise the events that may have contributed to the tragic end. Phoenix, during the land boom, attracted thousands upon thousands of newcomers looking for their own little piece of heaven. The state's year-round sunshine, the affordability of air-conditioning, lots of open land, plus expanded air-travel, were a great draw. This was the setting for an ambitious young accountant named Ed Lazar to be caught up in. Meeting a fellow named Ed Warren proved to be the catalyst for Lazar's tremendous business success. Yet, unknown to Lazar, Warren was a dangerous character with Mafia connections, who became known as the "Godfather of Land Fraud". The various ways that Arizona land developers nabbed and dazzled prospective buyers were not only ingenius, but truly revolting. Many of those buyers were servicemen stationed far away, who were looking to invest in a retirement home. The developers would target them with fancy brochures showing a beautiful community, which in reality might be a rocky, unbuildable terrain. Easy terms, such as a low down payment and affordable monthly payments enticed thousands of people to buy land, sight unseen. These are just a few examples of the interesting insights into a corrupt land business. I read this book in one sitting; I just couldn't put it down. It's a fascinating ride through a turbulent time in American history, filled with some earnest, hard-working people whose lives collide with numerous nefarious characters. Zachary Lazar is a terrific writer with a tragic, eye-opening tale to tell. Very highly recommended!

Zachary Lazar's father, Edward, died when Zachary was only six years old. Just the mere fact of that loss would make for an interesting book. However, Edward Lazar was murdered - in a hit ordered by his former partner Ned Warren. How does a CPA get himself involved in that situation? Isn't it all just crunching numbers and income tax forms. Why would he even need to testify at a grand jury against his former boss? Apparently for Edward Lazar, the answer was no. He got involved with a huge land fraud scheme in Arizona. The same lots of land were sold over and over to different customers. Some of the lots weren't even inhabitable, but that didn't stop Ned Warren from performing this type of fraud. Zachary Lazar decided to try to figure out the bits and pieces of his father's life. He does that the hard way - by immersing himself in police reports and recollections of "old friends". I admire that he had the guts to tell this story as it isn't very pretty. No one wants to think of a parent mixed up in a huge fraud. There's a lot of things that go on in the shadows of life that probably remain in the shadows - especially when it has to do with your parents. Zachary Lazar manages to make some sort of sense of this huge web of lies. It's difficult to judge whether Edward Lazar was just a patsy being played or he was fully involved with all aspects of the land fraud. But it is a very interesting book about how a family gets destroyed by corruption, even just by being around it. There are no neat tie ups at the end, but that's because it's based on a true story and all of us know things don't tie up neatly in real life. Despite that or maybe because of that, I recommend this book highly.

In 1975 Edward Lazar was murdered in a Mafia hit in a parking garage in Phoenix. Ed Lazar was murdered to prevent his testimony before a grand jury investigating the rampant land fraud and political and institutional corruption existent in Arizona in the 70's. His son Zachary was 6 at the time, and EVENING'S EMPIRE is his history of his father's life. I don't like to describe much of the plot in a review, but I will say that the book is a fascinating and quick read which features, besides Ed Lazar, a vast assemblage of con men, mobsters, and crooked cops and state officials. As Lazar does not actually remember any of the incidents he writes about, what he has done is to exhaustively research his father's life by means of court records, interviews, newpaper clippings and more, and then on the framework of the facts - which are extensive - flesh out his father's life and death based on the reasonable conclusions he draws as a result of the factual material. So what the reader gets here is part true story, part novel. And the result is terrific. Zachary Lazar - just an outstanding writer - has created a story that crackles with amorality, cynicsm, tension, and murder, even as, at the same time, the emotional importance of his father to the author is abundantly clear. I loved EVENING'S EMPIRE and would recommend it any and everyone.

Non-Fiction is one of those great categories for a book. While minor liberties may be taken to fill in the blanks, ultimately a story will either succeed or sink based upon the way the facts are communicated. EVENING'S EMPIRE succeeds in a big and hauntingly satisfying way. The author has taken a crucial event in his life (the mob hit death of his father) and through research and FBI records and the memories of family and friends explains how a seemingly ethical CPA, husband, and father managed to get involved with crooks, politicians, and mobsters in a huge real estate scandal. The resulting book is a deftly handled account of greed, ambition, and what can happen when it all goes terribly wrong.

Psychologists have come to understand that our memories change each time we remember them so that those things we recall most often become the things we misremember best. Author Zachary Lazar held almost no memories of his father and certainly nothing about his father's business life when he decided in 2006 to examine and relate the story of Ed Lazar's 1975 murder. At that time Zachary was only six years old. Perhaps that innocence abetted the author's task, letting him enter his investigation clear-eyed and willing to turn over every stone no matter what he might discover. He has delivered a book that wants to be read in one sitting, the kind of true crime drama that won't be put down coupled with an exposé of the insidiousness of white collar corruption. Along the way, Lazar manages to offer clear explanations of some very tangled real estate scams, sketch the ways that graft can reach deep into government offices, deliver an overview of mafia operations in Arizona and build the story to a gripping climax despite the reader's knowledge of where it is all headed. A fine tale, well told. (There is one factual error in the advance review copy I read which I hope will be corrected in the final: the "Apollo" didn't land on the moon, it was the "Eagle" moon lander that bounced down in the lunar dust. But, of course, that happened at about the time the author was born.)