SHREWD LITTLE SLEUTH

Leckie investigates the eventful life and mysterious death of his elusive grandfather, a federal agent and private detective.

“My father never spoke of his father to anyone,” writes the author, who was born in the 1960s months after his grandfather’s death.  A lifelong enigma to Leckie, Arthur Bernard Leckie (referred to throughout the text as ABL) died the same way he lived: shrouded in mystery. Working from hundreds of documents obtained from the FBI through a Freedom of Information Act request, the author pieces together a fascinating portrait of a mid-20th-century G-Man, detective, political provocateur, and larger-than-life personality. An FBI agent who worked closely with J. Edgar Hoover, ABL would later marry Hoover’s secretary after being dismissed from the agency. ABL’s domestic spying in the 1950s would be connected to the red-baiting initiatives of Senator Joseph McCarthy. The FBI files also tie ABL to Howard Hughes (he was twice tasked with finding the reclusive billionaire’s hidden locations) and detail his work as a private detective for some of Hollywood’s most powerful figures. Per some of the author’s family members, ABL had a “significant involvement in Marilyn Monroe’s life,” as he was allegedly hired by the actress, whose relationships with powerful politicians had made her a target of FBI surveillance. In a book rife with intrigue, perhaps the most suspicious element is ABL’s death, which occurred “just up the road” from where Monroe would be found dead a mere 36 hours later. A self-described “social justice fighter,” Leckie does not shy away from criticizing his grandfather’s “calculated proximity to some of the most foul and destructive American political figures” or his history of alcoholism and womanizing. By default, given the incomplete nature of FBI files (almost 100 files related to ABL were denied to the author), Leckie occasionally leans into conjecture, though the text is generally well researched and backed by a number of citations.

An engagingly written and nuanced look at an enigmatic 20th-century figure.