Dynamite: A Concise History of the NYPD Bomb Squad

Although it correctly calls itself “concise,” DYNAMITE is in fact the most comprehensive history ever written about the oldest, busiest and most sophisticated bomb squad in the world. For more than 100 years, NYPD bomb techs have combated explosive-related violence and threats, often risking (and sometimes losing) their own lives in the process. The NYPD Bomb Squad traces its origins to the famous — if short-lived — Italian Squad, which successfully defeated Black Hand extortionists who terrorized Italian immigrants living in New York at the turn of the last century. Its story goes on to include the first large-vehicle bomb on American soil (targeting J.P. Morgan), anarchist bombings, plots by German saboteurs during World War I, the famed Black Tom explosion, the bombing of the 1939 World’s Fair, crimes of the so-called Mad Bomber, IEDs placed by Croatian and Palestinian terrorists, the relentless terror campaign of the FALN, anti-abortion bombings, the first World Trade Center bombing, and the attempted car bombing of Times Square by Islamic radicals. Beginning in an era of horse-drawn carriages and ending in the Jet Age, DYNAMITE tells the colorful, informative, sometimes macabre, and always heroic story of this elite group of New York’s Finest.