Winter Hill tome tells MDC cop's story
Published on May 24th, 2006
STONEHAM, MA - In a tribute to Stoneham's storied law enforcement community, a Methuen author selected the town's library as one of the last stops for the promotion of his non-fiction tale about one police detective's battle with organized crime and drug trafficking.
According to Dick Haley, of New England based Haley's Booksellers, an estimated 40 people attended Salem State Professor Jay Atkinson's reading of his book, "Legends of Winter Hill: Cops, Conmen and Joe McCain, the Last Real Detective".
The local book promoter, who organized last week's event at the Stoneham Library, especially recalled a keen interest from active and retired police officers in the Salem State professor's newest work, which was on The Boston Globe's best seller list for six weeks.
"I know the event we had turned out pretty well. We had a good turnout, including some police officers from Stoneham," Haley said in a recent phone interview. "We actually had someone come out all the way from Somerset. That's a long way to come for something like this."
According to Atkinson, while his book details the happenings of the Boston underworld from 1960 to present, it differs significantly from other accounts that focus entirely on organized crime figures.
Instead, his tale recounts the life of former MDC Police Detective Joe McCain, Sr., who investigated a number of prominent mobsters including, James "The Bear" Flemmi, Howie Winter, and even James "Whitie" Bulger, before his career was ended by a gun-shot wound in 1988.
"He was, as my summary says in the book, the last great Boston Police Detective. He worked a number of dangerous cases involving dangerous organized crime figures," the Methuen resident commented.
"He got shot on the job in 1988 by a Jamaican drug dealer and shot [the suspect] dead during that exchange. But as a result of that bullet wound, he wasn't allowed to return to the Boston Police Department," Atkinson explained, adding that the storied-investigator would die years later from complications resulting from that injury.
According to the Salem State Professor, he was bamboozled into writing the tale by one of McCain's protégés, who learned that Atkinson was a writer while the two coached a Methuen hockey team.
Little to the author's knowledge, the former Somerville Police officer would repeatedly recount tales from McCain's encounters with organized crime figures in the hopes that the writing instructor would develop an interest in the subject.
"The stores were fascinating and one day I said, 'Gee, that would make a great book.' And he said, 'I thought you'd never ask,'" Atkinson recalled with a laugh.
In the subsequent two-years of research and writing of what would become, "Legends of Winter Hill", Atkinson would later realize just how influential the police detective was for current and former investigators across the region.
And as it would turn out, many of those who considered McCain their mentor, including former State Police Detective Lt. Gene Kee, FBI Agent Bill Chase, and the O'Toole family, had deep roots in Stoneham.
"There are several characters in the book that come from Stoneham. And that's the reason we ended-up in Stoneham [for this reading], because of the Chase, O'Toole, and Kee connection," said the author, who is currently working on his fourth book.
According to Kee, a native of the town, Atkinson's portrayal of McCain as the last great detective is right on.
And although the former State Police Trooper admitted that the Salem State Professor didn't capture every detail from the storied-investigators' career, Kee considers the book to be very accurate.
"For the accounts I was familiar with, I thought Jay did a terrific portrayal of Joe," the McCain protégé opined in a recent phone interview. "Joe just had a unique quality. He could talk to people from all walks of life and I think that's what served him so well during his career in law enforcement."
"Just being able to be around Joe and see how he went about his business was a great opportunity for a young investigator. He was just a great guy and a true hero in the sense that he would try to help whoever he could."
Residents interested in obtaining a copy of Atkinson's,"The Legends of Winter Hill", which was just released in paperback in May, can purchase the book at most retail book stores.
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