Barry Levine
Barry Levine is a veteran investigative reporter and editor in print and television. He received the Huffington Post’s “Game Changer” award in 2010 for his “shoe leather reporting” and led a reporting team to a Pulitzer Prize nomination for investigative reporting and national news reporting. He lives in New York.
THE SPIDER (Crown, October 20, 2020) by Barry Levine
Who was Jeffrey Epstein? A Pulitzer Prize–nominated journalist unearths never-before-reported details in the most comprehensive account yet of the disgraced financier’s life, death, and criminal web, including the role of Ghislaine Maxwell.
By now, the basic contours of Epstein’s horrendous crimes—his decades-long serial abuse of young women and underage girls—are familiar. But for all that has been written about Epstein since his shocking death in a lower Manhattan jail cell, an astonishing amount remains unknown. A shy Brooklyn kid turned renegade financier, Jeffrey Epstein never wanted to play by the rules of polite society. He was elusive in life and he has remained just as elusive in death.
What is known is that he had amassed nearly $600 million by the time of his death. That fortune allowed Epstein to pursue a privileged, secretive life, jetting between his fortress-like homes in Manhattan, New Mexico, and Little St. James, his private island. Behind these closed doors, Epstein socialized with scientists and world leaders and preyed on powerless young women.
In this dogged work of reporting, Barry Levine shines a light into the darkest corners of Epstein’s world, including:
• Epstein’s young adulthood and earliest accusations of sexual misconduct
• The murky sources of Epstein’s fortune and business dealings
• Epstein’s circle of confidantes and employees, particularly the nature of his long relationship with socialite Ghislaine Maxwell
• His ties to powerful men, including Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, Les Wexner, and Donald Trump
• Epstein’s last hours as a free man in Paris and the secret operation to arrest him at a New Jersey airport before he could flee
• New details on Epstein’s final days in jail and the mystery surrounding his death
Featuring rare and never-before-seen photographs, The Spider exposes how Epstein operated and evaded justice for so long—and how he drew so many others into his criminal web.
Barry Levine & Monique Al-Faizy
Monique Al-Faizy
Monique El-Faizy is a Paris-based journalist and the author of God and Country: How Evangelicals Have Become America’s New Mainstream. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, Marie Claire, GQ, and Glamour.
ALL THE PRESIDENT’S WOMEN (Hachette Books, October 22, 2019) by Barry Levine and Monique El Fairy
With groundbreaking interviews, behind-the-scenes reporting, and never-before-seen photos, All the President’s Women records 43 new allegations of sexual misconduct against President Trump.
During his 2016 presidential run, the revelation of the Access Hollywood tape and subsequent allegations of sexual misconduct lodged against Donald Trump looked like they might doom his candidacy. Trump survived, and the first two years of the real estate scion’s presidency were marked not by controversy over his behavior around women but by the Mueller investigation.
So far, Trump has dodged the #MeToo bullet that has taken down so many once-powerful men. But despite the decades of tabloid fascination with his personal life, the story of Trump’s relationship with women has never been fully told. Considering his bully pulpit in the White House, the reckoning is overdue.
All the President’s Women offers the most detailed account yet of Trump’s history with women, dating back to his childhood and high school days through his rise in real estate, reality TV, and politics. This book will show that Trump’s behavior goes far beyond occasional “locker-room talk” and unwanted advances.
Barry Levine and Monique El-Faizy detail more than a dozen new allegations against Trump, including a disturbing attack on a woman at Mar-a-Lago, an incident at a private Manhattan sex club involving a teenage girl, as well as Trump’s behavior at fashion shows and beauty pageants–events that gave the future president a hunting ground to harass young women.
Veteran journalists Levine and El-Faizy tell the story of Trump from the point of view of the women in his orbit–wives, mistresses, playmates, and those whom the president has dated, kissed, groped, or lusted after.
Esquire published an excerpt here.
The Guardian published an excerpt here.
Cosmopolitan published an excerpt here.
You can read a Q&A with the authors in a Huffington Post interview here.