fobes

What are the opinions of the "Blue Thunder" book? I have read it and "Speed Kills" and it seems that the consensus is that Blue Thunder is conjecture Speed Kills is the true story. I found Blue Thunder to be a great read though and it seems to present some convincing stories.

TexasJim

"Speed Kills" is by far the more factual book. "Blue Thunder" is just wild speculation without any facts. One example of Burdick's sloppiness in "Blue Thunder" is that he states that a Mafia type in Miami told him him that Jack Kramer was married to Meyer Lansky's niece. Burdick just accepts that without bothering to check any marriage license records. Also, at the end of the book, Burdick suddenly claims that Don Aronow and Jeb Bush were partners in a drug smuggling operation, but he offers no hard evidence, just speculation from an unnamed "inside fed." The last two chapters must have been written after Young's indictment and Burdick was probably desperate to try to keep his credibility. The biggest problem that I have with Burdick is that a lot of his sources, including Edna Buchanon, Jerry Engleman, and even Lilian Aronow, all stated that Burdick either took what they said completely out of context or just plain misquoted them.