Deconstructing Sammy (Abridged) Audiobook

Quotes

• “Birkbeck has killer leads, gripping kickers and sensational descriptions. This cinematic book reads more like a detective story than a traditional ‘life of.’”

  — New York Times Book Review

• “Tremendous…Birkbeck tells the epic of Sammy Davis Jr…from his Harlem boyhood to his wrenching deathbed (he died of cancer in 1990) in his Beverly Hills mansion, where various hangers-on, seeing the circling vultures, stripped his corpse even before it was a corpse.”

  — Los Angeles Times Book Reveiw

• “A piece of investigative journalism that unravels what happened to Davis’ estate, and reveals more about the man...Birkbeck spoke to people that have never spoken before—and the portrait of Sammy that emerges is difficult, demanding, and ultimately tragic.”

  — Talk of the Nation

• “Birkbeck’s background as an investigative journalist (he has written three true-crime books) allows him to cleanly lay out Davis’s failed investments in dubious real estate ventures and fraudulent tax shelters…worthy of a reading audience’s rooting interest.” 

  — Barnes & Noble, editorial review