The Bureau by Michael Newton
The Bureau is a series of ten novels charting FBI history through the lives of five divergent families: the Gantts, the O'Haras, the Giordanos, the Sawyers, and the Babins. Some uphold the law, while others defiantly break it…
Dramatis Personæ
Aloysius Gantt: a university classmate of J. Edgar Hoover who joins Hoover in the
U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Investigation.
Declan O'Hara: another classmate of Hoover and Gantt, who joins them in the BOI.
Gregory Jordan (né Gregorio Giordano): a third classmate of Hoover, Gantt and
O'Hara; he rejects Bureau recruitment for military service in World War I, then 
becomes legal counsel for the Giordano crime family.
becomes legal counsel for the Giordano crime family.Isaac Sawyer: one of the Bureau's first African American special agents, then switches
to become an agent of the U.S. Treasury's Bureau of Prohibition.
Leonid Babin: Russian radical immigrant to the United States. Becomes Russian intelligence agent
after deportation from America.
What to Expect in Books 1-10
Book I: In Honor Bound (1917-24): Spans the period from US entry into World War I and the early Roaring Twenties, taking protagonists from France, through the federal "slacker" raids, deportations of the postwar "Red Scare," the onset of Prohibition's crime wave, and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.
Book II: Call to Honor (1925-33): Finishes the Twenties and reaches the onset of the Great Depression, including various criminal cases, the reorganization of bootlegging gangs into a National Crime Syndicate, raids against the US Communist Party, tragic events in the USSR, and the election of President FDR.
Book III: Blood and Honor: (1933-41): The protagonists track Depression-era "public enemies" and international drug smugglers, witness the rise of "Murder Inc.," participate in Moscow's purges and "show trials," expand domestic surveillance beyond any previous conception, and wind up on the eve of Pearl Harbor.
Book IV: Honor and Glory: (1942-45): War engulfs the world a second time, involving the children of our original characters as one becomes a Marine Corps hero, the others joining the FBI and Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the CIA. The sweep of battle carries us from the home front to Moscow and Leningrad, Tarawa and Saipan.
Book V: Code of Honor (1946-54): At war's end, the OSS becomes the CIA and a new "Red Scare" envelops America at the onset of the Cold War with Russia and its Eastern European satellite nations. Close at the beginning of a tumultuous new civil rights era in America.
Book VI: In Honor's Name (1955-60): Finds Dixie and the world at large in turmoil from the civil rights movement to anti-colonial revolutions abroad. Both the FBI and CIA indulge in outlawed practices to "save" their version of America. A would-be "sleeper" agent from the USSR lands in the United States. Close with JFK's election and the onset of a truly new administration.
Book VII: Crimes of Honor (1961-71): Carries through the "Camelot" era to Dallas and on to the first Nixon administration. Some early stars of the series pass from the scene, while their children and grandchildren build dangerous lives for themselves in the same milieu, from darkest Mississippi and America's simmering ghettos to Cuba and Southeast Asia. As torches pass, the same old family rivalries endure.
Book VIII: Price of Honor (1972-80): The Nixon regime places new strain on the FBI and CIA with its illicit demands. Edgar Hoover's death creates a "new" FBI with the first female agents in four decades. Congress investigates malfeasance, prompting several murders. One protagonist helps drive Nixon from office, then faces prison for his own illegal actions until Ronald Reagan's election offers possible salvation.
Book IX: Law of Honor (1981-93): The oldest two sons of an original protagonist lose their lives, while others face a new FBI crackdown on organized crime and the early advent of America's struggle with terrorism, climaxed with the first World Trade Centers bombing and suppression of evidence that the FBI had a hand in it.
Book X: When Honor Dies (1993-2001): Closes the series with our primary female agent in hot pursuit of the FBI's "mole" from Moscow, set against the backdrop of Washington politics, ongoing illegal domestic surveillance, CIA "extraordinary rendition" and new wars abroad, ending in the fiery ruins of September 11, 2001.
