Pete Crooks is a Bay Area-based journalist, and the author of the seminal investigative story about one of the Bay Area's most sensational crime and corruption stories in recent history. For the past 14 years, Crooks has been one of the editors of Diablo magazine, and was on assignment for the magazine when he broke the incredible crime scandal detailed in The Setup: A True Story of Soccer Moms, Dirty Cops, and Reality TV. Crooks's reporting on this stranger than fiction story about reality show wannabes, duplicitous soccer moms, and a conspiracy involving corrupt cops and a sociopath private investigator received national acclaim, inspiring episodes of the award-winning radio program This American Life and 48 Hours on CBS news, for which Crooks served as an official consultant.
The Setup tells one of the most popular stories we've ever had on This American Life, with fascinating details you can't fit into a one-hour radio show. Pete Crooks was set up as a mark in this true-life caper, until he out-detectived the detectives. His chatty, lively account of what happened is a jaw-dropping tale of ambition, crime, and reality TV. --Ira Glass, Host of public radio's This American Life Journalist Pete Crooks has very carefully reported a tale of people who believed that reality television was the fastest pathway to the fame they so desperately wanted ... A unique insight into a house of cards constructed to lead to media fame--and to discover more sinister behavior that was occurring just behind the curtain, when the cameras weren't shooting. --Joe Kenda, retired police detective and subject of Discovery Television's Homicide Hunter: Lt. Joe Kenda The Setup is most certainly a riveting real-life thriller. But the book is also much more than that ... This deeply-layered crime and corruption story is the ultimate 'truth is stranger than fiction' scenario for a celebrity-obsessed culture. Once I started reading, I could not put The Setup down. --Louise Fletcher, Academy Award-winning actress in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest A true crime story about a delusional suburban detective trying to sell a reality show about soccer moms? Yes, you are going to laugh a lot but because Crooks treats his subjects respectfully and like the fallible humans we all are; the absurdity isn't mean-spirited. Only a true noir fan could have done such a bang-up job. --Beth Lisick, New York Times bestselling author of Everybody Into the Pool