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October 3, 2008

Grafton featured at Sixth Annual Louisiana Book Festival Oct. 4 in Baton Rouge

Dr. Lloyd Grafton, associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Louisiana Monroe, will appear at the Sixth Annual Louisiana Book Festival Saturday, Oct. 4, in Baton Rouge, recounting his key undercover role in a Dominica coup.

Grafton is featured in participating author Stewart Bell’s book “The Bayou of Pigs: The True Story of an Audacious Plot to Turn a Tropical Island into a Criminal Paradise.”

Grafton will appear at a book talk from 2:30-3:30 p.m. at the festival, and again at a book signing from 3:45-4:30 p.m. His role in the Dominica coup investigation in 1981 came about during his law enforcement career, particularly his time in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Bell’s novel tells the “true story about an idyllic tropical island and the mercenaries who set out to steal it for profit and adventure…All that stood in their way were two federal agents from New Orleans on the biggest case of their lives.” Grafton was one of those agents.

Grafton has also served in the United States Army Infantry, 1st Cavalry Division, and worked for the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

For more information about the Louisiana Book Festival, visit the Web site at: www.louisianabookfestival.org/.

More about Bell and “Bayou of Pigs”:

According to his book jacket, Stewart Bell is an award-winning journalist and the author of two critically acclaimed books, the national bestseller “Cold Terror” and “The Martyr’s Oath.” He was awarded the Amnesty International prize for “Guerilla Girls,” his magazine article about child soldiers in West Africa. His magazine article about an Algerian terrorist, “The Terrorist Next Door,” was made into a television movie.

Concerning “Bayou of Pigs,” the description relates that “In 1981, a small but heavily armed force of misfits from the United States and Canada set off on a preposterous mission: invade an impoverished Caribbean country, overthrow its government in a coup d’etat, install a puppet prime minister, and transform it into a crooks’ paradise.

“Their leader was a Texas soldier-of-fortune type named Mike Perdue. His lieutenant was a Canadian Nazi named Wolfgang Droege. Their destination: Dominica.

“For two years they recruited fighting men, wooed investors, stockpiled weapons, and forged links with the mob, leftist revolutionaries and militant Rastafarians. They called their invasion Operation Red Dog. They were going to make millions. People were going to die. An entire nation was going to suffer…

“Set in the Caribbean, Canada and the American South at the beginning of the end of the Cold War, and based on hundreds of pages of declassified U.S. government documents, as well as exclusive interviews with those involved, ‘Bayou of Pigs’ tells a remarkable tale of foreign military intervention, revolutionary politics, greed, treachery, stupidity, deceit, and one of the most outlandish criminal stunts ever conceived: the theft of a nation.”

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