The Killing Fields of East New York: Book Talk with Stacy Horn

Talk Highlights:

• Stacy Horn shares insights from her latest book, The Killing Fields of East New York: The First Subprime Mortgage Scandal, a White-Collar Crime Spree, and the Collapse of an American Neighborhood, revealing how white-collar crime is as destructive as street crime, and how the two are connected.
• Dive into the neighborhood's history of unchecked financial crimes
• Learn how widespread civil unrest in the 1960s led to landmark civil rights legislation to address housing discrimination
• Uncover America’s first subprime mortgage scandal and see how the massive numbers of foreclosures that followed led to a rise in street crime

About this Virtual Talk:

Chosen as an NPR 2025 "Books We Love," Horn’s new book, The Killing Fields of East New York sheds light on how the subprime mortgage scandal of the 1970s and a long history of white-collar crime slowly devastated neighborhoods of color across the United States. 

The book has two threads, one tracks the destruction of East New York and the rise in homicides and other crimes, and the other tracks the financial crimes, including the investigation and prosecution of the perpetrators. Horn’s book illustrates our country’s history of criminalizing the poor and absolving the wealthy. While both street and white-collar crime rose, laws were quickly enacted in response to street crime, but little was done to check financial criminals.

Praise for the book:

“Horn unspools a fast-paced and at times crackling yarn about the Brooklyn prosecutors and F.B.I. agents who pursued predatory lenders and brokers … a compelling reminder of the catastrophic consequences of white-collar crime.” —New York Times

“Horn connects the dots as diligently as any detective between 1960s-era housing legislation, corruption in the mortgage and banking industries, and an explosion in violent street crime in Brooklyn’s East New York neighborhood …” — The Progressive.

“It’s a badly needed look at a societal problem that goes largely unaddressed while politicians outdo each other with tough-on-crime rhetoric.” —Kirkus, Starred review

About Stacy Horn:

Stacy Horn is the author of seven non-fiction books, including Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad & Criminal in 19th Century New York and The Restless Sleep: Inside New York City’s Cold Case Squad. Damnation Island, described on The Bowery Boys podcast as “your page-turning horror read for the summer,” turned out to be excellent preparation for the horror read she was to write next, The Killing Fields of East New York: The First Subprime Mortgage Scandal, a White-Collar Crime Spree, and the Collapse of an American Neighborhood.