New book examines murder of Arizona journalist Don Bolles

A new book has been written and is expected to be released soon, about the slain investigative journalist, Don Bolles. Bolles wrote for The Arizona Republic for years until he was murdered by a car bomb in 1976.

Throughout his fourteen years as one of Arizona’s top reporters, Bolles took on corrupt politicians, land fraud kingpins, and the Mafia.

“Murder in the Fourth Estate: The Assassination of Investigative Journalist Don Bolles” is the first definitive account of the case, as it remains the most infamous assassination of a journalist in American history.

Jeremy Duda, journalist and author of “Murder in the Fourth Estate: The Assassination of Investigative Journalist Don Bolles,” joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss more about the book.

“I was always fascinated by the case…just as a native Arizonan, as a journalist here, as someone who really loves his state’s history,” Duda said, “…it always bugged me that there was never a comprehensive history of that case that I could read.”

Duda emphasized how difficult it was to find information for the book, as a lot of information was known but never widely reported.

“…so much of it was under the surface, behind the scenes, was in the Attorney General’s case file,” Duda explained, “…we’re talking 150 boxes full of documents…to most people, even people who follow the case pretty closely, there will be a lot of stuff that’s new.”

Don Bolles was an investigative reporter who came to Arizona back in 1962 to work for The Arizona Republic. He quickly established himself as a top investigative reporter covering government corruption, Mafia cases, land fraud, and the state dog racing industry.

“Those are the things that he probably really became most well known for, pulling back the covers on a lot of Mafia infiltration here,” Duda said, “…people who know about it in Arizona, they probably knew about it because they read Don Bolles reporting.”