This book had me hooked right from the beginning. It was an exciting true life crime book to read it’s a real page turner. Very well written.

There’s no denying the importance of this book, but it is not easy reading, either emotionally or intellectually. The author served as an undercover cop and FBi liason for over twenty years, infiltrating and often disrupting white supremacy groups.
Of course the number of challenges and accomplishments he faced over so many years was monumental. I wanted to spend more time with the book, to understand better the hateful ideologies discussed.
Besides the subject matter being difficult to endure, the book’s organization and level of detail made for slow reading. Still many will be interested in the topic and will profit from the information.

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

The Hate Next Door is an eye-opening look at how entrenched white supremacy is in our society. The lack of police action is sickening and rather frightening. I did not want to put this book down, but sometimes it got heavy, and I needed to. I can't imagine being around that ugliness and hatred on a daily basis. Of course, it would mess with one's mind.

Lastly Mr.Browning, if you read this, your wife is a Saint. I'm not sure I would be in town after the t-ball incident.

I wanted to like this book a lot, but the uneven writing style really bothered me while reading it. It is a really important story that more law enforcement especially need to read since locally grown hate groups are embedded in people's own neighborhoods, but I think it could have used a better editor throughout the book.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for a review, all thoughts are my own.
2.5 rounded up to 3

The Hate Next Door is a fascinating and exceptionally researched book on the plethora of white supremacy organisations across America, their formation, evolution and information on those who get involved in said groups written by Matson Browning, a former police officer and FBI agent who spent twenty years undercover partaking in the nefarious and disturbing discussions and plans to set their agendas in motion. The longest an FBI agent is usually allowed to remain undercover is two years and Browning can see why as after some time of successful infiltration he began to lose his sense of identity; it eventually became so severe that he considered taking his own life on multiple occasions. Luckily, with his wife, Faith, by his side, he managed to return to a healthier place mentally.

After Browning had served in Mesa police for four years he had his first experience of a white supremacist trying to kill him. Jason Stafford was a new recruit of a local neo-nazi group and pulling a gun on Matson had been to prove himself to his new buddies, an initiation, if you will. Even after trying to murder a rookie officer in cold blood after the first incident, Stafford was jailed, but the police in the area failed to accept that there was a skinhead problem and it was brushed under the carpet as just another violent white boy. In fact, until he was aware enough of the scene and asked direct questions everyone including his colleagues looked at him as though he had sprouted an extra head when bringing this up as an area where crime and politics intersect and that has seen exponential growth of late. After his superiors agree to let him go undercover to investigate the local white supremacist movement he begins to frequent The Nile Club in downtown Mesa, a hang-out spot for skinheads from across Arizona and created a new identity: that of Patrick "Packy" Von Fleckenger.

Within a couple of weeks, his new “Packy” PO Box was full of pamphlets, and he was a card-carrying member of the KKK, Ayran Nation and the National Alliance. Just when he thought he was doing a good job of keeping his professional and working lives completely separated, he and wife Tawni hired a local building firm to do some work on their home and who turned up but two white supremacist framers he identifies due to their Hammers apparel and a neck tattoo. Not long after that, he came across another while attending Sunday dinner at his mother in laws house. Tawni's sister's boyfriend, Chris, had both an 88 tattoo and one depicting a male skinhead behind bars, presumably himself. He was afraid that the two worlds were converging dangerously and that it could culminate in his family being in harm's way. And, of course, it did. This is a compulsive, prescient and gripping account of one man's attempt to stymie the growth of white supremacy and rising nationalistic tension in America. Reading like a thriller, I could not put this down and found it impeccably researched and thoroughly engaging from beginning to denouement.

There is a lot of ugliness in this world- White Supremacy being one major one. Matt writes about his high-stake attempts to take down powerful White Supremacists, his undercover operations, and the development of the international Skinhead Intelligence Network. This is such a powerful book and reminds us of the hate groups that are out there and that things need to be done about them. I learned quite a bit and found this to be such an intriguing read. Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for an ARC.

I keep telling people that white supremacist's are the greatest threat to national security, and also the most dangerous people in our communities, but no one wants to take it seriously.
People just want to act like these monsters are "normal" and can just exist as our neighbors, with their kids in the same class as the rest of us, but that's not reality. These people are terrifying.
I was so grateful for this book.
I love Doc Martens but after reading this I might just not wear them.

The best part of this book, that gave me legit nightmares, is the explanation of the symbols.
I might never relax again after reading this. I asked for this ARC because a man was beat by cops in the middle of a street in town. I investigated his personal life and discovered that he was a white supremacist. I dove deeper and I found a whole .nest of them right here in town where I raise my kids. I wanted to know more, but I was looking for reassurance. This is not that except for the knowledge that the police are looking and they know who it is they need to keep an eye on. They aren't letting these guys do their crimes.
On the other hand, one of the reason people don't trust cops right now is because they believe they are the white supremacists. And some DO have those tattoos.
The book does cover that. I appreciate it.
I think Tawnie sounds like the coolest ever.

Thank you for doing this work and writing this book.
Be safe.

A must read! This is incredibly scary. Any random person in the country may not ever know how terribly active the amassing of white supremacy in our own backyard.

I have read quite a bit about deconstructing racism, about understanding the systemic nature and realizing how ingrained it is when we aren’t even necessarily aware that we are participating in it. But, acknowledging that aside, nothing prepared me for this book.

Matson and his wife have made this their whole life’s work, putting them in some dangerous situations, at time even making them feel like they could lose themselves. I couldn’t imagine putting myself knowingly into situations like this, but it’s for such an important reason.

This book is eye opening to the state of the United States and the indoctrination of white supremacy right under our noses. The important people that are waving these flags in plain sight… simply terrifying!

I definitely recommend this powerhouse of a book!

This one had a lot of things that I'm an absolute sucker for, mainly an author having good things to say about their spouse, maybe it's because for most of my life it seemed like no one in the movies, TV or books had anything good to say about their spouses that seeing someone having only good things to say about their spouse and appreciating them made makes me happy but regardless of the reason I enjoyed the fact that Browning spoke of his wife and family with a lot of love and pride. The autobiography aspect of this book is powerful and very human, Browning is honest about his moments of despair and the toll the path he chose took on him and his mental health.

I enjoyed that Browning was pretty realistic about the law enforcement machine, the drive for it to make money, the way it's too easy for white supremacist to slip through the cracks and become police officers and so on. It's something a lot of people from outside of law enforcement have been saying for a long time but for someone who made their career in that system to outright say it is pretty solid.

He paints an extremely bleak but real picture of how supremacist groups infiltrated and positioned themselves in a variety of positions both elected and non-elected and subtly use the power they thus acquired in ways that allow them to act with near total impunity.

Browning does a pretty good job of explaining concepts, groups and figures so that even someone with little to no knowledge of the topic can understand and not need to do a bunch of side research to figure out who's who and what's what.

Now for what I didn't enjoy as much. The structure of this book was a bit of a struggle for me, we would be deep into something that happened a "long" time ago and *suddenly a wild example of recent racially motivated violence appears* that gave the book somewhat of a disjointed feeling.

At the end of the book there's a nifty list of symbols and dog whistles to recognize associated with white supremacist people/groups and while Browning included warning that context matters for a lot of them, I was surprised to see that he did not include such a warning for ACAB because the vast majority of the people I've seen using that one are not white supremacists in the least (it might vary depending where you live but yeah ACAB is definitely not a sure sign of white supremacist ideologies/sympathies or of violent ideology in fact a lot of the people who espouse it actually want less violence and hate through the abolition of a deeply flawed system of enforcement of the capitalist status quo and while I can understand why it might feel hateful for the cops who are part of the organization I think the nuance is important here) Just like I was a little taken aback by the handful of times he brought up Antifa because try as I may I have still to see anyone provide evidence of any group organized around the anti-fascist ideology in a similar way to white supremacist groups even exists. I don't think these things should be ground to outright dismiss this book and Browning's work, it its obvious that both him and his family made great sacrifices in order to fight extremism and that they show a very deep level of empathy and humanity, I just think it's worth being aware of them.

Matt Browning has authored a thought-provoking book that reads about the history of racial hatred and the many organisations that advocate and support such horrible thinking. Matt Browning is a retired detective who worked undercover for Twenty-Five years infiltrating these hate groups. Matt tells how he infiltrates these groups from the inside and gains the trust of its members whilst enlightening us on the ugly variations of White Supremist groups. The book is thought provoking and Matt does an amazing job of describing how to fight against those groups.

The stories are extremely relevant in 2023 due to computers and the internet where a lot of these hate groups now recruit for their caus3s. They dig up hatred and infiltrate protesters at meetings around the world and incite riots and murder. We owe the police and undercover officers the greatest respect and gratitude as they put their lives at risk to infiltrate and put these monsters behind bars to make the world a better place for us all.

This book is a must read to help fight against racism around the world and it would make an excellent book club choice. Thanks to NetGalley and to the publishers of this book for giving me a free advance copy of the book to preview and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Between watching the increasingly disturbing news, seeing the evidence myself on Twitter, and recently reading a few books about the subject, the fact that white nationalism and hate groups are growing isn’t a surprise. It’s all horrifying, but if you pay even a little attention out there, you’ll see evidence of it all over. So when I was browsing NetGalley and came across The Hate Next Door: Undercover Within the New Face of White Supremacy by Matson Browning with Tawni Browning (Sourcebooks, 2023), I immediately requested it. It’s a difficult subject to read about, but I think it’s necessary to be informed. I was grateful when NetGalley approved me, and with more than a little trepidation, I downloaded the book and began reading.

For over twenty years, Matson Browning worked undercover with white and Christian nationalist and other sovereign citizen groups, including groups who took it upon themselves to patrol the border (under zero authority other than the one they assigned themselves due to the color of their skin or the place of their birth). He got to know white supremacists, KKK members, churchgoers who interpreted their scriptures in such a way that they were confident Jesus agreed with their hateful and xenophobic opinions, criminals of all sorts (including murderers), people who would later get murdered, and people he never would’ve assumed would be part of these groups, including pastors, teachers, members of the military/veterans, and police officers, including some newer recruits in Mr. Browning’s own unit.

The attitudes of the people Mr. Browning, posing as a white nationalist named Packy, works with are disturbing, hateful, and frightening…but what might be even more disturbing is how little anyone in the US seems to care about the existence of these groups. Mr. Matson’s fellow police officers weren’t much interested; the higher-ups whom he worked for seemed to roll their eyes and sigh every time he infiltrated a new group. Murders - even murders of multiple people at once - were brushed off, simply because these weren’t the regular Black or Mexican street gangs. How bad could a bunch of white guys be?

Very bad, in fact. The Hate Next Door and Matson Browning’s career is a testament to that.

Matson Browning, along with his wife Tawni, who also went undercover with him, shows over and over again how deeply dangerous these groups are, and how they’re everywhere in the US. In this disturbing account of a career spent investigating one of America’s many dirty little secrets, the authors provide story after story that will have every reader taking a closer look at everyone they know.

The Hate Next Door isn’t an easy, relaxing read. It’s the kind of read that will have you sucking in a quick breath as you realize the danger Matson Browning put himself in in order to infiltrate these groups. It’ll have you side-eyeing the people you work with, your neighbors, the person in front of you at the grocery store. It will change the way you look at everyone around you…but it also gives a little bit of hope. There *are* people who leave these movements behind, and Mr. Browning provides a basic list of things you can do in order to maybe steer a friend or colleague away from this path (a long game, for sure, but worth it).

This is a disturbing book, but a tragically necessary one. Read it to understand better what’s hiding in plain sight everywhere across the US and, sadly, also around the world.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Matson and Tawni Browning, and Sourcebooks for providing me a copy of this excellent book to read and review
The Hate Next Door is available on July 4, 2023. Support your local bookstores!

Apparently, there are a lot of white supremacists in the world. I suppose I knew this, but I didn’t realize how many actual groups there are with these people trying to get organized. If you pay attention, it’s pretty clear that they’re becoming more emboldened and have infiltrated the Republican Party and are trying to mainstream their hate. It’s a good thing, then that we have people like Matt Browning who help to break up these groups and put these nasty humans (and I use that term in only the most strict, biological sense) in jail. Honestly, the most terrifying part of all of this is how many of these people are in law enforcement. I sincerely support the police and the military in the United States, but anyone who thinks like the characters in The Hate Next Door needs to be expelled from any kind of law enforcement or military career. I understand how why these people get into police work, but I cannot understand how they remain there for any significant period of time. You would think they would be ferreted out pretty quickly, but I suppose not. This whole book is really kind of terrifying when you start to realize how widespread this kind of hatred and racist ideology really is…and I’m a straight, white male. I can’t imagine how scary this is for anyone who is in a minority…but then, I imagine they are probably already aware of a lot of this because they experience it.

Matt Browning was a police officer in Mesa, AZ and took up the mantle of Resident White Gang Expert. He begins by going undercover as a white supremacist and quickly begins learning just how prevalent this kind of thing is in his area. Browning then begins to realize that this is not just a local issue, but a national one, eventually learning about the global infestation of low-life hatemongers. Along the way, the reader learns about hate groups, their tactics, their symbology and more. The Hate Next Door is as interesting as it is terrifying, though and should be read by everyone (especially those who continue to say that racism isn’t a problem anymore). Throughout his career, Browning endures the psychological toll that this kind of life ultimately brings: anger, fear, depression, suicidal thoughts and family troubles (not to mention contracts being put out on his life). I was pretty skeptical of Browning’s decision making when he started taking his wife with him undercover, but it all worked out and made for a good book, so I guess I’ll leave that be.

Overall, this is a great book with a LOT of important and interesting information but I do have a couple of issues with it. First, Browning makes these people out to be bumbling idiots, which they clearly are. However, they are also incredibly dangerous and most definitely not cartoon characters. To Browning’s credit, he makes note several times that they’re dangerous and does include several instances of violence and awful behavior by these people. However, that is overshadowed by the bumbling antics that often make these white supremacists seem more like some silly comedy troupe. Just be careful when reading that you don’t let yourself begin thinking that these people aren’t a threat. Browning doesn’t want you to either, it’s just a byproduct of the fact that these people are often stupid and bumbling. The other issue I have is Browning’s attempt to stay politically neutral while talking about these issues. White Supremacy is clearly a far-right ideology so it’s really not reasonable to try to keep from coming out and saying it. Browning does acknowledge that these groups have begun latching onto the Republican Party but seems to try to skirt around calling out the party for letting them do it. You can’t really stamp out hate if you don’t call out people who continue to tolerate it. These are small gripes with a great book, but I felt the need to note them. Thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks for providing me with an ARC of The Hate Next Door.

"The Hate Next Door" by Matson Browning has a similar premise to "BlacKkKlansman," the Spike Lee film released in 2018 which dealt with the real-life story of Ron Stallworth, the first Black officer of the Colorado Springs police department. He worked with his white, Jewish coworker Flip Zimmerman, to convince the local Klan that he was one of them and also a white supremacist in order to infiltrate their meetings--to get them convicted of crimes that they had not been held accountable for, and also to warn higher-up law enforcement of planned crimes and racially-motivated violence. It's also reminiscent of the real life story of Walter F. White, who was a man completely passing for white with blond hair and blue eyes--and he was also of African descent since a former President, William Henry Harrison, was an enslaver. He had relations with and likely raped White's great-grandmother, an enslaved woman of African descent who Harrison owned. Walter F White used his white and benign appearance to infiltrate Klan and other white supremacist group meetings across the South in places where no one had any reason to suspect that he was anything other than a white man who hated the racial groups and marginalized people like those in the LGBTQIA+ communities as much as they hated them. Eventually he was found out, but he also helped to solve a number of cases that had been dropped by local law enforcement, and he was able to warn the FBI about planned crimes--something that saved a number of lives.

In this book, Matson Browning talks about his experiences doing something similar. He acted as an undercover detective in Arizona who, for more than 25 years, has been infiltrating and fighting back against white supremacy movements from the inside including the Klan, Proud Boys, and others, The major call to action of the book, which many Americans have known for at least the past seven years or so, is that we have to do absolutely everything we can to fight these unspeakable groups.

He talks first about how he infiltrated these organizations to begin with. As the reader may imagine, it wasn't easy, which is putting it mildly. I cannot even begin to imagine the internal tension and stress that this person felt at all times, doing what he was doing--the fear of being found out with his true intensions and his ties to law enforcement, what he was really doing in trying to power down these white supremacist groups, the constant questioning of loyalty or if he had ulterior motives or the suspicions that he was working against them. He frequently talks about the weight and burden of having to look at himself and wonder if he has done the right thing. That he has exposed his family to true and ever-present danger. Will it be worth it? Is it worth it now?

For some readers, it is going to be a hard pass and a "no" as to the exposure to the vitriolic thoughts, belief systems, and ideologies that permeate through white supremacist groups and their propaganda. The nation is still in a messed up place, for lack of a better term, with what happened on January 6th--and the threat of more to come. And lawmakers who do not even bother putting on a mask anymore and pretending to be some version of a "good guy." No. Now they are just going for the jugular and trying to erase African-American history, banning books like other fascist states, attacking the livelihood of groups who want to live and thrive in peace and who are of no threat to anybody, and they are day-by-day, fostering the same violence that the film "Birth of a Nation" did in 1915. White male viewers who viewed the film, then came out of the theatres, are on the record as having expressed anger toward Black people and a strong desire to attack and kill them. This is all documented. It is sick and it is disturbing. Having said that, it is important to understand these viewpoints and what's at the core of them in order to be able to combat them, which is what I think Browning is trying to do here, at least in part.

He talks about barbeques and 'Aryan' fest, and so many other disturbing events. It is by no means an easy book to get through. This is not just some HBO Drama television series, some thing that's never going to affect the viewer like "The Sopranos" and all the people who have been forced to go undercover to try to bring down Tony Soprano where viewers are riveted but the danger isn't real. In this case, the danger is something that affects the world on a daily basis, particularly in the United States. And it's sickening.

These were things that white people who are not people of colour could wave off until the past decade--with the illusion that the Obama presidency had cured everything, or that it showed progress. That was an even bigger blanket for white supremacists to hide behind. When I was growing up, there was a sense of Well, those (Nazis) and now the neo-nazis are just some very bad people from a long time ago, but they can't actually do anything dangerous. Oh, the bubble of insulation that coated me for so many years. The author provides a summary section at the end of how we can all work much harder to combat the dangers of white supremacy in all its forms. Disturbing, but necessary read.

It’s a scary world out there, especially these days. We should all become better informed on what’s going on in our neighborhoods, in our cities and in our lives, which is why I wanted to read The Hate Next Door. If you’ve ever wondered if racism is still rampant, you’ll want to read this. White Supremacists have infiltrated the parts of our government that should be free of hate and stand for equality, and that is frightening.

I learned so much more than I ever knew about hate groups, not only in the US but other countries also.

Matt Browning is a retired detective who worked undercover for 25 years infiltrating hate groups. He writes a thought provoking and gripping story that is extremely relevant still in 2023. At the end of the book, he does an amazing job of describing how to fight against white supremacy and other groups. This book is a must read and would make an excellent book club choice.

This was a rather intense book that gave overarching information about white supremacist groups but lacked analysis about the underlying reasons why white supremacist groups continue to exist and why they continue to receive support.

What was particularly surprising was the information the author admitted to - taking his wife undercover absolutely would’ve ruined any case made from the information received and huge risk, and her help with writing guidelines for a new squad. It seems the author relished in breaking the rules, which might’ve encumbered his ultimate objective.

Additionally the author never discussed the reason for writing this book now since it seems he and his wife are still doing undercover work (not sure how that’ll be possible as a published author now).

The stories at the end of each chapter and several of the ending sections were very interesting.

3.5 stars

this book is SCARY --- and why I am afaid for the next presidential election and its results --- I may live in Canada but what happens south of the border certainly affects us to a great degree.

I am going to rely on the book's description to summarize what Mr. Browning did as it states it better than I ever can.

For more than twenty-five years, Browning has been infiltrating, documenting, and disrupting white supremacy movements from the inside, gaining an intimate vantage point to the KKK, skinheads, border militias, Proud Boys, and other White Power groups, as they organized and grew, their ranks alarmingly including the police force and military veterans. Together with his intrepid wife, Tawni, he adopted fake IDs and ideologies, seeking the arrest of its participants—none more so than J.T. Ready, a neo-Nazi who took "hunting trips" for border migrants while gaining mainstream acceptance as a political candidate—and terrorizing Browning's family. What others dismissed as fringe groups, Browning quickly recognized as large and interconnecting organizations permeating into every facet of American society, effectively spreading their dangerous and repugnant rhetoric at unprecedented speeds. Today, after the violent storming of the Capitol on January 6th, the threat posed by these toxic organizations can no longer be ignored by the public at large.

The fact that this is happening is really terrifying:L one never knows who to trust or who to say anything to without fear of offending them and starting a conversation that leads to doxxing your entire life down the drain. The book is excellently written and utterly gripping: I will highly recommend this far and wide, especially to our book clubs.

I LOVE that this book is being released on July 4th ... it speaks volumes to a country that needs to right itself before it flushes its integrity down the toilet or starts a new world war.