This felt amateurish, like an authors first effort, and unfortunately did not improve as it went on.
Hoover is a very interesting person but what makes him interesting was less detailed than the timeline. There was often repeated information that seemed like filler or forgetfulness.
This was one of those books I was not excited about picking up and struggled to finish it. ( )

Veteran FBI Agent Keith Slotter has chosen to discuss Richard Gid Powers’ “Secrecy and Power: The Life of J Edgar Hoover", on FiveBooks (http://five-books.com) as one of the top five on his subject - The FBI and Crime, saying that:

“…There are many books on Hoover but this one was by far the best researched and is probably the most accurate on a very difficult life to understand, of a very unusual person. You have to remember he was the director of the FBI for close to 50 years. As a result he became iconic to American culture…”

The full interview is available here:
http://thebrowser.com/books/interviews/keith-slotter

One generation looked at him as a law-and-order hero. A future generation considered him a police-state scoundrel. Powers' exhaustive book -- all 620 pages of it -- provides some interesting insights into eras that include the Red Scare, Vietnam and the urban unrest experienced in the 1960s.
Some readers will wonder why the author chose to devote one-fourth of the book to Hoover's pre-bureau years. Perhaps it's because Hoover's sheltered upbringing and his enrollment in a racially-exclusive high school shaped his psyche and ultimately set future FBI policies.
It's a revealing read -- even if tedious in spots. ( )