Bravo/Virginia Sherwood, amazon.comIf you're looking to get your hands on that book made famous by The Real Housewives of New Jersey's vixen Danielle Staub, you'd better be willing to shell out some serious dough.
The out-of-print tome, Cop Without a Badge: The Extraordinary Undercover Life of Kevin Maher, is now selling for upwards of $760!
"Danielle's become a star," author Charles Kipps tells E! News exclusively. "People seem not to be able to get enough. It's really been a real frenzy."
The Bravo series' star is included in the book under her former name, Beverly Ann Merrill. The story is about police informant Kevin Maher, Staub's ex-husband, and details her involvement in a kidnapping and extortion plot.
According to The Smoking Gun, legal documents were filed in U.S. District Court in Miami claiming that she and Daniel Aguilar, a narcotics distributor for a Colombian drug family, "sought to extort a $25,000 ransom from a man whose son they were holding. The captive, Carmen Centolella, was blamed by Merrill and Aguilar for the botched drug deal, which cost them a kilo of cocaine worth about $24,000."
They were arrested, and Merrill was subsequently charged with eight felonies. Instead of potentially living the next few decades in prison, Merrill cut a deal, pleading guilty to one count and vowing to provide "full and complete cooperation" to prosecutors and the FBI.
Kipps' book outlining the tale was released in 1996 and sold about 50,000.
The desire to read Cop Without a Badge is scorching. Expect a long waiting list at the library—the Fairfax Branch Library in Los Angeles reports more than 100 people in line for their four copies. Should you be looking to buy, it's now being sold privately for around $200.
"What's being sold is used books that people have, that they bought back then," he says. "One sold on eBay for $760."
Kipps won't be letting collectors reap all the profits though—a rerelease of the book looks to be down the pipeline.
"It's in the works," he admits to E! News. "I'm not at liberty to tell you when or who, but I've made a deal to have it reissued."
Given the legal halt put on Staub's sex tape, that may be the Housewife's only forthcoming release.