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Politics and crime merged in Kansas City13 Feb 08 The Mafia and the Machine: The Story of the Kansas City Mob In telling just over a century's worth of history, Hayde did considerably more than merely hit the high points - the Union Station Massacre, point-shaving allegations against the Kansas City Chiefs, the Strawman case, and the shocking assassination of a political boss within a Democratic headquarters. Hayde also provided rich detail on little known events, such as the Election Day riots of the 1920s and 1930s and the River Quay war, without ever allowing his narrative to become bogged down. The result is the most complete picture yet of the Kansas City underworld and of the mutualistic relationship between organized politics and organized crime. Drawing from court testimony, interviews and law enforcement surveillance, Hayde was able to tell plenty of the history through the actual words of the people who made that history. The big names on the seedier side of Kansas City's last century are all to be found within the covers of The Mafia and the Machine: several generations of Pendergasts; loyal machine politician Guy Park; Mafia front men Johnny Lazia and Charlie Binaggio; mobsters Joseph "Scarface" DiGiovanni, James Balestrere, Tano Lococo, Tony Gizzo and the Civellas - "Uncle Nick," "Carl the Cork" and "Tony Ripe." Crimefighters were not neglected. Hayde discussed the efforts of crusading journalists and grassroots organizations and those of investigative agencies from the Kansas City Police Department all the way to the federal bureaus commanded by Harry Anslinger and J. Edgar Hoover. U.S. President Harry Truman, an admitted product of the Pendergast Machine, was handled frankly and fairly by the author. At the back of his book, Hayde kindly provided short biographies of the dozens of individuals who played a prominent role in Kansas City's underworld history. He also included a partial bibliography. As thorough and well crafted as the book is, there are some missing elements. There is no index (click here to acquire a simple index for the book), and the Table of Contents' brief titles often provide little or no clue as to the subject or time period dealt with in individual chapters. Researchers on the topic of Kansas City organized crime could also be frustrated by the lack of notes and the incompleteness of the bibliography. I have just one other critical observation: Hayde might have illuminated further the births of both the local political machine and the criminal society closely related to it by beginning his account at an earlier date. The State of Missouri was on the front lines of the American Civil War and was deeply divided over the issues of slavery, secession, and federal coercion of the South, factors known to have contributed to the rise of late 19th Century outlaw groups such as the James-Younger Gang. This greater context is lacking, as is a feel for how the founding of the Kansas City Mafia related to similar but earlier organizations in other regions. If Hayde had probed back into the political realities of the Civil War era and into the early evolution of the Sicilian criminal society in the U.S., he might have been in a better position to answer the natural question, "Why?" As it stands, The Mafia and the Machine is solid history and interesting reading. | |||||
Finally a new and interesting work related to Luciano29 Nov 07 The Case Against Lucky Luciano: New York's Most Sensational Vice Trial This work reveals the methods used by racketeers, including Luciano and his close underworld allies, to organize and monopolize prostitution in the New York City region. In addition, it sheds new light on the actions of law enforcement and personnel from Special Prosecutor Thomas Dewey's office, some of whom employed exploitive methods similar to those used by the racketeers when dealing with the female witnesses in the case. Finally, it also provides a frank look at the witnesses themselves - prostitutes, madams, drug addicts. Author Ellen Poulsen (who also wrote Don't Call Us Molls: Women of the John Dillinger Gang) probes deeply into the lives and careers of such personalities as "Cokey Flo" Brown, Jennie "the Factory" Fischer and Peggy "Wild" Ventimiglia. While discussing the profound mistreatment of the female subjects, Poulsen keeps her distance and avoids becoming judgmental or preachy. Her objectivity actually serves the subject far better, allowing the numerous offenses against the women to accumulate and develop into condemnation within the mind of the reader. There is also plenty in this book about Luciano, himself, and about colleagues like "Socks" Lanza and "Tommy the Bull" Pennochio. Poulsen explores the working relationships between the gangsters and some of Luciano's later wartime partnership with the United States government. The book itself is well designed. It has an eye-catching cover, an easy-on-the-eyes type and plenty of photographs. Researchers will also be happy to find endnotes and a bibliography. The book also features 12 pages of index, though this could have been more helpful with subentries for the often referred to subjects. (The Luciano entry, for example, references 113 out of the possible 246 pages in the book.) Flaws in this work are few. But some comments unrelated to the trial seem casually researched and very out of place. At one point, Poulsen engages in a summary of American Mafia history and quickly dismisses the traditional (but undocumented) belief that an organization known as Unione Siciliana operated in New York. Poulsen says the organization never existed in New York, and to defend her position, she cites a vague "consensus by experts." She also blankly states that Johnny Torrio and Al Capone conspired on the Chicago murder of Jim Colosimo, a terribly abrupt end for an underworld mystery that has lingered through many decades. It probably would have been better to ignore these peripheral matters. In her core subject matter, Poulsen is on much firmer ground and is far more thoughtful of her steps. The Case Against Lucky Luciano is recommended for those curious about Depression Era organized crime, the plight of the women who - willingly or not - became involved with it, or the careers of Mafia bigshot Charlie Luciano and Special Prosecutor Thomas Dewey. | |||||
An essential reference work, informative and readable09 Sep 07 The Complete Public Enemy Almanac: New Facts and Features on the People, Places, and Events of the Gangster and Outlaw Era, 1920-1940 The book breaks down criminal history into its component parts, dealing with characters and events through the use of individual biographical essays and sprawling chronologies. Every serious outlaw of the period - from Accardo, through Capone, Dillinger and McGurn, to Abner "Longie" Zwillman - is represented. At the same time, the work ties elements together and probes more deeply into causes and effects through an impressive collection of articles on topics such as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, the Castellammarese War, criminal use of the Tommygun, the evolution of investigative techniques, early efforts toward bulletproofing... The Almanac is amply illustrated with photos and other images, many of which have not been available before. A treasure of information awaits those who dig to the back of the book. There will be found a collection of gangster quotes, including the last words of Dutch Schultz; gang membership lists; and a comprehensive, annotated bibliography of Gangster Era books, which itself is worth the price of admission. Casual presentation and an often laid-back writing style provide comfortable cover for this work of genuine scholarship. But there is a negative aspect of that useful mask - a quick flip through the pages could leave an observer questioning the professionalism of the book. Design elements surely would have benefited from closer attention. Much of the book is presented in a loose sans-serif type that seems out of place in a reference work. Tight, serif typestyles appear every now and then without explanation, serving only to highlight the informality of the rest of the text. Article backgrounds and borders are similarly inconsistent. In addition, the nesting of multi-page articles within collections of biographical essays and long chronologies makes sequential reading difficult. (A name index of 37 three-column pages is available as a navigational tool.) On the whole, these few negatives do not detract in any substantial way from the authors' achievement. The Complete Public Enemy Almanac is a must-have for crime historians and a useful and informative guide for the True Crime reader. | |||||
Interesting, readable, generally believable11 May 07 Mafia Allies: The True Story of America's Secret Alliance with the Mob in World War II The excited interest he generates during his well documented discussion of mob-Navy collaboration to secure Atlantic coastal waters and docks fizzles out somewhat as the story moves overseas. While Newark is able to document U.S. and British desires to embrace the Old World Mafia while breaching Hitler's Fortress Europe, the author seems less certain of himself in this area. He relates some accounts of Mafia complicity with Allied forces but then admits his own doubts about them. Newark's myth-busting conclusion is well grounded in fact but anticlimactic. A couple of caveats: Overall, this book is well organized and well executed. It is a solid offering on the subject. | |||||
Some problems but overall a good book06 Apr 07 Gangsters of Harlem Breaking with my usual pattern, I'll discuss the book's negatives before its positives. My inspiration for the change is author Ron Chepesiuk's decision to put his weakest section first, a decision that nearly caused me to toss "Gangsters" aside by Page 25. The book's opening, which deals with the Italian gangsters of East Harlem in the 1900s, contains some inaccuracies and makes some troubling assertions:
Despite these errors and others (which I suspect were the result of Chepesiuk's reliance on some slapped-together mass-market works), the tales of Morello, Lupo, Terranova and Gallucci certainly will appeal to the casual reader. But why Chepesiuk decided to lead off his book with this stuff rather than use bits of it to backfill stories occuring later on remains a mystery. Chepesiuk's division of his chapters into what appear to be arbitrary subsections - some no more than a paragraph or two in length - was bothersome. However, it probably benefits those readers who are intimidated by gray text and reassured by an abundance of places to stop reading and put the book down. Now for the good news. "Gangsters" starts moving with the Harlem Renaissance of the Jazz Age. Tales from this period are easily worth the price of admission. Chepesiuk explores colorful underworld characters like Dutch Schultz, "Mad Dog" Coll and Owen Madden, and renowned entertainers like Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway and Louie Armstrong. The reader is likely to be left wanting more from this exciting and culturally rich era (though some Milton Mezzrow material sounds like it was drawn from a drug-culture website or from Mezzrow's own notoriously unreliable autobiography and is very difficult to accept). Chepesiuk finally hits his stride as he discusses the rise of the African American gangster in Harlem and the various underworld rackets, including the evolution of the drug trade's focus from heroin to marijuana to crack cocaine. He provides detailed biographies of the more noteworthy figures, like Bumpy Johnson and Queenie St. Clair, Frank "Black Caesar" Matthews, "Untouchable" Nicky Barnes, Pee Wee Kirkland and Frank "Super Fly" Lucas. At this point, the author seems more determined than he was earlier to set the historical record straight. He challenges some old legends and "Gangsters of Harlem" becomes a valuable resource. On the whole, "Gangsters" is a well written and entertaining work. I do recommend it... from about Chapter 2 on. | |||||
Biography explores mob's birth in 19th Century New Orleans19 Feb 07 NEWS RELEASE: The American Mafia was born in the Crescent City of the 19th Century and came of age with the 1891 betrayal and murder of gang organizer and financier Joseph P. Macheca, according to a just released Macheca biography. Deep Water: Joseph P. Macheca and the Birth of the American Mafia “Joseph P. Macheca was a major force in the underworld of his day,” Mr. Hunt explained. “But it is important to view his crimes in an appropriate context. Gilded Age New Orleans was very much a wild, frontier town. During our research, we often encountered situations in which no substantial difference could be found between the actions of respected community leaders and the actions of outlaws. On some occasions, the motives and methods of professional law enforcers were indistinguishable from those of lawbreakers. "We believe Macheca, longing for acceptance from the local establishment, allowed political bosses to push him deeper and deeper into underworld conspiracies. When the bosses decided he had become more of a liability than an asset, they simply disposed of him.” Making use of archival records, published and unpublished histories, as well as Macheca family traditions, Deep Water exposes political corruption from antebellum Louisiana through the bloody Reconstruction Era, illustrates the squalor of 19th Century immigrant communities and details the various intrigues and underworld rackets of the period. Deep Water has been positively received by experts in Louisiana history and criminal research. Peter Dale Scott, crime historian and author of numerous works including Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, said, “[Deep Water] will force a reassessment of a famous event in the history of American organized crime.” Louisiana historian Julie Eshelman-Lee described Deep Water as a “brilliant work” and a “wonderful contribution to Louisiana... history.” Crime researcher and author Rick Mattix said Deep Water “shows a marvelous objectivity.” Deep Water has been published by iUniverse, an affiliate of Barnes & Noble. It is available for sale through iUniverse.com and other major booksellers. For information visit the book’s website: www.jpmacheca.com. | |||||
Brasco returns to tie up loose ends30 Jan 07 Donnie Brasco: Unfinished Business I must admit I was skeptical that Pistone could find enough loose ends in the Donnie Brasco story to fill another book. However, while there is some repetition, the ex-agent provides enough new information to keep us very interested. And, frankly, the repetitive parts are quite entertaining - Donnie Brasco's thrilling adventures are worth recalling. The first portion of the book is basically a summary of the Donnie Brasco deep-undercover experience with many of the gaps filled in. Some details apparently had to be kept secret until court cases had been processed. Pistone also takes the opportunity to correct some impressions created by the movie based on his bestseller. He takes issue with some of the sentimental and self-critical Johnny Depp moments in the film. "I never experienced any doubt, uncertainty, or reservation," he writes. "I did not make Lefty [Ruggiero] a Mafia gangster... Lefty and his Mafia underground nation is America's enemy. I was an American FBI agent... In the end, I was proud to bring Lefty to justice, and I'm even more proud of the devastating short- and long-term effects on the Mafia that people have credited, in part, to my work." Pistone recalls for us the criminal activities ("unauthorized by the Bureau") he engaged in while undercover as "Donnie," an associate of the Colombo and Bonanno Crime Families. His admitted crimes include a murder conspiracy, hijacking and a number of other offenses. But Pistone admits he would have gone further in order to protect himself. Underworld associates like Brasco might be called upon by Mafia superiors to perform gang "hits." Pistone decided that, if confronted with a situation in which he had to kill an underworld character or face the certain wrath of the mob, "...the wiseguy would go. I knew the FBI would not stand behind me on something like that. Well, let me call it what it is - murder in the first degree." The situation nearly came up in 1981, first in the murder of the Three Capos (when Bonanno bigshot Joseph Massino nixed Brasco's participation) and then as Brasco was assigned by Bonanno caporegime "Sonny Black" Napolitano to assassinate Bruno Indelicato. Indelicato went into hiding, and Pistone was pulled from his assignment before the nightmare scenario had a chance to develop. The rest of the book is devoted to Pistone's post-Brasco experiences as a courtroom witness against the Mafia. Working with prosecutors, like then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani of New York, he participated in some blockbuster trials, including the Bonanno Family case, the Pizza Connection, the Mafia Commission case, the conviction of Bonanno boss "Big Joey" Massino, and the Mafia Cops trial of 2006. Pistone's description of the trials is anything but bland. He provides compelling and often gory detail, while recounting the defeats of the mob through the past 25 years. Pistone has a different co-author for "Unfinished Business," former Delaware prosecutor Charles Brandt who wrote "I Heard You Paint Houses." However, the writing style - using casual phrasing and rhythms that would be at home in city street corner conversations - remains uniquely Pistone. This is an informative and entertaining book. | |||||
Probing the various ethnic gangs of Detroit's Prohibition Era underworld05 Dec 06 The Violent Years: Prohibition and the Detroit Mobs He discusses the warring factions of the Sicilian Mafia, as well as Polish and Irish ethnic gangs and the predominantly Jewish Purple Gang. He suggests credible causes for underworld conflicts, such as the Giannola-Vitale war, and shares the specifics of gang crimes and underworld hits. Kavieff is not at all stingy with facts, but he still writes efficiently and keeps the story moving quickly - possibly a tad too quickly for a casual reader. The book weighs in at just about 200 pages of easy-to-read type. The Violent Years is a must-read for organized crime historians and those interested in the Motor City's past. | |||||
'Superthief' explores the career of master burglar Phillip Christopher10 Sep 06 "Superthief: A Master Burglar, the Mafia and the Biggest Bank Heist in U.S. History" is the highly engaging and very readable life story of master burglar/drug trafficker Phillip Christopher. Through the frequent use of the first-person, author Rick Porello provides a look inside the mind of a professional criminal. We are treated to the details of Christopher's life -- from his Catholic, blue-collar upbringing in the Collinwood district of Cleveland, Ohio, through his spectacular criminal successes and equally spectacular blunders, to his declining years as an easy target of state and federal law enforcement -- in what is purported to be Christopher's own words. We share Christopher's real-life experiences in family, business, underworld and prison situations. His lengthy and continuing rollercoaster ride through the criminal justice system is particularly educational. Christopher seems to have encountered every unfair advantage and unfair disadvantage built into that system. Due to its frank handling of its subject matter, I suspect this book will cause those who have invested in electronic security systems to lose quite a bit of sleep. The thwarting of alarms, the acquisition of secret allies among security company employees and within local police departments and the prying open of safes and vaults are all discussed in detail. Porello-Christopher stop just short of providing a primer for aspiring safe-crackers. The various elements of the 1972 burglary at the United California Bank in Laguna Niguel, the biggest bank heist in U.S. history, are expertly rendered. Those are the book's positives, but unfortunately they are not the whole story. While I enjoyed Superthief and remain a Rick Porello fan, there are some noticeable flaws in the book. For one, it is difficult to accept many of Christopher's statements as fact. Examples: his Robin Hood-like escapades as a child thief, botched jobs that were always someone else's fault and the high esteem in which mob bosses, union leaders and even prison personnel universally held him. Porello provides little obvious help as we strive to separate the wheat from the chaff. There is rare corroboration in the form of a quote from a girlfriend or a law enforcement officer, but Christopher's story appears to have been left pretty much just as he told it. Another problem stems from Porello's inclusion of the word "Mafia" in the title. Phillip Christopher was never a "made" guy, and the Mafia has a very small, supporting role in the book. Some of the more interesting Mafia episodes of the time/place are tossed in as asides, though Christopher had nothing to do with them. The Mafia remains off in the distance and out of focus. Though Christopher spent a lifetime living this story and Porello spent five years writing it, what lies between the front and back covers seems thin and could have been better crafted. A bit of narration in the middle chapters could have helped drive home the importance of the Laguna Niguel heist. The reader is liable to plow right through it, judging it to be a disappointment. Insight also is lacking. While we are thrust inside Christopher's mind, we find little in the way of illumination there. He committed burglaries, he repeatedly tells us, because he wanted a lot of money. (Willie Sutton reborn.) We're dragged along into deceit, infidelity and murder without knowing why. We readers are left in the uncomfortable position of being within the mind of a person we cannot understand and do not like. At the bottom line, this is a good story, entertaining and informative, requiring minimal effort and investment from the reader. It should someday become an exciting movie. However, it falls far short of its considerable potential as a window into the mind of a career criminal. | |||||
'Last Godfather' outlines Massino career14 Mar 06 Just out in paperback, The Last Godfather by Simon Crittle is a fast-moving account of the rise and fall of Bonanno Family boss Joseph Massino. Crittle presents the details of Massino's crimes, rackets and relationships and explains the power wielded by the man known as the "last godfather." Crittle does a fair job of generating and maintaining reader excitement with a near-stream of consciousness writing style. That style, however, could be frustrating for readers looking for sequential history. One of the results of the author's oh-by-the-way and let-me-go-back-to tendencies is a book that frankly doesn't merit even the 256 pages it has been given. There is plenty of repetition (readers might get the impression that Massino was guilty of eighty murders rather than eight). Some excerpts of court testimony are provided. But a few of those fail to illustrate the author's points and come across as mere filler material. For me, the book missed the mark by failing to provide more underworld context. Former Bonanno boss Philip Rastelli, for example, comes across as just another name and isn't given as much attention as the demolition of a couple of gas containers in Maspeth, Queens. While we are told that the Bonanno family is a vast criminal network with affiliate organizations in at least three nations, we are essentially shown just a handful of guys in a couple of old buildings on Long Island. These omissions are not a problem for readers familiar with the mob, and Crittle's book seems to be intended as the latest installment in a series of journalistic accounts of the New York underworld, building on the still-warm bios of John Gotti However, the most frustrating lack of context occurs in the overall theme of the book. From the cover on, Crittle constantly repeats the "last godfather" and "last of the old world gangsters" theme (the mentions call to mind the similarly ridiculous titles of 1981's "The Last Mafioso" and 1988's "The Last Days of the Sicilians"). He doesn't fully explain how Massino was the "last" of anything at all or why we should be interested. Only in the final pages, after acknowledging that Massino already had been replaced by the time the book was written, does he finally come clean: "Time will only tell who'll be the next Last Godfather..." | |||||
Cleveland mob history by super storyteller09 Mar 06 Some long-overdue comments on Rick Porello's Corn Sugar and Blood: The Rise and Fall of the Cleveland Mafia: This isn't the most impressive-looking OC book, and New York/Chicago/LA snobs are likely to dismiss Cleveland as no more than a mob backwater. But "you can't judge a book by its cover," and Ohio was certainly one of the more important regions for American Mafia development. One other thing is undeniably true - Rick Porello can tell a story. This carefully researched 1995 book deals capably and at length with Cleveland-area underworld rackets and conflicts from just before the start of Prohibition through the 1970s. It succinctly (just over 200 pages) chronicles the long mob histories of the Porello and Lonardo clans. My two minor quarrels with this effort are that the author was apparently not interested in Ohio mob developments before the arrival of his ancestors and the Lonardos and that the apparent underworld feud between the two rival clans seems to have been given a quick coat of whitewash. | |||||
Important history, but tough reading09 Mar 06 Two other worthwhile books have received little more than regional attention. They are the two volumes of Celeste A. Morello's Philadelphia history: Book 1 of the set, which deals with the period 1880-1931, was released in 1999. Book 2, 1931-1946, hit the shelves a couple of years later. As a crime historian, I treasure these books. As a reader, however, I was a bit disappointed. Morello appears to be a far better historian/researcher than she is a writer. She apparently had difficulty weaving an overabundance of facts into a coherent story. Accounts of underworld incidents often interrupt other accounts or character descriptions. While those aspects of the books diminish the reading experience somewhat, they barely put a dent in the author's overall achievement. Morello seems to have a rare understanding of the Sicilian psyche and illustrates the importance of old-country rivalries in making sense of underworld conflicts. Due to her willingness to tap into records neglected by other researchers, to her critical eye, and to her grasp of Sicilian tradition, the two volumes of Before Bruno contain a wealth of information that won't be found elsewhere. | |||||
Downey delivers well researched, readable account of NY mob20 Jul 05 In Gangster City (Barricade Books, 2004), Downey sifted through New York's municipal archives in an effort to make sense of the city's criminal history. That he undertook such a project is impressive in itself. That he delivered a coherent and readable book on such an enormous topic is amazing. Gangster City deals with organized crime before, during and just after Prohibition. Without neglecting the popular Mafia characters of the period, Downey gives appropriate weight to other ethnic criminal organizations. "Legs" Diamond, "Mad Dog" Coll, "Killer" Madden and Monk Eastman take their rightful places in Big Apple organized crime history. New York-based readers should enjoy Downey's second appendix. In it, he pinpoints the city locations of major underworld events. The book also features a decent index and sixteen pages of photographs. The book would have benefited from a couple of maps. | |||||
Plenty of data, plenty of semicolons18 Jul 05 John Dickie's Cosa Nostra (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) tracks the Mafia underworld back to Italian unification efforts in the 19th Century. It explores the growing influence of the Sicilian criminal element and its flight overseas in the 1920s to escape Fascism. Dickie notes the reestablishment of Mafia authority in Sicily following the Second World War and describes intergang friction on that island from the 1960s to the present day. Dickie's work is the latest to illustrate England's fascination with the Sicilian Mafia. Though the book's jacket claims it is the "first English language history of the Cosa Nostra," readers of James Fentress's "Rebels and Mafiosi" (which certainly seemed to be in English when I read it a few years ago) will experience some deja vu. The book appears to have been very well researched. The subject matter might be a bit too heavy for the casual reader, and Dickie does not help matters with his academic writing style. If you are fond of short sentences and are fearful of semicolons, this one's probably not for you. The book contains a helpful bibliography, a good index, sixteen pages of photographs and a few maps. | |||||
(Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books, 2008). Author Frank Hayde left no stone unturned as he assembled a comprehensive and readable history of the Kansas City underworld. He neatly tied together generations of political shenanigans by the influential Pendergast political machine and numerous murders and illicit business ventures by the local Sicilian-Italian Mafia organization.
(Little Neck, NY: Clinton Cook, 2007). Finally something new and interesting for the Luciano shelf! The Case Against Lucky Luciano is certainly not another rehashed biography of the oft-discussed crime boss. Expertly written, carefully researched and well considered, it is a detailed analysis of the vice trial that finally put Luciano behind bars. 
(Nashville, TN: Cumberland House, 2007). Authors William J. Helmer and Rick Mattix have produced an extensive and essential reference work on the Gangster Era (1920-1940).
(St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2007). Author Tim Newark establishes himself as an authority on military-underworld cooperation during the Second World War and on the historical context of that unholy alliance.
by Ron Chepesiuk (Barricade Books, 2007). While I have some problems with this book's content and structure, overall, I liked it a lot. It is interesting reading and - at least in parts - a useful historical reference.
, co-authored by an organized crime historian and a Macheca family descendant, challenges the legends of the mob’s earliest days and establishes the facts of the 1890 Hennessy assassination, the 1891 Crescent City lynchings and the underworld’s kinship with corrupt political machines of the period. Building upon a decade of research, authors Thomas Hunt and Martha Macheca Sheldon stitch together the details of Macheca’s life, interests, family and death. They tackle historical misrepresentations of Macheca as a foreign-born Mafioso, proving he was a native Louisianan, a Confederate patriot and a street warrior for the conservative Democratic cause, as well as a cunning and brutal gang leader.
(Philadelphia: Running Press, 2007). Two decades after wowing us with Donnie Brasco-related revelations, former undercover FBI agent Joe Pistone returns to tie up some loose ends.
(Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade Books, 2001). Historian/engineer Paul R. Kavieff handles his complex topic capably and professionally, providing us with a window into an active and influential Detroit underworld often neglected by other writers. The author of "The Purple Gang" broadens his focus for this, his second book, to explain in detail the activities and interrelationships of the Detroit area's significant Prohibition Era criminal organizations.
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