Mob Stories is a collection of short stories from around the United States on organized crime, including events and personalities on both sides of the law. Mob Stories attempts to present a human side. Included is information on the characters that relates to how families were affected by the careers, and in many cases, the demise of its participants. Mob Stories is not a rehash of stories already done. Instead characters and events are given an in depth analysis to further understand their contribution to the history of organized crime. Many stories are appearing in book form for the first time. Several topics were selected because in the past a reader might have had to look at numerous sources to piece together a complete story. Original newspaper articles were used when possible in collecting information that may have been passed over by previous writers.
He was a little-known wiseguy out of Howard Beach, Queens, who blasted his way into the public eye with the assassination of Gambino Family boss Paul Castellano in December 1985, a rubout that’s the stuff of Mafia legend. Ruthless, cunning, and tougher than the streets that produced him, John Gotti seized control of the nation’s most powerful crime family, beat the law on rap after rap, and became an American legend. First published in 1988 and fully revised and updated for this edition, Mob Star traced John Gotti’s spectacular rise and eventual downfall after the betrayal of his closest ally, Salvatore “Sammy Bull” Gravano. At his death, ten years after he was jailed for life and four years after he began battling cancer, John Gotti was still the biggest name in today’s Mafia.
Chris Paciello seemed to have it all. With heartthrob good looks and an A-list roster of clients and friends, he was a South Beach businessman/playboy whose local fame was reaching new heights—until his "wise guy" past came crashing down upon him. When some of Chris's former 'fellas were arrested, they ratted him out to the government. One case in particular—a botched robbery that turned deadly—was a time bomb that would blow the cushy new world Chris created for himself to bits...and propel him straight back to New York City to face justice.
Vince Luca is just like any other high school guy. His best friend, Alex, is trying to score vicariously through him; his brother is a giant pain; and his father keeps bugging him to get motivated. There is just one thing that really sets him apart for other kids-his father happens to be the head of a powerful crime organization. Needless to say, while Vince's family's connections can be handy for certain things (like when teachers are afraid to give him a bad grade), they can put a serious crimp in his dating life. How is he supposed to explain to a girl what his father does for a living? But when Vince meets a girl who finally seems to be worth the trouble, her family turns out to be the biggest problem of all. Because her father is an FBI agent-the one who wants to put his father away for good.
A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of 2021 Family secrets emerge as a best-selling author dives into the history of the mob in small-town America. Best-selling author Russell Shorto, praised for his incisive works of narrative history, never thought to write about his own past. He grew up knowing his grandfather and namesake was a small-town mob boss but maintained an unspoken family vow of silence. Then an elderly relative prodded: You’re a writer—what are you gonna do about the story? Smalltime is a mob story straight out of central casting—but with a difference, for the small-town mob, which stretched from Schenectady to Fresno, is a mostly unknown world. The location is the brawny postwar factory town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The setting is City Cigar, a storefront next to City Hall, behind which Russ and his brother-in-law, “Little Joe,” operate a gambling empire and effectively run the town. Smalltime is a riveting American immigrant story that travels back to Risorgimento Sicily, to the ancient, dusty, hill-town home of Antonino Sciotto, the author’s great-grandfather, who leaves his wife and children in grinding poverty for a new life—and wife—in a Pennsylvania mining town. It’s a tale of Italian Americans living in squalor and prejudice, and of the rise of Russ, who, like thousands of other young men, created a copy of the American establishment that excluded him. Smalltime draws an intimate portrait of a mobster and his wife, sudden riches, and the toll a lawless life takes on one family. But Smalltime is something more. The author enlists his ailing father—Tony, the mobster’s son—as his partner in the search for their troubled patriarch. As secrets are revealed and Tony’s health deteriorates, the book become an urgent and intimate exploration of three generations of the American immigrant experience. Moving, wryly funny, and richly detailed, Smalltime is an irresistible memoir by a masterful writer of historical narrative.
A Crazed Killer He dissolved the bodies of some of his victims in acid and poured them down the sewer. He hung grisly souvenirs on nails in his junkyard. La Costra Nostra Charles Carneglia was a stone-cold killer who fell in with the bloodthirsty John Gotti crew. As the infamous crime family rose to power with their murderous trail of sex, jealousy, greed, and revenge, Carneglia rose with them. Mafia, Madness And Murder This is the horrifying story of a misfit who fit perfectly into the New York mafia. In a harrowing journey inside a ruthless criminal underworld, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Anthony M. DeStefano chronicles one man's life in a world of depraved acts of violence and the horrors that went with being a member of the Gambino family. "Thrilling American crime writing." -Jimmy Breslin on King of the Godfathers Includes 16 Pages of Shocking Photos
Reminiscent of Wiseguy, Mob Boss is a compelling biography from two prominent mob experts recounting the life and times of the first acting boss of an American Mafia family to turn government witness Alfonso "Little Al" D'Arco, the former acting boss of the Luchese organized crime family, was the highest-ranking mobster to ever turn government witness when he flipped in 1991. His decision to flip prompted many others to make the same choice, including John Gotti's top aide, Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, and his testimony sent more than fifty mobsters to prison. In Mob Boss, award-winning news reporters Jerry Capeci and Tom Robbins team up for this unparalleled account of D'Arco's life and the New York mob scene that he embraced for four decades. Until the day he switched sides, D'Arco lived and breathed the old-school gangster lessons he learned growing up in Brooklyn and fine-tuned on the mean streets of Little Italy. But when he learned he was marked to be whacked, D'Arco quit the mob. His defection decimated his crime family and opened a window on mob secrets going back a hundred years. After speaking with D'Arco, the authors reveal unprecedented insights, exposing shocking secrets and troublesome truths about a city where a famous pizza parlor doubled as a Mafia center for multi-million-dollar heroin deals, where hit men carried out murders dressed as women, and where kidnapping a celebrity newsman's son was deemed appropriate revenge for the father's satirical novel. Capeci and Robbins spent hundreds of hours in conversation with D'Arco, and exhausted many hours more fleshing out his stories in this riveting narrative that takes readers behind the famous witness testimony for a comprehensive look at the Mafia in New York City.
What do you do when the law wants you behind bars and the New York crime families want you buried? Surviving the Mob is a cautionary tale of the harsh reality of a criminal, inmate, fugitive, and witness who -- so far -- has lived to tell the tale.
