Yeah, I saw those errors. E. 13th and Ave. P is deep in the heart of Flatbush. And Bill Bonanno's Rosalie was Joe Profaci's niece, not his daughter.
The photos are swell. The first one of the Gallo Brothers has Larry looking like Andy Garcia in GFIII.

Homecrest.

Well, la-di-da! I used to live on Elmwood Avenue in Brooklyn, and they called it "Kensington."

So far, the book really sucks. "None of the dialog is made up," sez the author. If you believe that, you believe in the Great Pumpkin and the Tooth Fairy.

From what I remember reading somewhere the author actually took dialog from parts of other books and used it for this book.


Isn't that a form of plagerism?


I'm still enjoying the book though.

Something tells me, by the way that the story is being told and written, that this book just may be the basis for a screenplay for a movie.

That's how I felt, DC. As I posted a few weeks ago, it was written in a really strange style; almost a rant. I certainly could've done without all of the '60s, hipster, beatnik lingo. If you don't already know the basics of the story, then you're much better off with "Joey." And for a more journalistic approach, Selwyn Raab's "Five Families" covers more in ten pages than Folsom's entire book. But there was just something about the book as a whole that I enjoyed. It was very cinematic. I kept seeing the book as a film.

Here's another example of championship writing by Tom Folsom in "The Mad Ones":

"[Carlo Gambino] seemed like a kindly old man, a ruse honed and perfected over centuries in his native Palermo."

Gee, I thought Drac was from Transylvania, not Sicily...

TB, as I advance deeper into the book I realize that you are right. It's getting harder to read. This guy puts dialogue into quotations as if he was sitting right there when some of these 'so called' conversations and events took place! WOW!

Even the way that he describes parts of President Street past is totally inaccurate. I was very familiar with the old President street and the surrounding area, and I can tell you that this guy totally misses the mark. Maybe someone should go and tell Albert " Kid Blast" Gallo that this guy has it all wrong about the Gallos and where they once lived.

The book IS really begining to suck.

I just can't seem to pick this book up and finish it. It's a roller coaster ride in reading! The writer goes from typical mob street talk to what seems like LSD induced dialogue. Some of the quoting that he does is just too detailed to be real. Same with some of the scenerios that he writes about. Just a bit too detailed to be believable.

If he had researched and wrote this book 20 years ago, I would say that it was very possible that he spoke to people who were privey to some of these conversations and scenerios. But I find it extremely hard to believe that there are still enough people around or even alive who could provide him with such detail.

A whole lot of quoting goes on in this book of suppossed conversations that took place, in private, almost 50 years ago! He quotes conversations that took place between people that are no longer alive! Personally I think that his writing, dialogue and scenerios are nothing more than his own made up interpretations of what took place.

At times, the book shows some promise and is interesting, but then the writer goes off on a babbling tandem right in the middle of an interesting part.

Yeah, Crazy Joe was this 'Chic' artistic gangster, but this author just seems to over do it a bit on the 'Chic' part of the Gallo persona.

I thought it sucked--such an obvious work of fiction. And that bombastic style made Nick Tosches seem like a scholar.

The Sixth Family was so much better than this crap.

One NOT to go on the list then eh?

I guess so..

"A Guide to Gangsters, Murderers & Weirdos of NYC's Lower East Side"
(ISBN: 978.1.59629.677.0 The History Press.)



Check out book at Amazon.com

Looks like a good read..

I have just finished reading The Butcher anatomy of a Mafia Pyschopath by Philip Carlo it was an excellent read about Mafiosi Tommy Pitera he is alleged to have killed at least 60 people if you liked Gaspipe and the Iceman then you will love this book

Hey guys, does anybody know any good book about the Irish mafia? I've been getting more interested into the Irish side of organized crime and I was looking for some good books on the subject.

BTW- I've been reading murder machine lately and it's fucking amazing. It does an excellent job at showing what the mafia is like in the modern era as opposed to the 1930s/40s/50s. I recommend it to anyone who hasn't already picked it up

If its Irish mob you are after i would recommend "The Westies" by TJ English


Excellent read..

Thanks, I'll be sure to check that one out

No worries, enjoy

I was at Barnes and Noble last night and started flipping through "Underboss," the Sammy Gravano bio. I read it when it came out in '97 and thought it was well written---Peter Maas was a pro---but more than a little bit of a whitewash.

Anyway, last night I'm looking at the publication dates printed on the opening pages and I see that the book is now in it's 30th printing as of 2007. Now those are very respectable numbers. What I found particularly galling was that, as of the last printing in 2007, no one bothered to update the last chapter.

Normally, you might see an "epilogue" for a paperback edition of a non-fiction book. I thought it might mention, you know, how Sammy turned his wife and children into drug dealers while in the program? No, the book still ends with Sammy making a flippant remark about how "I guess God still wants me."

I realize that Maas died in 2001, but I found this irresponsible. Almost like the publishers weren't big enough to admit they gave a book deal to one of the biggest serial killers this side of Charles Manson. Actually, Gravano admits to more murders than Manson and Berkowitz combined.

But what do I know?

Well i think you make a good point PB.

Many books get updated these days so why not Sammy's?

Maybe because he turned into even more of a scumbag after he "left" the mob?

I agree, too. Even though Maas died, the publishers had an obligation to update readers on Da Bull's life precisely because his AZ drug operations generated headlines all around the country--and because it showed him to be even more of a scumbag than most thought. And yes, PB, though I respected Maas as a writer, I did think Maas let him tell his story in ways that somewhat whitewashed him.

Hi everyone!

I've read several mafia books and most of them have been good. However, I hated (with a great passion) "Mafia Princess" by Antoinette Giancana. She was wayyy too jumpy in the whole book. I guess it was hard to like it once I read Double Cross by Chuck Giancana. To me, he was a better writer and less "Oh My God, look at me I'm spoiled". Just my 2cents.

Last night I picked up Mob Cops and Public Enemies by Bryan Burrough at B&N. I've been reading Mob Cops and it's pretty good so far. the only thing I don't like is that when the author writes out the conversations between the people it isn't spaced out and it's all clumped together making it very difficult to keep track of who's saying what. Other than that it is very good so far

Irritating, isn't it? Some authors do that because they think it's "arty" or "authentic"

Yes, it is very fucking irritating. I would be enjoying it so much more if the convo's weren't so painful to read

Hey be careful! She was SC's main squeeze back in 2004 when we were in Chicago!

After reading Drug Lords from Chepusiuk I was really impressed about the Cali Cartel. So I decided to order a new book about this, again Chepusiuk but now the title was 'The bullet or the bribe'. The only book I bought without doing research and I was punished immediately: it's the same book with a different title! What a bummer.

Why is somebody doing that? Same books, different title? Do they want to get more money or something like that? :S

FIRST FAMILY: THE BIRTH OF THE AMERICAN MAFIA, by Mike Dash.

This is one of the very few books on organized crime that's carefully researched, avoids hyperbole, and is written by a qualified historian. Mike Dash covers the birth of the New York Mafia, starting ca. 1890 and ending with the finish of the Castellemmarese War (1931) and the formation of the Commission.

The original NYC Mafiosi were Corleonese, who maintained close ties with Sicily. Their leader, Giuseppe "The Clutch Hand" Morello, ruled by fear and personal forcefulness. He and his brothers-in-law, Ignazio (the Wolf) Lupo and the Terranova brothers, terrorized Manhattan merchants, levied a $50 charge on every rail car of produce delivered to NYC markets, peddled cocaine and black-handed wealthy Italians. For all the violence, murders, mayhem, etc., their rackets didn't amount to much: Dash said they made, together, "only several tens of thousands of dollars" before 1910. A real estate and apartment construction racket they founded went bust in the Panic of 1907. They even worked as migrant laborers in Louisiana for a time. The big hummer was counterfeiting. But, after more than a year of trial and error, they made no more than $50k. The printer they enslaved to work for them ratted them out, and The Clutch Hand and The Wolf did 20 years in Atlanta. Meanwhile all but one of the Terranova brothers were killed by Camorrists in Brooklyn during a bloody war in 1916. When Morello got out, he found four, and later five, competing Mafia families. He had to play second fiddle to a new Don, Joe (The Boss) Masseria. Both of them were killed in the Castellemmarese War. Lupo went right back to extorting merchants, but they no longer feared him. They complained to the police, his parole was revoked, and he died, senile, just 3 weeks after being released from prison the second time. Ciro (the Artichoke King) Terranova, the survivor, died penniless. The Big Bucks were made only after Prohibition went into effect, and even then, Jewish and Irish mobs dominated the trade.

Dash's account is richly detailed and is a worthy complement to Selwyn Raab's "The Five Families." Highly recommended.