Mafia US Treasury Department Bureau of Narcotics.

Got the first published hardcover edition about 3 years ago as a gift. A state by state who's who of wiseguys. The last entry appears to be around 1963. Fast forward to a week ago I see an updated soft cover version which is annotated and some of the individuals who were in the first edition left out of the newer edition. Does anyone know why this was? I've got my theory,
What does everyone think?

This is my first post here. I used to post on Porrello's old board years ago.

Lots of great info that still holds true today in that book.Jerry Capeci lays it down the best he can being an outsider.

"MOTOR CITY MAFIA"-A Century Of Organized Crime In Detroit By:Scott M.Burnstein.
Lots of great info/pics on the past Century Of the Mob In Detroit.
A Must have for people who enjoy reading storys on the Mafia.Storys from the FBI to inside info.

This is brand new. I picked it up at Borders last night and I don't know what to expect. While I've always been fascinated by the mob's stranglehold over the music industry in the mid 20th century, I'm not sure how much Tommy James actually knows about it or what kind of writer he is. Morris Levy, who some say was the prototype for "Hesh" on "The Sopranos," seems to play a big part in the book. I'll let you know.

Just wondering if anybody has read the below book and is it recommended..

Last Testament of Lucky Luciano by Marvin Gosch (Author), Richard Hammer (Author)
Amazon page

Thanks.

It's a whitewash, DeNiro, written by an author handpicked by Luciano. But it's still interesting, in that Luciano allowed himself to be interviewed. I'd call it required reading for a mob buff for that reason alone.

I would echo what PB said. It was the first mob book I read. I picked it up in a used bookstore in college. Great stuff.

One of the interesting things is that it is very much written in Luciano's voice-which is HIGHLY profane and very low class and common-none of the flowery style which Bonnano used. Luciano was a street thug who made good and the book reads like that. The book has none of this nonsensical talk about "honor" or "destiny". Zero.

Of course like anything else there are some things that Charlie Lucky really didn't want to discuss so the book glosses over any murders he may have personally done as a hoodlum on the rise in the teens and twenties. To hear him tell it people just did what he suggested because he was a great organizer and had plenty of team spirit.

In the same vein the book is vague on his involvement in post war narcotics dealings or exactly what (if any) sorts of deals he and/or Vito Genovese may have made with OSS/CIA to spring Luciano, restore Mafia control in Sicily and make sure the "right" people won post war elections. Again, to hear Luciano tell it he constantly argued against narcotics involvement and it was all Vito's idea.

Still the book is quite interesting because again it shows that at the highest levels of the Mafia and organized crime all the stuff about Family hierarchy/separations or Italian/Jew separation isn't always the case.

Adonis, Luciano, Buchalter, Siegel, Lanksy, Genovese, and Anastasia seemed to view themselves as rough equals, with Charlie Lucky just a little more equal than the others. The book contradicts itself often but that's to be expected. Sometimes supposedly Lanksy is prevented from voting because he's Jewish but at other times the final word on something is "The Little Man said so". Go figure...

Thanks for the reply PB/Lilo, This book is on my Amazon wishlist and i've been meaning to buy this book for a while now but its quite expensive..

Thanks again..

The biggest contribution Luciano made to American organized crime is just what you pointed out, Lilo: everybody's equal, Lucky's a bit more. Maranzano's fatal mistake was to declare himself capp di tutti capi. Luciano, who arranged his murder with Lansky, didn't have to--everyone knew he was the top guy. He even appointed Capone to be the "chairman" of the Commission, to try to keep him in line. And, despite being born in Sicily, Luciano was a thoroughly modern American businessman. He accepted help and collaboration with non-Sicilians and even non-Italians if he could make money with them.

UR welcome. Do you have to order from the UK Amazon? Can you do a little price arbitrage by ordering from the US amazon or perhaps the shipping would make it not worth the difference.

The US page shows many different sellers. 28GBP is about $45? US page shows versions for much less than that but of course buyer beware..
US Amazon Last Testament

Absolutely TB. I think the biggest factor in Luciano's relatively avant-garde style was that he came to the US as a child and relatively impoverished while people like Maranzano, Profaci or Bonanno were either more well off or came to America as adults who were pretty set in their ways.

Sounds awesome. I can't believe i haven't read it yet.

Has anyone read the Tommy Pitera book?
I've read Phillips Carlo's Iceman and Gaspipe books (I know the Iceman bullshitted a bit).
Is it worth getting?

I reviewed that book at the top of the previous page (page 14)

Thanks Lilo, sorry I should have read the previous posts.

It sounds like a typical Carlo book

I picked this up over the weekend. I'll be starting it tonight.

Can you please let me know what you think of it as this has been on my wish list for a while..

You'll like that PB.

I'm looking for a Gigante book and to my knowledge none have been written about him. Or I'm looking for a good Genovese Family book, the more recent the better, an autobio, preferably, but a bio would be good, not a summary on the whole family, a made guy. That Lepke book looks great how does it read and where can I get it if its good.

Iceman was a great book I rooted for the guy, the only thing I didn't like about the dude was shooting people over road rage, that was stupid but besides that he was a pretty smart guy.

I read war of the godafathers by Roemer, although it was an interesting story I don't know where he got a lot of his info, he quoted conversations he had know way of knowing, does anybody know if that really happened, I have read many mob books but didn't hear of this going on I thought Joe Bonanno was not the boss of the family at this time, I believe most of it took place after the the Galante assassination.
Also the book written by Sam Giancana brother about Sam was very good.

Roemer's books are HIGHLY fictionalized.

Trouble is due to Kuklinski's bullshitting in later life its hard to tell fact from fiction!
It was an enjoyable read though.
I'd like to think the part about him killing the 2 gay guys he caught raping a teenage boy was true but I doubt it was!

You rooted for a guy who claimed to have murdered dozens of people?

Anyone ever read the Cola Gentile biography?

GET CAPONE!

Al Capone was one of the very few gangsters to have competent biographers (three in his case). This new book, by Jonathan Eig, a reporter for the NYTimes, isn’t one of them:

“Get Capone,” which begins with Snorky’s arrival in Chicago, is a curious mixture of details (many gleaned from FBI files gathered under the Freedom of Information Act) and even more omissions. For instance, he short-shrifts Dion O’Banion, who was Torrio and Capone’s most dangerous rival in the early days, and overemphasizes Hymie Weiss, O’Banion’s short-lived successor. He makes no mention of Torrio/Capone’s alliance with, and then war on, the Gennas—all important stuff on Capone’s way up.

Eig’s relentlessly breezy and flippant writing style makes it hard to take his book seriously. For example, he notes that Capone personally murdered Joe Howard, a smalltime hood, because he slapped around Jack Guzik, whom he describes as “Torrio’s bookkeeper.” Only later does he acknowledge that Guzik was The Outfit’s second in command and chief political bagman. And he never mentions that Guzik was Capone’s mentor when he arrived in Chicago, his inseparable friend, and he ran The Outfit with Frank Nitti while Capone was in Alcatraz. That relationship, not just “bookkeeper,” would explain why Capone put it all on the line for Guzik. Similarly, Eig correctly notes that Capone wasn’t a Mafioso, or The Outfit a Mafia family. Later he describes the 1929 Atlantic City gangster convention as “the first meeting of the Commission” [!] and the attendees—more than half of whom were Jewish—as “Mafia men.”

Eig also advances three far-fetched, and poorly supported, theories:

--Capone had nothing to do with the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. He says the most likely explanation is that William (Three-Finger) White, a tough hood, did it in revenge for the Bugs Moran mob’s fatal shooting of his cousin more than a year earlier. Eig never mentions that White was one of Capone’s triggermen, even though one of the photos in the book shows White with Capone and Capone’s lawyer. (BTW: One of the book’s strong points is that it has quite of few photos of Capone, his family and associates that I’ve never seen before.)
--Capone didn’t baseball-bat Albert Anselmi, John Scalesi and Joe (Hop Toad) Giunta—they were killed by the remnants of the Moran gang in revenge for the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (this after telling us that Capone—and, presumably his top killers, Anselmi and Scalesi, had nothing to do with the Massacre).
--Capone didn’t arrange for his own arrest in Philadelphia and incarceration after the ‘29 gangster convention in AC—he was arrested, unwillingly, by diligent Philly cops who tracked him to a movie theater and caught him red-handed with an unregistered handgun. Eig, who put much detail into describing how effectively Capone managed to avoid prison on multiple charges previously, notes that less than 24 hours elapsed between Snorky’s arrest, conviction and imprisonment on the gun charge. Given his legal muscle and money, why would Capone fold up so quickly—unless, as his other biographers wrote, he had been “advised” by the other gangsters in AC and his political allies in Chicago to take a furlough until things cooled down.
Eig also notes that Eliot Ness was a blowhard and publicity hound who made no dent in Capone, and that Elmer Irey, of the Internal Revenue Service, was largely responsible for his demise. All of that has been covered before. Save your money.

I just finished it last night, TB, and I couldn't agree more. The book stunk. I was particularly disappointed because Eig did such a nice job with the Lou Gehrig bio. Maybe he should stick to sports figures. Particularly galling was Eig's description of Guzik as a Johnny Torrio flunky. Like he wasn't the second biggest Chicago gangster of his time!

Trashy, revisionist history. Save your money, folks.

Good to know, thanks TB and PB.

A new book on Lucky Luciano to be released on the 31st Aug 2010 on Amazon.

Lucky Luciano: The Real and the Fake Gangster




Lucky Luciano Book on Amazon

No review on the book though..

PB, TB, that's too bad about the Eig book on Capone. It got a decent review in the NYT. I was going to get it but will pass on it now.

Eig was on Book TV this morning (repeat) and the episode will show again later today. It doesn't look like it's available online yet. I missed it but will watch later if possible to see if there are any critical questions or he addresses some of the issues you raised.
Eig on Book TV