"Little Man" is by Robert Lacey.[/QB][/quote]It must be well written, I've always liked his biographies.[/QB][/QUOTE]
It is, definitely, Liz. One of the problems with trying to do serious research on gangsters is that they aren't the kind of people who leave their collected papers to universities so that people like us here can go in and peruse them. A lot of them were illiterate, and most took the vow of omerta seriously enough not to put anything in print that would incriminate themselves or others. The few (like Joe Bonanno) who wrote autobiographies or cooperated with biographers had more than the usual reasons to sanitize their pasts--Bonanno's book is a good read, but the guy never admits to so much as jaywalking, much less murder and drugs.
Most gangster writers rely on contemporary newspaper accounts, which were notoriously inaccurate and sensationalized. Lacey did his homework, got plenty of people to talk, looked at county records, etc.
One amusing note, if you don't mind: In the Seventies, when Lansky was trying for Israeli citizenship, he cooperated with noted Israeli journalist Uri Dan in an "authorized" biography, no doubt so he could whitewash his past to improve his chances for citizenship (he lost anyway). Dan was captivated by Lansky, who couldn't resist putting him on. For example, Lansky told him that Abner (Longy) Zwillman, New Jersey's biggest gangster of the Prohibition era and beyond, was "a member of my gang when we were kids." That's preposterous: Zwillman was based in Newark, NJ and, before the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels and Washington Bridge were built, it would have taken him over two hours each way to commute from Newark to the Lower East Side of NYC to be in Lansky's gang. Lansky also told Dan that he and Bugsy Siegel were "great pals" of the young Al Capone; that Siegel "sheltered" Capone from a murder rap before Capone went to Chicago, and thereafter, Capone owed Lansky and Siegel, and cooperated with them. B.S.!!! Capone fled to Chicago in 1919--when Bennie Siegel was exactly 13 years old. The first time they met was at the famous gangster convention in Atlantic City in 1929. That meeting was called to warn Capone that violence in Chicago was threatening gangster activity all over the country. As a result, Capone arranged to be arrested on a gun charge in Philadelphia, resulting in a year's stretch in a PA jail so things could cool down.