True, true, there always seems a bit of that. I have a tendancy to leaf through 90%
of the books in the true-crime section of a book-shop before actually settling on the
one or two im going to buy.

"I Heard You Paint Houses", i think that's what ill be picking up next, mainly because
i dont have any books dealing mainly with the Bufalino crime family.
One of the things that looked interesting was a list of mobsters purporting to be the
"Mafia Commission". It includes Frank Sheehan and a Jewish dude (i cant remember exactly, is it Rockman?)
Some pretty cool pictures too, of Bufalino and some other well known dudes.

Of course, i can only expect it to have Sheehan's own take on the last 50-odd years of
mob history, which in all likelihood will conflict with the recollections of many other
such mobster "testimonials".
Even books by journalists like Capeci, Anastasia, Raab, Humphries & Lamonth include
there own relevant "truth's" and explanation of events, which can often be at odds with
the claims of other authors, which i find particularly intersesting, trying to deduce
the likliest course of events through the information on hand.
Such, of course, is the nature of the "True" crime "Mob-Lit".

Anyway, i sound like a douch-bag. This is obvious information.
Even so, i love it. After gathering up a trove of books on the NY Families and the
Sicilians, im really after books about the other families now. I read "Last Mafioso"
recently, The Weasel's biography, and self-serving as it was at times, i was enthralled
by all the information on the Outfit and West Coast Families. And of course you cant
go past George Anastasia for books on the Philly Mob, likewise Scott Deitch for the
Florida Family. If anybody can suggest any other "authorities" as such, please
let me know.

Has any-one read "Smaldone" or "Blackhand Strawman" about the Denver and Kansas City
Families respectively? These look pretty interesting. I might have to ebay for them
or some shit; it seems unlikely my local bookstores will stock it for me.

Long post -0 -pardon me.

I can't recommend strongly enough Gus Russo's book "The Outfit" which concerns the Chicago Outfit and associated organizations in the Midwest and California. He also wrote a book "Supermob" which was primarily about Sidney Korshak and other Jewish/Anglo powerbrokers that got their start being backed by the Outfit but branched out to mostly legal concerns. I haven't finished "Supermob" yet. Both books are quite dense, lengthy and extensively sourced.

The interesting thing about "...paint houses" is that you get to see some of the interplay between and among various criminal organizations, politicians, labor and businesses. Someone's formal title may be virtually meaningless as to the actual power they hold and there were some guys that were formal members of one family but did much of their business/socializing with members of another family. Everything was interrelated. There are multiple seats of power. It was a quicker read than "The Outfit" but still quite good. I don't have the book in front of me now and wouldn't want to spoil it but Sheeran's voice really is like listening to what I imagine Al Neri's memoirs would have sounded like. Sheeran evidently wasn't quite a lunatic psycho but he just lacked ANYTHING approaching empathy. Killing didn't bother him. At all.

Notice that Sheeran said he was with Hoffa at the end, but he never actually came right out and said he killed him. Also interesting that the book was published after Sheeran died.

I don't have the book in front of me now but I'm pretty sure that Sheeran claimed to have put two bullets in Hoffa's head. Previously he had only claimed to have helped drive the car away after the deed was done.

I have contrived to obtain myself a copy of "I Heard You Paint Houses". I have just started it this very morning.

Totally drawn into it from the start, i at first *groaned* when the inevitable story of his own life started in Chapter 3.
I was pleasantly surprised to find it was not so boring after all. A few things cracked me up, like his views on masturbation and his earliest sexual experiences.
Or how his father would bet other men money that Frank could beat up their sons, so he could drink the winnings.
And how he see's "Tuxedo Junction" as his "theme-song".

I was, though, shocked by the allegations of attrocities committed by American soldiers under Patton in Sicily, the murder of busloads of prisoners and other awful shit. Call me naive, but not only did i have no knowledge of such, but would not have suspected. I know fucked-up things happen during war but i never would have expected they happened at that particular time & place. I guess i had thought Patton and his troop's to be ...shit, i dont know. More honourable maybe? My naievity (spl?)

And 411 days of combat? He'd seen some shit. Your right, Lilo, you can almost feel the cold indifference of his words when he descibes death & killing. Its a little creepy.

Anyway, im up to Chapter 8, Russel Bufalino, and am digging this book.

- Nothing for nothing, but i was a bit annoyed with the boxing kangaroo anecdote. Call me a bleeding heart, but the guy was punching the shit out of a kangaroo for chrissakes! Probably an old enfeebled one with its foot-claw clipped, brutally trained to "box" and do as commanded. Aahhhrrgghh... sorry, but this got to me a bit. Even though he presents it as a light-hearted story, my modern sensibilities couldnt reconcile such archaic entertainment. Sorry, maybe because im an Aussie, but even if it was a dog or whatever. I was happy that the kangaroo hurt his head at least. Ha.

Still a good book, of course. Russel Bufalino is an interesting man.

Glad you like the book so far, MMD.

Yeah the war time stuff was a little unsettling but the historian Stephen Ambrose talks about similar stuff in his books. For example, after news of the SS led massacre at Malmedy got out, some Allied units didn't take prisoners for a week or so. That extra motivation aside, an officer that's been given an objective to reach by a set time, doesn't want to slow his advance down by taking large numbers of prisoners. And then there's just the basic human element of turning off the kill switch. Someone who just killed your best buddy in the squad runs out of ammo, throws his rifle down and NOW wants to surrender?



But Patton was a strange one..

Aha. Great book. Definitly earns its place in my mob-lit canon. Some interesting stuff, and has added to my understanding of the Teamsters greatly. Heaps of info.

I get the kangaroo thing now, Sheeran using it as a metaphor for being oblivious to certain things that could be harmful
(not realizing that the thumps on the back of his head were from the kangaroo's tail) Still, its a kangaroo for chrissakes.

I thought Sheerans belief in his role in Joe Biden becoming a senator was fascinating.

Its clever the way he describes things, too. He never says "I shot him twice in the back of the head", but uses ambiguous wording, just "he was shot twice in the head". Of course, he had already stated he was there and holding a gun. He did the same thing in his version of the Joey Gallo hit.

Im now onto "Mafia's Greatest Hits" by David H. Jacobs. Nowhere near as good though. I already know all this stuff.

The thing that intrigued me about that book is that Sheeran spent most of his adult life working for men who cheated, stole and robbed folks and used the union to do it. He committed beatings or murders on command to help these people attain their private profits. And yet seemingly without irony he supported unions as being important for the working guy.

True, with utmost conviction. Sheeran was definitly a character, with some decidedly cold
-blooded traits. He is very reverant of both Rosario Bufalino and James R. Hoffa. And
though at first i thought it sounded dubious, after reading the book i have also shifted
to the belief that it was indeed Sheeran who not only killed Hoffa, but Joey Gallo as
well. Not Persico, not Joe Luparelli's "suspects", nor any of the countless theories ive
read in countless mob books. As Mr. Capeci says in "Idiots Guide..", it has that
"ring of truth".

Ive scared up a new book; though as its entirely in relation to Australian O.C
(specifically this country's drug trade and the various syndicates that
have been involved in it over the years) i know its not for everybody; but
for those who might be interested, it definitly make's for a good read.

"SMACK EXPRESS:How Organised Crime Got Hooked On Drugs" by Clive Small and Tom Gilling
(a former policeman & journalist respectively) published 2009, relates the rise and
history of the modern drug trade in Australia. It covers the myriad syndicates involved
over the decades in high-level drug importation, and how they interplayed as force's &
strength's waned and fluctuated.
From the earliest coke & smack-barons of the Sydney and Melbourne brothel's, to the
Anglo-Australian East Coast Criminal Milieu.

It chronicles the Calabrian Mafia's immersion in Australia's marijuana industry
& the later Calabrian connection's to massive ecstasy and cocaine hauls.
The rise of Vietnamese gangs in the Nineties, which saw savage gangs of youth's slashing
& stabbing their way to control of the lucrative heroin rings, the drug's imported
directly from South-East Asia and of a quality that hadn't been seen before on the
East Coast of Australia. The Vietnamese "triads" made the Sydney suburb of Cabramatta
the "Heroin Capital" of Australia, and it was in that suburb that a political
assasination was carried out (the murder of an MP) by Vietnamese criminals, one of very
few in Australia's history.

There is also some interesting information on a woman identified only as "Aunty",
said to be a Colombian woman in her fifties that came to Australia during the '70's
who is also one of Australia's biggest importers of cocaine, claimed to have been
responsible for the importation of approximately a tonne of cocaine about every 18 months
for roughly two decades.

And a ton more information on many more criminals, some more obscure then others.
Australia has definitly became a major drug market in recent years, and this well
researched book offers a breakdown of the industry's Australian end.

There was an assassination of a legislator?
When did this happen?
Were the people responsible caught? Does Australia have the death penalty or life imprisonment?

Did anyone read McMaffia from Mischa Glenny? Interesting book about Maffia's from East Europe. Russian/Oekrain (or how you spell it)/Romania/Albania etc. It explains the origins very well. The economic situations, the transformation to capitalism etc.

Holy Shit, somebody actually read my post. Awesome.
Thank you, Lilo - conversation!

In September of '94, NSW Member of Parliament & Member for the seat of Cabramatta
(sort of similar to senators in the US) John Newman was murdered outside his home.
It was seven years after his death that chief suspect Phuong Ngo was found guilty
of setting up the murder. Ngo, a Vietnamese-Australian political rival to Newman
for the seat of Cabramatta, was found to have links to several local criminals
and criminal groups of Asian extraction, and to have orchestrated the murder in an attempt to ensure
his own chances of political success, and to solidify the allegiences of the drug
gangs who were threatened by Newman and his hardline policies.

Cabramatta is well known for its large Vietnamese community, and at the time of Newman's death,
Vietnamese criminals were playing a large role in Australia's heroin trade; & so by proxy Cabramatta
became the epicentre of the nations heroin culture, due largely in part to a locally formed "Triad" of
Vietnamese youth's that, along with a few offshoot factions, fought tooth & nail for control of distribution networks.
Once the back of these groups was broken by the late 90', times changed & things moved on.

Some info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Newman_(Australian_politician)

One in Four Australians are born overseas. We truly are a migrant country, and Australia's
prosperity is based in a large part on the sweat of the men & women who came to this
country to build a life. Unfortunately, we all know we dont just get the honest,
hardworking migrants, but the dodgy ones as well; as a result, the Anglo-Australian
criminal elements have had to deal with numerous criminal cells even more determined
& dangerous as themselves. Vietnamese were/are but one of many.

The last bloke to be hanged in Australia, if my memory is correct, was one Jason
(or Joseph? I may be wrong) Ryan, sentenced to hang for murder in 1957.
The Death Penalty was abolished in 1973, and despite heated opinions has remained
so. More Australian's have been executed for drug smuggling through South-East Asia
in recent years.

An interesting side note: one Gabe Watson, an Alabama man sentanced to four and a half
years in prison for "unlawfully killing" his recently married wife Christina in 2003,
(long story short - she drowned when the boat they were passengers on left them
scuba-diving in deep-waters off the Australian East Coast - huge news in Australia)
was recently the subject of an extradition request by his State's government to face
trial for her murder in his home country (Americans were said to be furious with the
decisions of the Australian Courts that saw Watson serve only 12 months)
Unless there is a guarantee given that he will not recieve the death penalty if
convicted, the Queensland Government will not comply with the request, keeping with
Australia's opposition to Capital Punishment and refusal to force individuals into
that circumstance.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensla...90609-c17c.html

sorry sorry sorry long post.
i could go on for days, thankfully i wont, eh?

Poor guy, you prolly regret even showing mild interest.

I came this close to picking up McMafia recently M.M.
It actually sounds very cool.

Hmm. In the US if a Senator were murdered-especially by an "immigrant" crime syndicate, there would be calls for a serious crackdown and imposition of the death penalty. Other than the conviction of Ngo were there any other consequences to the particular group that okayed Newman's removal?

Funny thing that. Despite the arrest first of two men for the murder, the charges were thrown out when the judge ruled misconduct on the part of prosecuters. Later, one of these men flipped after cutting a deal with the NSW Crime Commission and named a shooter. There were two trials; the first ended with a hung jury, the second saw Ngo convicted with the other two (the alleged shooter and the man from the first arrests) acquitted. Pretty controversial at the time. Ngo was later sentanced to life in prison, which he is still serving today.

A few years into his sentance though, he was transfered to a "SuperMax" prison, under 24 hour surveillance, and was labelled an influental person within the prison population. Some went on to claim that Ngo actually continued to play a part in politics, though this proved to be untrue.

Some have claimed that he was himself a boss, and despite some heavy allegations regarding his criminal links (some proven) hard evidence suggest's that Ngo was a mid-to-low level criminal and used young Asian gang-members as "hired muscle".
He was heavily involved in illegal casino's and gambling rings and extortion of the Vietnamese community.
As such, the street gangs were able to distance themselves from Ngo's activities, and he bore the brunt of responsiblity.
By the late Nineties, however, increased police attention saw the phenomenon of the Vietnamese street gangs fading out, and trends changed (Lebanese gangs were the next big news story) There are still, of course, Vietnamese criminals, but the vicious street gang heroin rings are much a thing of the past. They are now mainly drug importers, brothel operators and bookmaker/loansharks, operating much more low-key.

Theres some great reports on this subject, if i can just find them ill post links. A really great book to, but i dont own it and (erm..) cant quite remember the title or author...hm.

You know, ive just finished reading "The Sixth Family" by Adrien Humpries and Lee Lamonth. What a great book, the best so far on the subject of the Rizzuto Family & the Canadian Cosa Nostra & other Mafia clans, at least in my opinion. Right up there with "Five Families" by Selwyn Raab, the best tome so far on the subject of the New York Cosa Nostra. These two books, man, how good are they?

Im am going to search out a copy of "The Outfit" by Gus Russo on reccomendation. Hopefully i find a copy as quick as i did "I Heard You Paint Houses".

Hope you like "The Outfit" when you find it. Be interested in your review.

You'll like "The Outfit" for me this is one of my fav Mafia books.

The rise of the Mafia-Martin Short





Just started to read the above book.
This is the first mafia book ive brought in a few months.

Is that book way different from Martin Shorts 'Crime Inc.'?

Not read "Crime Inc" so cant comment on it im afraid.

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