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 They complained to the police, his parole was revoked, and he died, senile, just 3 weeks after being released from prison the second time.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.