The Butcher, by Phillip Carlo is the story of Bonanno Family member Tommy "Karate" Pitera. Pitera got his nickname because of his interest in Japanese martial arts, cuisine, lifestyle and history. He went to Japan as a teenager and lived there for two years training in martial arts.

Upon return to Brooklyn, the diminutive mobster hooked up with the Bonannos, was formally inducted and became a feared killer.

This should have been a better book. It feels like it was rushed. The author makes a number of presentation mistakes.
There are neither footnotes nor index. There is sloppy use of terms. Pitera is described as a capo but since he doesn't seem to have any other made men in his crew, perhaps he was really just a soldier. There's certainly no description of any promotion. Anthony Spero, Bonnano bigshot, is alternatively described as the Family counselor or underboss-sometimes in the same paragraph. I know that roles were in flux but which one was it? If both, what was changing and how did that impact Pitera?

But the worst flaw in my opinion is the author's use of omniscient third person narrative. At this time Tommy Pitera has not granted Carlo long interviews detailing his thoughts, hopes and fears at various times during his life. Nor (to my knowledge) have his parents, wife, girlfriends, fellow karate students or other intimates spoken on record with Carlo.

So there's really no way for Phillip Carlo to know exactly what Pitera was thinking or why he did what he did. To speak definitively as if you know what's going on in someone else's head is irritating. William Roemer did that in his books but at least he could always fallback on the "informant who I can't reveal" trope. Carlo doesn't have that.

Perhaps realizing that his ability to draw a picture of Pitera is somewhat limited, Carlo spends a great deal of time depicting the DEA agents who would help take Pitera down. However these guys are not really that compelling either.

There's also conflicting/self-serving information that Carlo gets from the DEA. For example it supposedly was a DEA sting alone that took out Vito Genovese with no mention of the oddity of a sitting mob boss meeting with a low level drug courier or Frank Lucas was supplied from the Gambinos and Bonannos with no mention of the Golden Triangle connection.

Carlo's primary source for much of his information is Frank Gangi, a member of Pitera's crew and a man who by his own admission is a alcoholic and junkie who was involved in at least three murders committed with Pitera. This person only sees the light after he gets busted for drunk driving and falls apart. Of course it is just as likely that Gangi and Pitera realized at the same time that Gangi was a weak link and Gangi ran to the police. In any event Gangi is just not a sympathethic figure. At all.

One good thing that this book does however is strip away the fiction that there is any real difference between the Mafia and other so-called street thugs or gangsters. Pitera kills because he's ordered to do so but he also kills because he's annoyed or bored or simply wants what someone else has. His ONLY business seems to be drugs. He's surrounded by lowlifes, junkies and party girls. Other than killing a made man, Pitera doesn't seem to ask or need permission for any of his murders.

Speaking of Pitera, another character tells his wife "He has no friends because he killed them all!". That pretty much sums up Tommy Pitera.

I would give this book 3 out of 5 stars. I would wait to purchase it in paperback version or used.