Too much fiction and inaccuracy in the first half to suit me. The Balsamo-Carpozi book has also been published under the titles Under the Clock and Crime Incorporated . The early chapters were originally a book in themselves, a paperback title issued by Dell in the early 1970s titled Always Kill a Brother and dealing with the supposedly continuous gang war between the Irish "White Hand" and Frankie Yale's Mafia group.

Balsamo, whose grandfather was a Brooklyn Mafioso, has done some fine research (especially on Al Capone's early Brooklyn years) but a lot of the early stuff here is just plain wrong and Carpozi's injection of fictional dialogue kills the book historically. The later chapters are just standard NYC Mob history you can find in any Mafia book.