Hitman: The Untold Story of Johnny Martorano

Hitman: The Untold Story of Johnny Martorano: Whitey Bulger's Enforcer and the Most Feared Gangster in the Underworld, by Howie Carr. Martin Scorsese's The Departed barely touched on his story. Now radio talk-show sensation, crime reporter, and Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr takes us into the heart of the life of Johnny Martorano.

For two decades, Martorano struck fear into anyone even remotely connected to his world. His partnership with Whitey Bulger and the infamous Winter Hill Gang led to twenty murders... for which Johnny would serve twelve years in prison. Carr also looks at the politicians and FBI agents who aided Johnny and Whitey, and at the flamboyant city of Boston, which Martorano so ruthlessly ruled.

A plethora of paradoxes, Johnny Martorano was Mr. Mom by day and man-about-town by night. Surrounded by fast-living politicians, sports celebrities, and showbiz entertainers, Johnny was charismatically colorful--as charming as he was frightening. After all, he was, in the end... a hitman. Click here for more information or to order or download.

The Iceman: The True Story of a Cold-Blooded Killer

The Iceman: The True Story of a Cold-Blooded Killer, by Anthony Bruno. Smoothly written bio of a lone-wolf executioner for the mob. At home Richard Kuklinski was a dedicated suburban family man. On the street he was the Iceman, a professional hit man and lethal scam artist, a man so heartless he kept one of his victims frozen for over two years to disguise the time of death. His personal body count was over 100, but the police didn't have a clue. THE ICEMAN exposes Kuklinski's murderous double life.

The Ice Man used of cyanide, a car- bomb invention called the "seat of death," and other exotic methods of murder. Cyanide proved to be Kuklinski's favorit: It was quiet and discreet--you could walk by your victim, spray his face with the poison while pretending to sneeze, and he'd be dying even as he crumpled to the sidewalk. Bruno details how Dominick Polifrone, a cop who grew up with the wiseguys in Hackensack, goes undercover and gets in with the cagey Kuklinski. The hit man wants cyanide and a rich Jewish kid to sell coke to, and Polifrone wants to record Kuklinski proposing murders. As cop and killer play cat and mouse, and the bartering goes bad, the danger of Polifrone being shot at any moment is torqued tighter and tighter by Bruno. Finally, Kuklinski is caught and tried: It's determined that he's committed approximately one hundred murders, including that of Roy DeMeo, a killer so dangerous that he intimidated even John Gotti. A fast-paced, suspenseful re-creation of how a vicious killer was run to ground. Download here for just $2.99.

Detroit Mob Confidential

Detroit Mob Confidential, Detroit Mob Confidential explores the history of Detroit's La Cosa Nostra Family, which, in many ways, is the most successful crime family in the United States. Detroit's family has had only 2 Dons, the current boss has served for 30 years and is the longest serving mob Don in America. The documentary consists of interviews with multiple FBI agents and Federal prosecutors as well as several mafia associates from the 1950's and 1960's. Topics such as the Detroit "Combination's" (as the Family is known) infiltration of Las Vegas casinos and their centrality to the dissapearance of Jimmy Hoffa are discussed. The Detroit Family was the first LCN chapter that had members convicted of corruption involving Las Vegas casinos, and has been the target of the FBI's still ongoing Jimmy Hoffa investigation since 1975. The formation of the family during the prohibition era, culminating in the "Crosstown Mob War" of 1930 is covered, as well Detroit Mafia connections to the battles between Ford Motor Company and the UAW in the 1930's and 40's. The Detroit Family's role in the international heroin trade and their ties to the French Connection are discussed as well as various murders the Federal government suspects them of involvment in. Detroit area underworld legends like Tony "Jack" Giacalone and his brother Vito (Billy Jack), Freddy "the Pope" Salem and "the General" Henry Hilf are covered, as well as the Denny Mclain, Alex Karras, and Isiah Thomas gambling investigations. The Mafia's role in controlling the African-American "numbers rackets" is exposed as well as the internal politics and conflicts of the family. In addition to law enforcement and media sources, former associates reflect on the past and their work with Detroit Mafia members in sports gambling and other criminal activities. Several hundred unique and never-seen-before surveillance photographs from Federal law enforcement are used as well as family photos of Don Joe Zerilli on his Grosse Pointe estate. "Detroit Mob Confidential" is the first and only documentary made about America's most secretive, and most succesful Mafia family. Beginning in 1912 and finishing in 2009, "Detroit Mob Confidential" is a must-see DVD for any student of American History, crime buffs, and Detroiters of all ages and backgrounds.

Excellent Cadavers

Excellent Cadavers, directed by Marco Turco. Excellent Cadavers is a documentary about the real Mafia: not the comical hoods of the Sopranos or the tragic warriors of The Godfather, but the historic, violent Sicillian gang that has flourished in Italy and the U.S. for more than a century, leaving bloody havoc in its wake. The focus is not on individual Mafiosi but on the Cosa Nostra as a powerful and amoral coporate entity, intimately emmeshed with Italian business and politics, and, on two brave, unshakeably honest prosecutors, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, who battlled them in the courts for years, winnning hundreds of convictions, before both were assassinated. Sicily is one of the most picturesque of movie locations, and director Marco Turco takes full advantage of that here. One of his main interviewees is the gifted photojournalist Letizia Battaglia, who has recorded the Mafia's violent legacy in Palmero for decades, and uses her searing black-and-white shots evocatively and well. Cadavers is a rich mine of information on a subject about which it is sometimes too easy to be superficial.

Vegas: The City the Mob Made

Vegas: The City the Mob Made, Las Vegas...Sin City...There is no place like it on earth. The adult playground in the Sun... The country s greatest resort city... the gambling capital of the world...A place of casinos...Home of the famous, and infamous Strip. It is a city where for the right price every kind of entertainment is available for everyone and anyone at any time... It is a city that never sleeps. But it is also a uniquely American city...A Western city ... A desert city. The story of Las Vegas is a 20th century tale...A tale that unites the Mob with the Wild West s culture of cowboys, gunslingers, and saloons. Las Vegas reflects the greater American story of freedom, and the American dream of striking it rich...The last place where you can arrive as a nobody and leave as a king.

The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul, and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles

The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul, and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles, by Don Wolfe. In 1946, Elizabeth Short traveled to Hollywood to become famous and see her name up in lights. Instead, the dark-haired beauty became immortalized in the headlines as the "Black Dahlia" when her nude and bisected body was discovered in the weeds of a vacant lot. Despite the efforts of more than four hundred police officers and homicide investigators, the heinous crime was never solved. Now, after endless speculation and false claims, bestselling author Donald H. Wolfe discovers startling new evidence-;buried in the files of the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office for more than half a century.

With the aid of archival photos, news clippings, and investigative reports, Wolfe documents the riveting untold story that names the brutal murderer;the notorious Mafia leader, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel and the motive;an unwanted pregnancy resulting from Short's involvement with the most powerful figure in Los Angeles, Norman Chandler. But Wolfe goes even further to unravel the large-scale cover-up behind the case. Wolfe's extensive research, based on the evidence he discovered in the recently opened LADA files, makes The Black Dahlia Files the authoritative work on the murder that has drawn endless scrutiny but remained unsolved....until now.

Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster

Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster, by T. J. English. Here is the shocking true saga of the Irish American mob, from the mid-nineteenth century all the way to the present day. History shows that the heritage of the Irish American gangster was established in America long before that of the more widely portrayed Italian American mafioso, and has held strong through the modern age. In fact, the highest-ranking organized crime figure on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List -- alongside Osama bin Laden -- is not a wiseguy, a Latin King, or a gangbanging Blood or Crip, but an old-style Irish American mob boss from South Boston.

In Paddy Whacked, bestselling author and organized crime expert T. J. English brings to life nearly two centuries of Irish American gangsterism, which spawned such unforgettable characters as Mike "King Mike" McDonald, Chicago's subterranean godfather; Big Bill Dwyer, New York's most notorious rumrunner during Prohibition; Mickey Featherstone, troubled Vietnam vet turned Westies gang leader from Hell's Kitchen; and James "Whitey" Bulger, the ruthless and untouchable Southie legend. This is an epic story of corrupt politics, wanton murders, gambling empires, notorious brothels, tough women, and hard-drinking pugilists from the underbelly of America's most dangerous cities -- including New York, Boston, New Orleans, Chicago, Kansas City, and Cleveland.

Combining storytelling verve with thorough research and a slew of never-before-published material -- including new interviews with former gang members -- English presents a riveting, seamless cultural history of the Irish American underworld. He offers a brilliant portrait of a people who fought tooth and nail for a better life from the moment they arrived in America, whether it meant taking charge within the realms of law enforcement and politics -- from Tammany Hall to the White House -- or capitalizing on what opportunities they could in the darker world beyond the law. Paddy Whacked is an irresistible tour of the undercarriage of our history -- a ride that stretches from the earliest New York and New Orleans street wars through decades of bootlegging scams, union strikes, gang wars, and FBI investigations ... and along the way deepens our understanding of the American experience.

Why Children Love Dirt

After Capone: The Life And World Of Chicago Mob Boss Frank "the Enforcer" Nitti

After Capone: The Life And World Of Chicago Mob Boss Frank "the Enforcer" Nitti, by Mars Eghigian, Jr. and Frank Nitti. Meticulously combining previously scattered accounts with abundant fresh research, After Capone provides a comprehensive and arousing portrait of underworld boss Frank Nitti and his gang's far-reaching power emanating from Chicago in the 1930s. The last word on the life of the cunning mob boss, his life experiences, the people around him, and organized crime in Chicago after Al Capone, this in-depth analysis, based on many years of research and supported by original sources from state and federal archives, is the definitive reference on Nitti's violent life and times.

After Capone traces Nitti (born Francesco Raffele Nitto—his name was misspelled on early bond and arrest warrants, and the press always seemed to pen him as "Frank Nitti") from his Italian origins and entry and rise in Chicago's underworld mob to his near-fatal shooting by city detectives, his strange death, and the ultimate downfall of those associated with him. In addition to dispelling popular notions as that Nitti followed Capone to Chicago and was Scarface's cousin, author Mars Eghigian provides an all-encompassing view of Nitti's criminal activities, which stretched farther beyond Chicago than those of any other organized crime family until that time. Following Capone's incarceration and his eventual release from prison on income tax charges, Nitti was the driving force that expanded the Chicago mob's operations. Moving away from the illegal booze that was the gang's mainstay during Prohibition, he led the mob into the legitimate distribution of alcohol after repeal, labor union racketeering, and attempts to control illicit gambling from coast to coast.

After Capone is the first book to present the complete, never-before-told story of one of America's leading crime kingpins. A fascinating and chilling account of mob power, it stands as proof that sometimes fact is indeed stranger than fiction. Mars Eghigian Jr. is a veteran organized-crime researcher who has extensively examined archives in Chicago, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and numerous institutions from Iowa to Texas. He has contributed to several published works on Chicago's gangster era and has spoken extensively on gangs and gang members. A former college educator, he currently works in employment development and lives in Belleville, Illinois.

Saving the Planet

Mobsters, Unions, And Feds: The Mafia And the American Labor Movement

Mobsters, Unions, And Feds: The Mafia And the American Labor Movement, by James B. Jacobs. Nowhere in the world has organized crime infiltrated labor as effectively as in the United States. From the early 1930s to the assassination of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa in 1975, the federal government neglected this illicit marriage for most of the twentieth century. Since 1975, the FBI, Department of Justice, and other federal agencies have pursued a relentless battle against labor racketeering in mobbed-up unions all over the country. This struggle continues today. Mobsters, Unions, and Feds is the first book to tell the full story of the relationship between organized crime and organized labor, as well as recent federal efforts to clean up unions. One of America's leading experts on the mafia, James B. Jacobs explains how the Cosa Nostra families first gained a foothold in labor during violent struggles between workers and employers in the early twentieth century, then after Prohibition's repeal, made labor racketeering its top priority. Jacobs also outlines the failure of law enforcement to address the problem, especially the inaction of the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover.

Since Hoover's death and Hoffa's murder, the U.S. Department of Justice has aggressively prosecuted many of the mafia's activities using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) statute. Jacobs places the federal efforts to liberate the unions in the context of this larger war, which has sent hundreds of organized crime members and bosses to prison. There have been some impressive victories--including substantial progress toward liberating the four most racketeer-ridden national unions from the grip of organized crime--but there have been many frustrating defeats in a struggle that continues to this day. The only book to investigate how the mob has distorted American labor history, Mobsters, Unions, and Feds sheds new light on the influence of the mafia in American unions and the extraordinary efforts of law enforcement to erase the shadow that the mob has left on the labor movement.

Organized Crime: A Worldwide Perspective

Organized Crime: A Worldwide Perspective, by Sean Grennan and Marjie Britz. Readers not only gain knowledge concerning the development of organized groups in the United States, but within international boundaries as well. Each group is viewed historically, territorially, economically, and politically in an effort to provide a complete package of all international groups. Each chapter also explores law enforcement inititatives, including history, legislation, and success rate, as well as a discussion of the corruption of authority where applicable. In depth analysis of La Cosa Nostras./Total anaylsis of street organized crime gangs and lack of police response./View of terrorist groups as organized crime narco/terrorists gangs, IRA, Arab groups, etc./Complete anaylsis and review of all ethnic and racial organized crime groups./All chapters include historical backgrounds on all groups. This book would be helpful in the training of members of the law enforcement and/or military community who deal with organized crime groups. It would give the average law enforcement/military officer a more than sufficient amount of information regarding the ongoing, past and present, operations of all organized crime worldwide. Helping them identify gang members in and out of the officer's work environment, making the officers aware of the criminal activities of these groups and how to identify a crime these groups might have committed.

Blood Relations

Blood Relation, by Eric Konigsberg. Growing up in a household that seemed "as generic as midwestern Jews get," author Eric Konigsberg never imagined there was anything remotely mysterious about his family. When he was sent back East for boarding school, however, he learned from an ex-cop groundskeeper that indeed there was: his great-uncle Harold "Kayo" Konigsberg had been a legendary Mafia enforcer, suspected by the F.B.I. of upwards of twenty murders. What Eric Konigsberg had uncovered was a shameful family secret. While his grandfather was a true-life Horatio Alger story -- a son of immigrants who'd become a respected merchant -- the family had long since written off his black-sheep younger brother as all but dead. In fact, "Uncle Heshy" was cooling his heels in prison. Over his family's protests, Konigsberg embarked on a series of visits that inspired the acclaimed New Yorker piece that laid the groundwork for this book.

In Blood Relation, Eric Konigsberg unspools the lurid rise and protracted flight from justice of the notorious criminal in his family, spoken of by prosecutors and associates in superlatives: "smartest hit man," "king of the loan sharks." Over six years, the author uncovered confidential records of J. Edgar Hoover's struggle to bring Kayo to justice and tracked down Kayo's collaborators and the descendants and loved ones of his victims.

In this intriguing and deeply affecting portrait, Konigsberg reveals Kayo as a fascinating, paradoxical character: both brutal and seductive, a cold-blooded killer and larger-than-life con artist who taught himself to read as an adult and served as his own lawyer in two major trials -- to riotous effect. Functioning by turns as his pursuer, jailhouse scribe, and sole link to the rest of the Konigsbergs, the author investigates Kayo's impact on his family and others who crossed his path, brilliantly interweaving the themes of Jewish identity, family dynamics, justice, and postwar American history.

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Zen and the Art of Bowling