Book picks similar to
American Mafia by Thomas Reppetto


history
non-fiction
true-crime
nonfiction

Blood and Honor: Inside the Scarfo Mob--The Mafia's Most Violent Family


George Anastasia - 1991
    It is a first-hand account of murder, money, and corruption told by wiseguy-turned-witness Nick Caramandi, whose testimony put Nicky Scarfo and many of his associates behind bars for the rest of their lives.

Mafia Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the Gambino Crime Family


John H. Davis - 1993
    For thirty years they fought a bloody battle for control of New York's underworld to emerge as the nation's richest and most powerful crime family. Now Mafia expert John H. Davis tells their compelling inside story. Here are the chilling details and deceptions that created a vast criminal empire. Here are six decades of the uncontrolled greed and lust for power of such men as Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, Meyer Lansky, Vito Genovese, Albert Anastasia, Carlo Gambino, Paul Castellano, and John Gotti--men for whom murder and betrayal were business as usual. From the Gambinos' powerful stranglehold on New York's construction, garment, and waterfront industries to the government's onslaught against them in the `80s and `90s, Mafia Dynasty takes you into the mysterious world of blood oaths, shifting alliances, and deadly feuds that will hold you riveted from the first page to the last.

Don Carlo: Boss of Bosses


Paul Meskil - 1973
    

Double Cross: The Explosive, Inside Story of the Mobster Who Controlled America


Sam Giancana - 1992
    This book looks at the life of one of America's most notorious gangsters.

Business or Blood: Mafia Boss Vito Rizzuto's Last War


Peter Edwards - 2015
    A master diplomat, he won the respect of rival mafia clans, bikers and street gangs, and criminal business thrived on his turf. His family prospered and his empire grew--until one of North America's true Teflon dons finally lost his veneer. As he watched helplessly from his Colorado prison, the murders of his son and father made international headlines; the killings of his lieutenants and friends filled the pages of Canadian news; and the influence of the 'Ndrangheta, the Calabrian Mafia, spread across Montreal faster than the blood of Rizzuto's crime family. In 2012, Vito Rizzuto emerged from prison, a 66-year-old man who could carefully rebuild his criminal empire or seek bloody revenge and damn the consequences. From the events leading to his imprisonment to his shocking death in December 2013, Business or Blood is the final chapter of Vito's story.From the Hardcover edition.

The Butcher: Anatomy of a Mafia Psychopath


Philip Carlo - 2006
    The Butcher tells the riveting true story of a hit man who loved his work too much—a maniac believed responsible for more than sixty remarkably brutal murders—whom even organized crime’s most cold-blooded assassins feared. Another riveting journey into the darkest corners of the underworld, Carlo’s The Butcher is destined to be a true crime classic alongside Wiseguys by Nicholas Pileggi and Underboss by Peter Maas.

Donnie Brasco


Joseph D. Pistone - 1988
    Pistone carried out the most audacious sting operation ever, working undercover for six years to infiltrate the flamboyant community of mafia soldiers, "connected guys," captains, and godfathers. Now his unforgettable eyewitness account brings to pulsating life the entire world of wiseguys—their code of honor and their treachery, their wives, girlfriends and whores, their lavish spending and dirty dealings.With the drama and suspense of a high-tension thriller, Joseph Pistone reveals every incredible aspect of the jealously guarded world he penetrated...and draws a chilling picture of what the mafia is, does, and means in America today.

Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba & Then Lost it to the Revolution


T.J. English - 2007
    In Havana Nocturne, T.J. English offers a multifaceted true tale of organized crime, political corruption, roaring nightlife, revolution & international conflict that interweaves the dual stories of the Mob in Havana & the event that would overshadow it, the Cuban Revolution.As the Cuban people labored under a violently repressive regime throughout the 50s, Mob leaders Meyer Lansky & Charles "Lucky" Luciano turned their eye to Havana. To them, Cuba was the ultimate dream, the greatest hope for the future of the US Mob in the post-Prohibition years of intensified government crackdowns. But when it came time to make their move, it was Lansky, the brilliant Jewish mobster, who reigned supreme. Having cultivated strong ties with the Cuban government & in particular the brutal dictator Fulgencio Batista, Lansky brought key mobsters to Havana to put his ambitious business plans in motion. Before long, the Mob, with Batista's corrupt government in its pocket, owned the biggest luxury hotels & casinos in Havana, launching an unprecedented tourism boom complete with the most lavish entertainment, the world's biggest celebrities, the most beautiful women & gambling galore. But their dreams collided with those of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara & others who would lead the country's disenfranchised to overthrow their corrupt government & its foreign partners—an epic cultural battle that English captures in all its sexy, decadent, ugly glory. Bringing together long-buried historical information with English's own research in Havana—including interviews with the era's key survivors—Havana Nocturne takes readers back to Cuba in the years when it was a veritable devil's playground for mob leaders. English deftly weaves together the parallel stories of the Havana Mob—featuring notorious criminals such as Santo Trafficante Jr & Albert Anastasia—& Castro's 26th of July Movement in a riveting, up-close look at how the Mob nearly attained its biggest dream in Havana—& how Fidel Castro trumped it all with the revolution.

Lord High Executioner: The Legendary Mafia Boss Albert Anastasia


Frank DiMatteo - 2020
    legend who helped create the modern American Mafia—one body at a time—featuring shocking eyewitness accounts . . . Umberto “Albert” Anastasia was born in Italy at the turn of the century. Five decades later, he would be gunned down in a barber shop in New York City. What happened in the years in between-- and why every crime family had reason to want him dead-- is one of the most brutal and fascinating stories in the history of American organized crime. This in-depth account of the man who became one of the most powerful and homicidal crime bosses of the twentieth century from Mafia insider Frank Dimatteo is the first full-length book to chronicle Anastasia’s bloody rise from fresh-off-the-boat immigrant to founder of the notorious killer’s club Murder, Inc.—featuring never-before-told accounts from those who feared him most . . . They called him “The One Man Army.” “Mad Hatter.” “Lord High Executioner.” Albert Anastasia came to America mean and became a prolific killer. His merciless assassination of Mafia godfather Vincent Mangano is recounted here in chilling first-hand detail. He set the record: the first man in the history of American justice to be charged with four separate murders—and walk free after each one. But in the end, he was the last obstacle in rival Mafia hoodlum Vito Genovese’s dream of becoming the boss of bosses—and paid the ultimate price . . .

Gotti


Jerry Capeci - 1996
    He was also a vicious killer, a ruthless manipulator, a Machiavellian master of intrigue and double cross, and an ardent womanizer, whose rise to the head of America's most powerful crime family was marked by corpses, lies, and betrayals.By using FBI tapes and a host of sources on both sides of the law, star organized crime reporters Jerry Capeci and Gene Mustain tell the whole, true, uncensored story of John Gotti. With scores of fearfully fascinating characters, brutal vignettes of life and death inside the Cosa Nostra, tense courtroom dramas, and ominous answers to the question of how much power Gotti still wields, this is a great gangster story and the definitive account of John Gotti's rise and fall.

When Corruption Was King: How I Helped the Mob Rule Chicago, Then Brought the Outfit Down


Robert Cooley - 2004
    During the 1970s and ‘80s, Cooley bribed judges, juries, and cops to keep his Mob clients out of jail. Paid handsomely for his services, he lived fast and enjoyed the protection of the men he served. Yet, by the end of the ‘90s, without a pending conviction, he became the star witness in nine federal trials that took down the most powerful Mafia family in the history of organized crime. When Corruption Was King is the story of a Mob lawyer turned mole with a million-dollar contract on his head who went back and forth between sin and sainthood—a turbulent youth, a stint on Chicago's police force, law school, and then the inner sanctum of Chicago's wiseguys. He dined with Mob bosses and shared "last suppers" with friends before their gangland executions. In a startling act of conscience, Cooley walked into the office of the U.S. Organized Crime Strike Force and agreed to wear a wire on the very same Mafia overlords who had made him a player. This book, including eight pages of memorable photographs, reveals the personal story behind the federal government's most successful Mafia investigation.

Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America's Hidden Power Brokers


Gus Russo - 2006
    Presenting startling, never-before-seen revelations about such famous members as Jules Stein, Joe Glaser, Ronald Reagan, Lew Wasserman, David Bazelon & John Jacob Factor--as well as infamous, scrupulously low-profile members--Russo pulls the lid off of a half-century of criminal infiltration into American business, politics & society. At the heart of it is Sidney "The Fixer" Korshak, who from the 1940's until his death in the '90s, wasn't only the most powerful lawyer in the world, according to the FBI, but the enigmatic player behind countless 20th century power mergers, political deals & organized crime chicaneries. As the underworld's primary link to the corporate upperworld, his backroom dominance & talent for anonymity will likely never be equaled. As Supermob proves, neither will his story.Cast of charactersPrefaceThe lawyer from LawndaleFrom Lawndale to the Seneca to the underworldBirds of a feather Kaddish for CaliforniaThe future is in real estate"Hell, that's what you had to do in those days to get by"Scenes from Hollywood, part 1Jimmy, Bobby & SidneyForty years in the desert The kingmakers: Paul, Lew & Ronnie in CaliforniaThe new frontier Bistro days "He could never walk away from those people"Scenes from Hollywood, part 2"A sunny place for shady people"Coming under attack From Hoffa to HollywoodFrom Dutch sandwiches to Dutch ReaganAiring dirty laundry & laundering dirty money Pursued by the Fourth Estate The true untouchablesLegacies Appendices: A-Supermob investments/B-Pritzker holdings/C-Ziffren-Greenberg-Genis documentsNotesBibliographyIndex

The Mafia Encyclopedia


Carl Sifakis - 1987
    Written by a veteran crime reporter who knows the turf, The Mafia Encyclopedia is the most complete and up to date source available on this morbidly fascinating subject.'

The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano


Martin A. Gosch - 1975
    Gosch, this powerful inside chronicle is literally the "last testament" of America's most notorious gangster.

Family Secrets: The Case That Crippled the Chicago Mob


Jeff Coen - 2009
    A top mob boss, a reputed consigliere, and other high-profile members of the Chicago Outfit were accused in a total of eighteen gangland killings, revealing organized crime’s ruthless grip on the city throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.            Painting a vivid picture of murder, courtroom drama, family loyalties and disloyalties, journalist Jeff Coen accurately portrays the Chicago Outfit’s cold-blooded--and sometimes incompetent--killers and their crimes in the case that brought them down. In 1998 Frank Calabrese Jr. volunteered to wear a wire to gather evidence against his father, a vicious loan shark who strangled most of his victims with a rope before slitting their throats to ensure they were dead. Frank Jr. went after his uncle Nick as well, a calculating but sometimes bumbling hit man who would become one of the highest-ranking turncoats in mob history, admitting he helped strangle, stab, shoot, and bomb victims who got in the mob’s way, and turning evidence against his brother Frank.            The Chicago courtroom took on the look and feel of a movie set as Chicago’s most colorful mobsters and their equally flamboyant attorneys paraded through and performed: James “Jimmy Light” Marcello, the acting head of the Chicago mob; Joey “the Clown” Lombardo, one of Chicago’s most eccentric mobsters; Paul “the Indian” Schiro; and a former Chicago police officer, Anthony “Twan” Doyle, among others.            Re-creating events from court transcripts, police records, interviews, and notes taken day after day as the story unfolded in court, Coen provides a riveting wide-angle view and one of the best accounts on record of the inner workings of the Chicago syndicate and its control over the city’s streets.