I wrote on the mob early in my career as a newspaper reporter, investigating organized crime’s infiltration of politics, unions, and the toxic-waste industry in New Jersey in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, then covering some of the major mob trials in New York during the 1980s (starting with the case depicted in the movie Donnie Brasco). In more recent years, I’ve returned to the subject in two books: The Italian Squad: The True Story of the Immigrant Cops Who Fought the Rise of the Mafia and An Unlikely Union: The Love-Hate Story of New York’s Irish and Italians. I like work that is careful, specific, and presented in a smoothly written narrative.
I wrote
The Italian Squad: The True Story of the Immigrant Cops Who Fought the Rise of the Mafia
The history of organized crime is often subject to exaggeration and outright myth, in part because some of the source material, such as old newspapers, tends to be sensationalized.
For readers who prize accuracy, this scholarly account is the go-to choice. Author David Critchley filled the void in what’s been written about the formative years of the American Mafia, straightening out what was previously known from hyped-up news coverage.
Everything he writes is documented and so specific: a wealth of period photos, and information from a wealth of sources, including court documents and many other government records, such as birth certificates and passport records.
While the later history of the New York Mafia has received extensive attention, what has been conspicuously absent until now is an accurate and conversant review of the formative years of Mafia organizational growth. David Critchley examines the Mafia recruitment process, relations with Mafias in Sicily, the role of non-Sicilians in New York's organized crime Families, kinship connections, the Black Hand, the impact of Prohibition, and allegations that a "new" Mafia was created in 1931. This book will interest historians, criminologists, and anyone fascinated by the American Mafia.
This 2009 book combines thorough, professional historical research with a lively writing style to portray how a group of thugs evolved into America’s first Mafia “family.”
My book focuses on the Italian American detectives who battled this gang for more than 20 years; Mike Dash’s groundbreaking account looks at the flip side of this struggle, the feared Lupo-Morello gang. Dash is especially adept at working with archived documents, such as the daily reports of Secret Service agents from the National Archives. He uses the details well.
Before Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, there was the one-fingered, cunning Giuseppe Morello and his murderous coterie of brothers. Had it not been for Morello, the world may never have heard of 'men of honour', the code of omertaor Mafia wars. This explosive book tells the story of the first family of New York, and how this extended close-knit clan of racketeers and murderers left the backwaters of Sicily to successfully establish themselves as the founding godfathers of the New World.
First Family will explain in thrilling, characterful detail how the American Mafia established itself so successfully. Combining strong narrative…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
As a cub reporter covering Hudson County, New Jersey in the late 1970s, I had to learn quickly about how to investigate mob activity.
This book was invaluable because it detailed how the mob infiltrated legitimate businesses (meat, dairy, liquor, trucking) and unions (the Teamsters pension fund). The late Jonathan Kwitny, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, did a great service with this 1979 book.
This of it as a kind of tax. Every time you buy a pizza, or a hamburger, or new clothes, or use a product that has traveled in a truck, the odds are that you are paying a tribute to one of America's crime families. This book shows that the Mafia, and the larger crime syndicate that it dominates, has control over much of what the public regards as legitimate business. And when the Dons dominate the marketplace, they bring murder, arson, and violence with them.
This is another book that cuts through the hype, helping to define the often sensationalized connections between mafiosi in Italy and the United States.
Historian Salvatore Lupo, a Sicilian, brings a perspective often missing in American books on the Mafia. His meticulous research knocks down the idea that the American Mafia was ever some giant “alien conspiracy” with Sicilian overlords, but it does examine whatever interconnections and parallels exist in real life between the two Mafias.
Much like the Critchley book, this is for those who want the facts, facts, facts. And Italian experts have a lot to contribute to the story of the American Mafia.
A realistic understanding of the mafia must avoid depictions both of a monolithic organization and of localized, isolated groups. Here, renowned historian Salvatore Lupo analyzes the mafia as a network of varied relationships and institutions, the result of a complex cultural and social encounter that was shaped by multiple, diverse environments.
Bernardine's Shanghai Salon
by
Susan Blumberg-Kason,
Meet the Jewish salon host in 1930s Shanghai who brought together Chinese and expats around the arts as civil war erupted and World War II loomed on the horizon.
Bernardine Szold Fritz arrived in Shanghai in 1929 to marry her fourth husband. Only thirty-three years old, she found herself in…
I usually find the informants more interesting to read about than the diehard gangsters because they’re the people in the middle, squeezed from all sides. This fluid account, by two of New York’s best reporters, is a personal favorite. It’s a smoothly told narrative that avoids romanticizing the mob.
A gripping, novelistic biography of the diminutive man behind the big mouth. Reminiscent of Wiseguy and Ice Man, this compelling biography from two prominent mob experts recounts the life and times of Alfonso Little Al D'Arco, the highest-ranking mobster to ever share Mafia secrets when he changed sides in 1991. Although top boss of the Luchese crime family, D'Arco decided to quit the mob after narrowly escaping an assassination attempt. His testimony sent more than fifty mobsters to prison and prompted others to make the same choice.
This book tells the story of an NYPD unit of Italian-born detectives who fought both powerful gangsters and a deeply ingrained prejudice against their own beloved people. Drawing on new primary sources such as private diaries and city, state, and federal documents, this dramatic narrative history follows the Italian Squad across the first two decades of the twentieth century. It carefully strips away the mythology that has always enveloped these nationally celebrated detectives and offers instead a nuanced portrait of brave but flawed men who fought the good fight for their people and their city.
It is 1948 in Berlin. The economy is broken, the currency worthless, and the Russian bear is preparing to swallow its next victim. In the ruins of Hitler's capital, former RAF officers and a woman pilot start an air ambulance company that offers a glimmer of hope. Yet when a…
This book is a literary historical novel. It is set in Britain immediately after World War II, when people – gay, straight, young, and old - are struggling to get back on track with their lives, including their love lives. Because of the turmoil of the times, the number of…
