Here are 75 books that The Valachi Papers fans have personally recommended if you like
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I write books and newspaper columns on criminal justice and criminal defense. As an investigator for criminal defense attorneys, I spent years in the jails and prisons of Florida and Georgia interviewing felony defendants—murderers, child molesters, con men, robbers, drug dealers, whores, wife beaters, and shooters for hire. Some were insane; most weren’t. My interest is personal as well as professional. I live in Police Zone 1, the most dangerous area of my city. It’s a place where kids and church ladies can distinguish a Chinese AK from a Glock nine by sound alone. It’s a place where I carry an extra-large can of pepper spray and a combat knife, just to walk the dog!
Maple was the architect of the tactics that allowed the NYPD to lower homicides by 60% in two miraculous years from 1990–1992. This book is easy to read and often funny, which doesn’t obscure Maple’s tactical genius. The story of how a lowly transit cop who fancied suits, vests, bow ties, and homburgs became Assistant Commissioner of Police in New York is astonishing. You can only regret that Maple was never able to use his fake “Gun-Sniffing Dog” ploy to flush suspects with concealed firearms. It was sheer genius.
Former NYPD Deputy Commissioner Jack Maple was a man in a bow tie and homburg--he was also on a mission to revolutionize the way crime is fought: how cops go after crooks, and how they prevent crime in the first place. And he succeeded.
But Maple is not satisfied. In The Crime Fighter, he shows how crime can be attacked all across America. Laced with fascinating, incredible, and often very funny tales of Maple's adventures as a cop, the book is as entertaining as it is informative. Anyone interested in how criminals think and act, and how the police should…
I write books and newspaper columns on criminal justice and criminal defense. As an investigator for criminal defense attorneys, I spent years in the jails and prisons of Florida and Georgia interviewing felony defendants—murderers, child molesters, con men, robbers, drug dealers, whores, wife beaters, and shooters for hire. Some were insane; most weren’t. My interest is personal as well as professional. I live in Police Zone 1, the most dangerous area of my city. It’s a place where kids and church ladies can distinguish a Chinese AK from a Glock nine by sound alone. It’s a place where I carry an extra-large can of pepper spray and a combat knife, just to walk the dog!
This book describes the harum-scarum changes to the NYPD that made possible an astonishing reduction in crime and homicide in a city in the midst of the crack cocaine wars. When Bratton began promoting hotshot cops on merit rather than seniority, half the senior commanders retired in horror. The result? A lot of fat ex-cops retired to Florida and the renaissance of New York City.
When Bill Bratton was sworn in as New York City's police commissioner in 1994, he made what many considered a bold promise: The NYPD would fight crime in every borough...and win. It seemed foolhardy; even everybody knows you can't win the war on crime. But Bratton delivered. In an extraordinary twenty-seven months, serious crime in New York City went down by 33 percent, the murder rate was cut in half--and Bill Bratton was heralded as the most charismatic and respected law enforcement official in America.. In this outspoken account of his news-making career, Bratton reveals how his cutting-edge policing strategies…
I write books and newspaper columns on criminal justice and criminal defense. As an investigator for criminal defense attorneys, I spent years in the jails and prisons of Florida and Georgia interviewing felony defendants—murderers, child molesters, con men, robbers, drug dealers, whores, wife beaters, and shooters for hire. Some were insane; most weren’t. My interest is personal as well as professional. I live in Police Zone 1, the most dangerous area of my city. It’s a place where kids and church ladies can distinguish a Chinese AK from a Glock nine by sound alone. It’s a place where I carry an extra-large can of pepper spray and a combat knife, just to walk the dog!
As chief of the Philadelphia Police Department, Timoney ended the notorious practice of “juking” crime statistics to soothe politicians. For example, if you want to lower the murder rate, just book the killers on “manslaughter! This book is by the third of brilliant cops who reformed the NYPD. Compare what they did in 1990 to the current misrule and chaos in the Big Apple and I can truly say to you, “Read it and weep!”
Born in a rough-and-tumble neighborhood of Dublin, John F. Timoney moved to New York with his family in 1961. Not long after graduating from high school in the Bronx, he entered the New York City Police Department, quickly rising through the ranks to become the youngest four-star chief in the history of that department. Timoney and the rest of the command assembled under Police Commissioner Bill Bratton implemented a number of radical strategies, protocols, and management systems, including CompStat, that led to historic declines in nearly every category of crime. In 1998, Mayor Ed Rendell of Philadelphia hired Timoney as…
I write books and newspaper columns on criminal justice and criminal defense. As an investigator for criminal defense attorneys, I spent years in the jails and prisons of Florida and Georgia interviewing felony defendants—murderers, child molesters, con men, robbers, drug dealers, whores, wife beaters, and shooters for hire. Some were insane; most weren’t. My interest is personal as well as professional. I live in Police Zone 1, the most dangerous area of my city. It’s a place where kids and church ladies can distinguish a Chinese AK from a Glock nine by sound alone. It’s a place where I carry an extra-large can of pepper spray and a combat knife, just to walk the dog!
Bill Bratton had the original insight that crime is a city problem, not just a cop problem. In this book, he discusses how collaboration between city, state, and federal agencies is essential to reduce murder and violent felonies. How easy is it to get government agencies to cooperate? Like herding cats, you say? More like herding rabid lions and tigers. You’re dealing with bureaucrats who imbibed the subtleties of the double and triple cross with their mothers’ milk!
In Collaborate or Perish! former Los Angeles police chief and New York police commissioner William Bratton and Harvard Kennedy School’s Zachary Tumin lay out a field-tested playbook for collaborating across the boundaries of our networked world. Today, when everyone is connected, collaboration is the game changer. Agencies and firms, citizens and groups who can collaborate, Bratton and Tumin argue, will thrive in the networked world; those who can’t are doomed to perish.
No one today is better known around the world for his ability to get citizens, governments, and industries working together to improve the safety of cities than William…
I’ve always loved a good crime drama/suspense thriller novel–the way they keep you glued to the pages, and you think you’ll just sit down for a quick couple of chapters before dinner, and the next thing you realize, it's 12am, and you’re on the last chapter. The depth of the character studies that you get with this genre is the other reason I enjoy it so much, there’s nothing worse than having main characters that are one dimensional and unreachable as a reader. I have always tried to create this kind of character depth and gripping narrative in my own books.
I really liked the way Puzo really nails the intricate plot with his straightforward writing style. He takes you through intricate events that jump around in time, keeping you hooked and on the edge of your seat.
The progression of the characters is another great bit. As a reader, you watch as Michael turns from a war hero with the potential to be a great guy into a ruthless mafia boss, almost as if it were destiny or repercussions for his father’s mistakes.
_________________________________ The classic novel that inspired 'the greatest crime film of all time'
Tyrant, blackmailer, racketeer, murderer - his influence reaches every level of American society. Meet Don Corleone, a friendly man, a just man, a reasonable man. The deadliest lord of the Cosa Nostra. The Godfather.
But no man can stay on top forever, not when he has enemies on both sides of the law. As the ageing Vito Corleone nears the end of a long life of crime, his sons must step up to manage the family business. Sonny Corleone is an old hand, while World War II…
Having grown up in Minnesota, I didn’t even know about the existence of the Mafia until I saw The Godfather! After I moved to New York to work in journalism, I was stunned to see how intertwined mob guys were with every facet of life, from government to entertainment to grocery stores. I became a passionate reader (and now writer) of Mafia history so that I could understand it. I find mob stories endlessly fascinating because of what they reveal about human nature. Organized crime hasn’t gone away, and we ignore it at our peril. I think you'll enjoy these recommendations.
I loved this book because it put me right there in the life, with all the violence, plots, girlfriends, and craziness. Author Nicholas Pileggi is a master of the craft. He drew me in immediately by capturing the voice of Henry Hill; mob associate turned informant.
I learned things I didn’t know–and some things I didn’t want to know–about the life. When I saw Goodfellas, the Martin Scorsese movie based on the book, it all rang true again.
A longtime member of organized crime recounts his criminal career, his involvement in the six-million dollar Lufthansa robbery, and his decision to become a federal witness.
I had the passion to write Necessary Deeds because: 1) as someone who'd spent 20+ years writing novels, dealing with untrustworthy literary agents, and book-doctoring other writers’ novels in order to pay rent, I'd come to know betrayal (“best friend” writers who stole drafts of mine and called them their own, novelists who backstabbed me after I helped them land agents and book contracts, and so on); 2) like many people who lived through the drug-and-alcohol-laced Eighties, I had a long relationship with someone that ended because they cheated on me. So I never doubted that, as I wrote Necessary Deeds, my heart knew well what motivated its characters.
In this case, I saw the film before I read the book, and if I’m going to call myself an honest man, I’d have to say I enjoyed the film more than the book.
Still, the book struck me as a great read because it embraced and portrayed the extraordinary amount of tension an undercover agent deals with 24/7. I mean, when you’re trying to make an arrest undercover, you’re two people at the same time, but you’d better not mess up and let anyone know you are or it’s game over—and very probably, bang-bang, pal, you’re history.
Add to that being undercover for the FBI and you’re guaranteed a high-stakes conundrum. Which is to say, after reading this book, how could I not have had my book’s character working undercover for what he and his partner Jonas refer to as “the Bureau”?
In 1978, the US government waged a war against organised crime. One man was left behind the lines. From 1976 until 1981, Special Agent Pistone lived undercover with the Mafia. Only able to visit his young family once every few months, Pistone - under the alias Donnie Brasco - ate, drank, partied, worked and sometimes killed with the wiseguys. He got so close that his Mafia partner, Lefty Ruggiero, asked him to officiate as best man at his wedding. Pistone's eventual testimony, in such spectacular prosecutions as 'the Pizza Connection' and 'the Mafia Commission' resulted in more than 200 indictments…
Growing up in Brooklyn I heard stories about local mafia figures. Now, as the author of several books that deal with crime, I am passionate about good storytelling. I believe that a novel delving into the world of crime and criminals should be fast-paced and believable. Readers have told me that they give up on a book because, in their words: 1. “It isn’t believable” and 2. “It didn’t draw me in.” God forbid that any of the books I’ve written should fall into either of those categories! The books that I recommend are tops in the genre of The Best Mob Books That Tell It Like It Is.
This is a novel about Italian immigrants struggling to survive in New York City’s Little Italy during the early years of the twentieth century amid the growth of the Black Hand, the precursor to the American mafia. The book is unique in that most of the characters are the author’s actual ancestors and people with whom they had come into contact during that era. Similarly, the grisly central events described in the story all occurred.
It is beautifully written and filled with fascinating historical details. The characters and the descriptions of places and events come alive on the page. Fabiano includes an extensive Glossary of Italian Terms used in the book, as well as a multi-generational family tree. Elizabeth Street makes for very good reading!
Based on true events, Elizabeth Street is a multigenerational saga that opens in an Italian village in the 1900's, and crosses the ocean to New York's Lower East Side. At the heart of the novel is Giovanna, whose family is targeted by the notorious Black Hand-the precursor to the Mafia. Elizabeth Street brings to light a period in history when Italian immigrant neighborhoods lived in fear of Black Hand extortion and violence-a reality that defies the romanticized depiction of the Mafia. Here, the author reveals the merciless terror of the Black Hand-and the impact their crimes had on her family.…
Having grown up in Minnesota, I didn’t even know about the existence of the Mafia until I saw The Godfather! After I moved to New York to work in journalism, I was stunned to see how intertwined mob guys were with every facet of life, from government to entertainment to grocery stores. I became a passionate reader (and now writer) of Mafia history so that I could understand it. I find mob stories endlessly fascinating because of what they reveal about human nature. Organized crime hasn’t gone away, and we ignore it at our peril. I think you'll enjoy these recommendations.
I found myself fascinated by author Louis Ferrante’s comprehensive history of the Mafia, going back to its origins in Sicily. I found it particularly interesting to read Ferrante’s take on certain major events because he was once in the life himself.
Because of his own experiences, he injects a fresh perspective on well-known events. This is the first volume of his planned trilogy, and I can’t wait for the next volume.
The American mafia has long held powerful sway over our collective cultural imagination. But how many of us truly understand how a clandestine Sicilian criminal organisation came to exert its influence over nearly every level of American society?
In BORGATA: RISE OF EMPIRE, former mafia member Louis Ferrante pulls back the curtain on the criminal organisation that transformed America. From the potent political cauldron of nineteenth-century Sicily to American cities such as New Orleans, New York and the gangster's paradise of Las Vegas, Ferrante traces the social, economic and political forces that powered the mafia's unstoppable rise. We follow the…
Having grown up in Minnesota, I didn’t even know about the existence of the Mafia until I saw The Godfather! After I moved to New York to work in journalism, I was stunned to see how intertwined mob guys were with every facet of life, from government to entertainment to grocery stores. I became a passionate reader (and now writer) of Mafia history so that I could understand it. I find mob stories endlessly fascinating because of what they reveal about human nature. Organized crime hasn’t gone away, and we ignore it at our peril. I think you'll enjoy these recommendations.
I read this book about the wily and ruthless Genovese mob boss Chin Gigante in one sitting. Veteran New York reporter Larry McShane’s writing is so fluid that he just carries you through the story. He wisely goes well beyond Chin’s well-known ruse of acting crazy by walking the streets in his bathrobe to fool the cops and explains the life that led up to the crazy act—a satisfying read.
He started out as a professional boxer—until he found his true calling as a ruthless contract killer. Hand-picked by Vito Genovese to run the Genovese Family when Vito was sent to prison, Chin raked in more than $100 million for the Genovese family and routinely ordered the murders of mobsters who violated the Mafia code—including John Gotti. At the height of his power, he controlled an underworld empire of close to three hundred made men, making the Genovese Family the most powerful in the U.S.
And yet Vincent “Chin” Gigante was, to all outside appearances, certifiably crazy.…
