100 books like Wiseguy

Hubert Selby Jr. delivers another dark indictment of life along the outer shores of South Brooklyn, in the form of both this 1978 novel and the grim 2000 film Darren Aronofsky film adaptation (co-written with Selby, with a cameo as prison guard).

The characters of this disturbing drama are as marginalized as the bleak 1970s backdrop they infect. Selby’s prose holds us by the back of the neck as his characters descend down awful spirals of addiction: Sara Goldfarb with her diet pills, and her son Harry, his girlfriend Marion, and his best friend Tyrone, all heroin addicts. Electroconvulsive therapy, reluctant prostitution, and amputation abound, harrowing hallmarks you’d expect from Selby.

For this trip to Coney Island, think more Warriors, less Woody Allen, and buckle up. It’s going to be a spectacularly gruesome ride.

Locations of interest: Coney Island Clam Bar; Brighton Beach Boardwalk; Surf Avenue Second-hand Shops; 3152 Brighton… show more.

Displaying the decaying carcass of post-war South Brooklyn, Hubert Selby Jr. mines a grim industrial wasteland, as bleak as his beleaguered characters imploding across six short stories, each prefaced by a Biblical passage.

A gang mauls a group of soldiers on leave. A transgender woman, abused by a homophobic brother, rejected by a drug dealer, overdoses. Facing a shotgun wedding, a young man abandons his pregnant girlfriend. A sex worker is gang raped to death. A corrupt, closeted union steward is severely beaten after sexually assaulting a boy.

This 1950s South Brooklyn, when the Brooklyn Army Terminal complex and waterfront docks were infested by racketeers and thugs, comes to brutal life because of Selby’s crude prose. That grammar-be-damned style vividly captures Brooklyn life on the docks, factories, and warehouses, as well as its diners, dive bars, and union locals.

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”?

Love to know why this murderous mob masterpiece has yet to make it to film.

This must-have for any True Crime bookshelf is from the dynamic duo of Gene Mustain (author of John Gotti bio) and Jerry Capeci (“Gangland” journalist extraordinaire). It chronicles the blood-soaked rise and demise of the deadly Roy Demeo crew, a gaggle of Gambino grunts a couple of rungs under Captain Nino Gaggi.

It’s an underworld tour of the black-and-blue-collar South Brooklyn rackets, circa 70s and 80s, often through the bloodshot eyes of Dominick Montiglio, Gaggi’s nephew, and bolstered by an avalanche of investigative research. From the innards of a Mafia street crew, to the entrails of an auto-theft ring, to the autopsy of Demeo’s whack-tastic dismemberment routine (a.k,a. “The Gemini Method”), there’s so much to digest, if you can stomach the body count.

Locations of interest: The Gemini Lounge on Flatlands Avenue; Bath Beach (Multiple… show more.

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.

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.

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. 

I loved this book about Meyer Lansky, the financial wizard of the mob because it is so thoroughly researched. Author Robert Lacey draws on firsthand interviews with family members and friends and archival records. His writing is intelligent and insightful.

This book skips the cliches and goes beneath the surface. Lansky emerges as a complicated, and determined and utterly human gangster. It is impossible to understand organized crime without understanding Meyer Lansky.

Malamud isn’t thought of as a crime writer, but this story of a robber who goes to work for the man he robbed as a kind of silent penance is very much a story of crime and punishment, of sin and redemption, and it directly inspired one of my own stories about a killer who winds up working for the mother of the man he killed.

A sad and troubling book, this book is about how even good intentions can lead to bad outcomes and how atonement might never be enough but is still necessary.

Richard Condon shows the mob as a family of degenerates, violent felons who are still human beings who also fall in love. The focus on the novel is how a hit man, looking to embellish his career, dates a big mob guy’s daughter, only to fall in love with another killer who is a woman. She has been hired to kill him but she also is in love with him. Published in 1982 , the novel captures the entanglements of a soap opera with real bite. The movie with Jack Nicholson is also top rate.