Criminals Books - Page 6

Donnie Brasco: Unfinished Business

Joseph D. Pistone, Charles Brandt

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

When FBI Special Agent Joe Pistone began what was supposed to be a six-month operation infiltrating New York’s Bonanno crime family in 1975, he had no idea what was about to happen. Posing as jewel thief “Donnie Brasco,” Pistone would spend the next six years undercover in the Family, witnessing-and sometimes participating in-the Mafia’s gruesome activities while gathering enough evidence to send over 200 gangsters to jail. Pistone told his story in the 1988 book Donnie Brasco-a New York Times bestseller and later a feature film starring Johnny Depp and Al Pacino. But because of pending trials at the time of publication, many details of the alleged crimes were omitted. Now, in Donnie Brasco: Unfinished Business, Pistone for the first time reveals with great detail the horrific deeds of wiseguys Tony Mirra, Lefty Ruggiero, Sonny Black, and the rest of the cold-blooded Bonanno crew. He puts the operation into historical perspective, detailing the timeline of Mafia trials from 1981 through 2005 that crippled the New York City crime family. He also recounts his experiences after the operation, his time on the Hollywood set with Pacino and Depp, and other undercover operations through present day. A tense, thrilling account of the greatest infiltration ever by a federal agent into the most brutal gang of killers in the world, Donnie Brasco: Unfinished Business is the final chapter in the story of a real American hero.

Brutal: The Untold Story of My Life Inside Whitey Bulger's Irish Mob

Kevin Weeks, Phyllis Karas

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 54 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Less Truthful About the "Real" Whitey than Eddie Mac 3 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I'm an Irish-Catholic guy in his 40's who grew up in Boston in the late 60's and 70's. I've read Streeet Soldier and Brutal several times each, and I personally believe much more of what Eddie Mac has to say about the "real" Whitey, as opposed to the relatively reverant tone in which Weeks still speaks of Whitey. Sure, Eddie Mac and Weeks are both equally dangerous sociopaths, and will surely go to Hell (assuming it exists) for all the evil they inflicted on their fellow human beings over the years. Having said that, Weeks still seems to be loyal to Whitey, and probably knows exactly where he is hiding out these days. For that reason, I don't believe a word he says when he defends Whitey against allegations that he was a rapist, a child molester, etc. Eddie Mac definitely gives the reader more insight into what Whitey was really like...and isn't that why we all read these books, anyway?

Editorial Review:

I grew up in the Old Colony housing project in South Boston and became partners with James "Whitey" Bulger, who I always called Jimmy.

Jimmy and I, we were unstoppable. We took what we wanted. And we made people disappear—permanently. We made millions. And if someone ratted us out, we killed him. We were not nice guys.

I found out that Jimmy had been an FBI informant in 1999, and my life was never the same. When the feds finally got me, I was faced with something Jimmy would have killed me for—cooperating with the authorities. I pled guilty to twenty-nine counts, including five murders. I went away for five and a half years.

I was brutally honest on the witness stand, and this book is brutally honest, too; the brutal truth that was never before told. How could it? Only three people could tell the true story. With one on the run and one in jail for life, it falls on me.

The Bloody Countess: Atrocities of Erzsebet Bathory

Valentine Penrose

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Descended from an aristocratic European family, Erzsebet Bathory bore the psychotic aberrations of centuries of intermarriage. From adolescence on, she indulged in sadistic lesbian fantasies, and by middle age, had regressed to a mirror-fixated state of pathological necro-sadism involving witchcraft, torture, blood-drinking, and more. Her 16th century reign of cruelty remains unsurpassed in the annals of mass murder, with the Countess? depredations on the virgin girls of the Carpathians leading to some 650 deaths id her many castles equipped with torture chambers. This is a true, disturbing case history of a female psychopath, a chillingly lyrical account beautifully translated by Alexander Trocchi, evoking the decadent melancholy of doomed, delinquent aristocracy in a dark age of superstition. The book contains an appendix featuring actual transcripts from Bathory’s trial and has inspired many horror movies, such as Hammer’s Countess Dracula.

De Sade did not know of Erzs‚bet Bathory’s existence, but doubtless her atrocities would have roused his most vicious excitement. -- Georges Bataille, The Tears Of Eros

American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate and Beyond

E. Howard Hunt, Greg Aunapu

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Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Startling revelations from the OSS, the CIA, and the Nixon White house

Think you know everything there is to know about the OSS, the Cold War, the CIA, and Watergate? Think again. In American Spy, one of the key figures in postwar international and political espionage tells all. Former OSS and CIA operative and White House staffer E. Howard Hunt takes you into the covert designs of Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon:

• His involvement in the CIA coup in Guatemala in 1954, the Bay of Pigs invasion, and more
• His work with CIA officials such as Allen Dulles and Richard Helms
  His friendship with William F. Buckley Jr., whom Hunt brought into the CIA
• The amazing steps the CIA took to manipulate the media in America and abroad
• The motives behind the break-in at Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office
• Why the White House "plumbers" were formed and what they accomplished
• The truth behind Operation Gemstone, a series of planned black ops activities against Nixon's political enemies
• A minute-by-minute account of the Watergate break-in
• Previously unreleased details of the post-Watergate cover-up

Complete with documentation from audiotape transcripts, handwritten notes, and official documents, American Spy is must reading for anyone who is fascinated by real-life spy tales, high-stakes politics, and, of course, Watergate.

King of the Godfathers: Joseph Massino and the Fall of the Bonanno Crime Family (Pinnacle True Crime)

Anthony DeStefano

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Definitive Bonanno Crime Family Book 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Mr. DeStefano's latest book is the defining work on the Bonanno Crime Family! This book expounds on Mr. DeStefano's meticulous & compelling coverage of the Massino trial, incorporating Joe Massino's early years and rise to power, along with a concise history of the Mafia's major figures.
His years as a respected journalist, have given Mr. DeStefano the ability to lay out the facts with total objectivity, while writing about what is often the basest of human behavior. Deftly, he also weaves in passages which give us insight into the emotional toll paid by those who are inadvertently affected by such a lifestyle.
This riveting book gives readers entree into a secret society which continues to fascinate and affirms why Mr. DeStefano is one of the finest reporters on the beat today.
I look forward to seeing the next organized crime book by this superb writer and mob aficionado!

PS I wonder if a previous reviewer has confused this terrific book with another with a similar name, by a different author?

Editorial Review:

For more than twenty years, Joseph "Big Joey" Massino ran what was called the largest criminal network in the U.S., employing over two hundred and fifty made men and untold numbers of associates. The Bonanno family was responsible for over thirty murders, even killing a dozen of its own members to enforce discipline and settle scores. He would be brought down by Salvatore "Good Looking Sal" Vitale, the underboss who was not only Massino's closest and most trusted friend, but also his brother-in-law. In the end, facing the death penalty and the prospect of leaving his family penniless, Massino started talking to the FBI - the first Mafia Godfather to break the sacred code of omerta, and the end of a centuries-old tradition.

Fred & Rose: The Full Story of Fred and Rose West and the Gloucester House of Horrors

Howard Sounes

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

A Classic True Crime Title from Britain 5 out of 5 stars.
12 of 12 people found this review helpful.

This book is a classic true crime title. The case is extraordinary: an apparently ordinary and pleasant married couple, Fred and Rose West, molest, torture and murder a series of young women and girls -- including their own daughter -- bury the dismembered remains under their house, in the middle of the city of Gloucester, and continue living happily in said house for many years. The author, Sounes, broke the story as a reporter, and this is the big book on the case, which is very well known in England. Absolutely riveting and a big seller ever since published about ten years ago in the UK, though not so well known in the US. It will make your hair curl (if it doesn't already). A classic of the genre alongside Profession of Violence, Helter Skelter, and Killing for Company.

Editorial Review:

This is an account of the serial murders at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, based on interviews with relatives and friends of Fred and Rose West. The author broke the story of the killings in an article in The Sunday Mirror in March 1994.

Bind, Torture, Kill: The Inside Story of BTK, the Serial Killer Next Door

Roy Wenzl, Tim Potter, Hurst Laviana, L. Kelly

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

For thirty-one years, a monster terrorized the residents of Wichita, Kansas. A bloodthirsty serial killer, self-named "BTK"—for "bind them, torture them, kill them"—he slaughtered men, women, and children alike, eluding the police for decades while bragging of his grisly exploits to the media. The nation was shocked when the fiend who was finally apprehended turned out to be Dennis Rader—a friendly neighbor . . . a devoted husband . . . a helpful Boy Scout dad . . . the respected president of his church.

Written by four award-winning crime reporters who covered the story for more than twenty years, Bind, Torture, Kill is the most intimate and complete account of the BTK nightmare told by the people who were there from the beginning. With newly released documents, evidence, and information—and with the full cooperation, for the very first time, of the Wichita Police Department's BTK Task Force—the authors have put all the pieces of the grisly puzzle into place, thanks to their unparalleled access to the families of the killer and his victims.

Finding Freedom: Writings from Death Row

Jarvis Jay Masters

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Escaping from our own prisons 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This book was deeply moving on many levels, but I was especially struck by how Jarvis Masters was able to find freedom possibly the worst situation one could be in, while many of us, with relatively good lives, never question our own imprisionment. We're all in one sort of prison or another. Jarvis was shown a path to his own freedom, and in the true Boddhisatva tradition, he makes that path clear to the rest of us. Jarvis is an inspiration and one hopes that his message will be read by all.

Interesting peek into San Quentin 2 out of 5 stars.
0 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This book was an easy read, and gave me a good sense of what it was like for Masters to go from angry to peaceful in prison. It's not professionally written, but one wouldn't expect it to be. I think it would be interesting to people who study prison psychology, violence, Buddhism and meditation, and/or personal growth and transformation.

Editorial Review:

Finding Freedom is a collection of prison stories - sometimes shocking, sometimes sad, often funny, always immediate-told against a background of extreme violence and aggression, written by a prisoner on death row who has become a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism.

Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War

T.J. Stiles

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 50 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Probably no American outlaw has attracted more attention--much of it flattering--than Jesse James. This revisionist biography by T.J. Stiles delves into the exciting life James led--"a tale of ambushes, gun battles, and daring raids, of narrow escapes, betrayals, and revenge." Yet it also places James within a specific political context, showing why it was possible for this murderous bandit to emerge as a folk hero among Southern sympathizers following the Civil War (in which he fought as a teenager). James is often grouped with famous frontier criminals like Billy the Kidd and Butch Cassidy, but he's best understood as a Southerner who forged partisan alliances in postwar Missouri and promoted himself as a latter-day Robin Hood. Stiles describes James as "a foul-mouthed killer who hated as fiercely as anyone on the planet" and places his life in the context of "the struggle for--or rather, against--black freedom." Stiles's fundamental point about James is as startling as it is convincing: "In his political consciousness and close alliance with a propagandist and power broker, in his efforts to win media attention with his crimes ... Jesse James was a forerunner of the modern terrorist." Tough words, but also deserved. --John J. Miller

The Starker: Big Jack Zelig, the Becker-Rosenthal Case, and the Advent of the Jewish Gangster

Rose Keefe

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Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Selig Harry Lefkowitz, alias Big Jack Zelig, was New York's first great gangster boss. Like many of his pre-Volstead contemporaries, his historical impact has been overshadowed by Al Capone and Murder Inc. He is listed in today's crime anthologies primarily because four members of his gang, along with corrupt cop Charles Becker, died in the electric chair for the July 1912 murder of gambler Herman Rosenthal.

In New York City from 1908 to 1912, however, Zelig inspired admiration and fear, and he was synonymous with the word gangster. New York editor Herbert Bayard Swope recalled that "The Starker (Yiddish for 'Big Boss') threw terror into the heart of the New York underworld like no one has before or since."

Irony and tragedy often join forces, but the way they combined in the Becker-Rosenthal affair is harrowing. Becker's job was to eradicate the Manhattan gangs. Yet the city's most powerful gangster, Jack Zelig, was prepared to testify for him and save him from the electric chair. But when Zelig was murdered before he could take the stand, Becker was consequentially doomed.

The question is, Who ordered Zelig killed -- and why?

The answer is revealed by Rose Keefe, who follows Zelig's story from his childhood in New York's Russian-Jewish slums to his enlistment in the Manhattan gang wars (1905-10) to his ascendancy to the top of the New York underworld. Keefe reveals that Zelig's murder was a political assassination, not retaliation for an alleged robbery, as legend has claimed. For the first time, the truth about who ordered Herman Rosenthal murdered, and why, will be revealed.

Based on dozens of interviews and years of painstaking research, The Starker introduces readers to a story from New York's criminal past that is dazzling in its audacity and criminal in the success of the people responsible for the murders in covering up their own crimes.