Of course Pulitzer Prize winner Jimmy Breslin recognized Burton
Kaplan right away as the Mafia witness of the ages. Breslin comes
from the same Queens streets as mob bosses John Gotti and Vito
Genovese. But even they couldn't match Kaplan in crime--and neither
could anybody else.
In his inimitable New York voice, Breslin, "the city's steadiest
and most accurate chronicler" (Tom Robbins, "Village Voice"), gives
us a look through the keyhole at the people and places that define
the mafia--characters like Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, Gaspipe Casso
(named for his weapon of choice), Thomas "Three-Finger Brown"
Lucchese, and Jimmy "The Clam" Eppolito, interwoven with the good
rat himself, Burt Kaplan of Bensonhurst, the star witness in the
recent trial of two New York City detectives indicted for acting as
hit men in eight gangland executions.
Breslin takes us to the old-time hangouts like Pep McGuire's,
the legendary watering hole where reporters and gangsters (all
hailing from the same working-class neighborhoods) rubbed elbows
and traded stories; the dog-fight circles and body dumps at Ozone
Park; and the back room at Midnight Rose's candy store, where
Murder, Inc., hired and fired.
Most compelling of all, Breslin captures the moments in which
the Mafia was made and broken--Breslin was there the night John
Gotti celebrated his acquittal at his Ravenite Social Club on
Mulberry, having bribed his way to inno-cence only to incite the
wrath of the FBI, who would later crush Gotti and others with the
full force of the RICO laws.
As in his unforgettable novel "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot
Straight," Breslin brings together these real-life and
long-forgotten Mafia stories to brilliantly create a sharp-eyed
portrait of the mob as it lived and breathed, as it sounded and
survived.
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