Mafia Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the Gambino Crime Family ANNOTATION
Mafia expert and bestselling author of The Kennedy Contract traces the Gambino family from its arrival to the U.S. in the '20s to the downfall of mob boss John Gotti in 1992. A violent saga of bloodshed and betrayal. Photos. Film rights have been optioned by Lester Persky Productions.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Among the thousands of Italian immigrants to arrive in New York City in the 1920s were the young Carlo Gambino and John Joseph Gotti. One was a rising star in the Sicilian "Honored Society," the other was a poor laborer. While John Joseph Gotti and thousands of poveracci like him plugged away at backbreaking, deadend jobs, slick Sicilian hotshots plunged into the illegal liquor business, setting up stills, warehouses, distribution lines, and trucking companies. They recruited battalions of bootleggers and opened up hundreds of speakeasies all over New York. It was this frenzied competition, writes Davis, that established the foundations for the five Mafia families that to this day run the New York underworld. And the richest and biggest of them all is the Gambino crime family. Davis depicts the deals that went into the creation of this vast enterprise, a mysterious world of blood oaths, shifting alliances, long-lasting feuds, and larger-than-life - or death - personalities: Salvatore Maranzano, the mafioso from the old school who read Caesar in the original Latin; Lucky Luciano, the ruthless young tough who reorganized the underworld in 1931 and gave it the structure it has had for the past sixty years; Albert Anastasia, the "Lord High Executioner," who, with Luciano, ran Murder Incorporated with a cadre of killers on retainer; Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, whose specialty was murder by ice pick; Frank Costello, the "Prime Minister of the Underworld." Mafia Dynasty shows the young John Gotti, raised in poverty, coming to admire the well-dressed, flashy gangsters in his East New York neighborhood, particularly the mighty Albert Anastasia, who was at the height of his power in 1956 when sixteen-year-old Gotti left school. But while Anastasia swaggered through the streets, Carlo Gambino stealthily built an empire of crime and cemented his control of it by Anastasia's barbershop execution. Davis depicts the remarkable reign of "Don Carlo," during which Gambino tentacles r
FROM THE CRITICS
BookList - Thomas Gaughan
For a secret society, there sure are lots of inside stories of La Cosa Nostra. This one, among the best in recent years, is a sweeping account of the growth of the five New York crime families, with a focus on the sprawling empire of Carlo Gambino. Save Al Capone, all the best-known leaders of organized crime--Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Albert Anastasia, Vito Genovese, Frank Costello, and John Gotti--are featured players here. The first half of the book is a lucid, well-crafted account of the evolution of the five families during roughly 50 years, beginning in the 1920s. But Davis bogs down badly with the 1980s, relying on transcriptions of remarkably stupid conversations bugged by the FBI and seemingly interminable accounts of Gotti's courtroom theatrics. It's hard to escape the conclusion that the author's attempt to include Gotti's 1992 conviction robbed him and his editor of the opportunity to polish the text. Still, lots of readers will want to read this one.
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