The Mafia Rat: A True Story

The Mafia Rat: A True Story

by JimmyBreslin (Author)

Synopsis

He came from the same streets as mob bosses John Gotti and Vito Genovese. Before Scarface, The Godfather or The Sopranos, there was Pulitzer Prize winner Jimmy Breslin, 'the city's steadiest and most accurate chronicler' (Tom Robbins, Village Voice). In The Mafia Rat, Breslin shows us the people and places that defined the Mafia. Here are Sammy 'The Bull' Gravano, Tony Cafe, 'Gaspipe' Casso and, woven throughout, the tale of Burt Kaplan, one of the most devastating turncoats of all time. Breslin's famous station was at the bar of Pep McGuire's alongside Jimmy Burke, who paid with Lufthansa robbery notes and was played by Robert De Niro in Goodfellas. Capturing the moments in which the Mafia was made and broken, Breslin combines the most recent, the most memorable and the long-forgotten stories into a sharp-eyed portrait of the Mob as it lived and breathed in its heyday and as it struggles to survive.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 240
Publisher: Mainstream Publishing
Published: 03 Sep 2009

ISBN 10: 1845964802
ISBN 13: 9781845964801
Book Overview: A streetwise saga of the Mafia's golden era and an account of its current demise by Pulitzer Prize winner Jimmy Breslin

Media Reviews
Offers a tantalising glimpse of the heyday and fall of a crime institution (*****) * Metro *
Just like the steam billowing from a manhole on Broadway, Breslin's prose reeks of New York. His staccato style is well suited to this mug's gallery of Mafia nogoodniks * The Independent *
Breslin's writing, like the Mafia itself, breezily transitions from humorous to horrifying. His storytelling is set to the sweet background music of one of the mob's biggest canaries, Burton Kaplan, as he sings to a grand jury * Publishers Weekly *
Delivers canny anthropological insights into organised crime. . . this book is Jimmy Breslin at his best * New York Times *
Jimmy Breslin still hits the high notes . . . entertaining, insightful and 100 per cent Grade A Breslin -- T. J. English, author of Old Bones and Shallow Graves and The Havana Mob
Author Bio
Jimmy Breslin was born in Jamaica, Queens. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Commentary in 1986. His critically acclaimed books include The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?, The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez, several anthologies and a memoir.