Books about Mobsters from Amazon.com

After reading this intriguing book, a glass of wine will be more than hints of blackberries or truffles on the palate. Written by the author of the popular, award-winning website DrVino.com, Wine Politics exposes a little-known but extremely influential aspect of the wine business--the politics behind it. Tyler Colman systematically explains how politics affects what we can buy, how much it costs, how it tastes, what appears on labels, and more. He offers an insightful comparative view of wine-making in Napa and Bordeaux, tracing the different paths American and French wines take as they travel from vineyard to dining room table. Colman also explores globalization in the wine business and illuminates the role of behind-the-scenes players such as governments, distributors, and prominent critics who wield enormous clout. Throughout, Wine Politics reveals just how deeply politics matters-- right down to the taste of the wine in your glass tonight..
Price: $15.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

From the 1970s through the mid-1980s, the Chicago Outfit dominated organized crime in Las Vegas. Unreported revenue, known as the "skim," from Outfit-controlled casinos made its way out of Vegas by the bagful, ending up in the coffers of the Windy City crime bosses and their confederates around the Midwest. To ensure the smooth flow of cash, the gangsters installed a front man with no criminal background, Allen R. Glick, as the casino owner of record, Frank "Lefty" Rosenthaal as the real boss of casino operations, and Tony Spilotro as the ultimate enforcer, who'd do whatever it took to protect their interests. It wasn't long before Spilotoro, also in charge of Vegas street crime, was known as the "King of the Strip." Federal and local law enforcement, recognizing the need to rid the casinos of the mob and shut down Spilotro's rackets, declared war on organized crime. The Battle for Las Vegas relates the story of the fight between the tough buys on both sides, told in large part by the agents and detectives who knew they had to win..
Price: $14.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

You've met the Italian mob
in The Godfather, now welcome
to the real-life world of Irish
America's own murderous clan
of organized crime

The man who has remained silent for more than a decade finally speaks, revealing the gritty true story of his life inside the infamous South Boston Irish mob led by the elusive, Machiavellian kingpin Whitey Bulger, who to this day remains on the lam as one of the world's Ten Most Wanted criminals, second only to Osama bin Laden.

John "Red" Shea was a top lieutenant in the South Boston Irish mob, rising to this position at the age of twenty-one. Thus began his tutelage under the notorious Irish godfather James "Whitey" Bulger. An ice-cold enforcer with a legendary red-hot temper, Shea was a legend among his Southie peers in the 1980s. From the first delivery truck he robbed at thirteen to the start of his twelve-year federal sentence for drug trafficking at twenty-seven, Shea was a portrait in American crime -- a terror, brutal and ruthlessly ambitious. Drug dealer, loan shark, money launderer, and multimillion-dollar narcotics kingpin, Shea was at the pinnacle of power -- until the feds came knocking and eventually obliterated the legendary mob in a well-orchestrated sweep of arrests, fueled by insider tips to the FBI and DEA.

While Bulger's other top men turned informant to save their own hides, Shea alone kept his code of honor and his mouth shut -- loyalty that earned him a dozen years of hard time even as the man he was protecting turned out to be, himself, a rat. For in the end, in a remarkable show of betrayal, Bulger turned out to be the FBI's "main man" and top informant -- tipping off the feds for decades while still managing to operate one of the most murderous and profitable organized crime outfits of all time.

In Rat Bastards, Shea brings that mysterious world and gritty urban Irish American street culture into sharp focus by telling his own story -- of his fatherless upbringing, his apprenticeship on the tough streets of Southie, and his love affair with trouble, boxing, and then the gangster life. In prose that is refreshingly honest, personal, and surprisingly tender, Shea tells his harrowing, unflinching, and unapologetic story. A man who did the crime, did the time, and held fast to the Irish code of silence, which he was raised to follow at any cost, Shea remains a man of honor and in doing so has become a living legend. One of the last of a dying breed, a true stand-up guy.

Shea expects no forgiveness and makes no excuses for the life he chose. His story is intense, compelling, and in your face.

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Price: $6.19 [Notify me when price goes down.]

From burglary to armed robbery and murder, infamous bad guy Frank Cullotta not only did it all, in Cullotta he admits to it -- and in graphic detail. This no-holds-barred biography chronicles the life of a career criminal who started out as a thug on the streets of Chicago and became a trusted lieutenant in Tony Spilotro's gang of organized lawbreakers in Las Vegas. Cullotta's was a world of high-profile heists, street muscle, and information -- lots of it -- about many of the FBI's most wanted. In the end, that information was his ticket out of crime, as he turned government witness and became one of a handful of mob insiders to enter the Witness Protection Program..
Price: $19.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In the no-holds-barred tradition of The Valachi Papers and Wiseguy, this insider expose of mob boss Sam Giancana, written by his brother Chuck and his godson Sam, blows the lid off some of the Mafia's most shocking secrets. Includes stunning first-time revelations concerning the deaths of JFK, Marilyn Monroe, and RFK. 16 pages of photographs..
Price: $2.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

It's a common complaint in New Jersey: We're not taken seriously New York City is the place of skyscrapers, glitz, and glamour; New Jersey gets mocked as the land of swamps and malls. But there is one area in which our often-overlooked state deserves to be recognized for total supremacy It is second to no place for spectacular corruption and crime.

Notorious New Jersey is the definitive guide to murder, mayhem, the mob, and corruption in the Garden State. With tabloid punch, Jon Blackwell tells riveting accounts of Alexander Hamilton falling mortally wounded on the dueling grounds of Weehawken; Dutch Schultz getting pumped full of lead in the men's room of the Palace Chop House in Newark; and a gang of Islamic terrorists in Jersey City mixing the witch's brew of explosives that became the first bomb to rock the World Trade Center. Along with these dramatic stories are tales of lesser-known oddities, such as the nineteenth-century murderer whose skin was turned into leather souvenirs, and the state senator from Jersey City--David Friedland--who faked his death in a scuba accident in the 1970s in an effort to avoid prison. Blackwell also sheds light on some historical whodunits--was Bruno Hauptmann really guilty of kidnapping the Lindbergh baby? Who was behind the anthrax attacks of 2001? And could Jimmy Hoffa's body really be under the end zone at Giants Stadium? Not forgotten either are notorious characters who may actually be innocent, including Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, and those who have never been convicted of wrongdoing although they left office in scandal, including Robert Torricelli and James McGreevey. Through 100 historic true-crime tales that span over 300 years of history, Blackwell shows readers a side of New Jersey that would make even the Sopranos shudder..
Price: $11.88 [Notify me when price goes down.]

John "Red" Shea, 40, was a top lieutenant in the South Boston Irish mob run, led by James "Whitey" Bulger. An ice–cold enforcer with a red–hot temper, Shea was a legend among his peers in the 1990s South Boston, as much as John Gotti, Bugsy Siegel, and Al Capone were in their time and place. When the actor and producer Mark Wahlberg, raised in nearby Dorchester, learned of a script based on Shea's life circulating in Hollywood, he immediately committed to playing the gangster on screen. A major feature film project is now in development.

From the age of thirteen, when he started robbing delivery trucks, to the age of twenty–seven, when he began serving a twelve–year federal sentence for drug trafficking, Shea was a portrait in American crime – a bantam–weight, red–headed terror, brutal with his fists and deadly with a lead pipe, a baseball bat, or a knife. At fifteen he was selling marijuana . At seventeen he was handling Bulger's cocaine. At eighteen he was loan sharking and laundering Bulger's money. At twenty, initiated into Bulger's inner circle at the point of an Uzi, he was running a multimillion–dollar narcotics operation for his mentor.

RAT BASTARDS was the first–ever, firsthand account of mob life that wasn't told by a rat. Red Shea did his crime, then did his time––and never informed, unlike Henry Hill of Wiseguy, Sammy "The Bull" Gravano of Underboss, and so many others. Holding fast to the code of his upbringing, he remained a man of honor.

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Price: $4.34 [Notify me when price goes down.]

An expose of organised crime and its unholy alliance with world leaders, intelligence agencies, and law enforcement, Double Deal is a 40–year saga told with unflinching honesty by mob insider and former Chicago chief of police Michael Corbitt.

Growing up poor and angry, Michael Corbitt fought his way up the ranks of greasers and street gangs until he attracted the attention of Chicago crime boss Sam Giancana, who placed him on the Willow Springs, Illinois, police force. By the time Corbitt was appointed chief of police, he'd also moved up the Outfit's ranks and was living the high life of a respected mobster.

Corbitt's luck turned when he was indicted on charges of racketeering and conspiracy to commit murder. Although there was a mob contract on his life and he was facing a 20–year jail sentence, he refused to testify against organised crime figures under the witness protection programme, maintaining instead the Mafioso's code of silence – until his release from prison.

Now Corbitt breaks that silence, holding back nothing–including the account of his personal involvement in the brutal murder of the wife of Chicago mob attorney Alan Masters.

Corbitt bares his soul, confessing in graphic – sometimes horrific – detail a life lived as both saint and sinner, a life that moved back and forth between the conflicting worlds of the police officer and the gangster with ease.

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Price: $4.20 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"The Godfather" and "The Sopranos" are the greatest film and dramatic TV series of all time...for a reason. Chicagoans, Bobby Madura and Joey DiBruno explain how mob and mafia movies, despite their violence and criminality, also reflect the values of today's society..
Price: $10.36 [Notify me when price goes down.]