Audiobook16 hours
Mob Boss: The Life of Little Al D'arco, the Man Who Brought Down the Mafia
Written by Jerry Capeci and Tom Robbins
Narrated by Michael Prichard
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
Alfonso "Little Al" D'Arco, the former acting boss of the Luchese crime family, was the highest-ranking mobster to ever turn government witness when he flipped in 1991. His decision to flip prompted many others to make the same choice, including John Gotti's top aide, Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, and his testimony sent more than fifty mobsters to prison.
In Mob Boss, award-winning news reporters Jerry Capeci and Tom Robbins team up for this unparalleled account of D'Arco's life and the New York mob scene that he embraced for four decades.
Until the day he switched sides, D'Arco lived and breathed the old-school gangster lessons he learned growing up in Brooklyn and fine-tuned on the mean streets of Little Italy. But when he learned he was marked to be whacked, D'Arco quit the mob. His defection decimated his crime family and opened a window on mob secrets going back a hundred years.
After speaking with D'Arco, the authors reveal unprecedented insights, exposing shocking secrets and troublesome truths about a city where a famous pizza parlor doubled as a Mafia center for multi-million-dollar heroin deals, where hit men carried out murders dressed as women, and where kidnapping a celebrity newsman's son was deemed appropriate revenge for the father's satirical novel.
Capeci and Robbins spent hundreds of hours in conversation with D'Arco, and exhausted many hours more fleshing out his stories in this riveting narrative that takes readers behind the famous witness testimony for a comprehensive look at the Mafia in New York City.
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Reviews for Mob Boss
Rating: 4.555555555555555 out of 5 stars
4.5/5
27 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I've read about 20 books about the mafia and this was one of the best. Fast paced, low key and very good story
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5good enuff to keep me listening to finish, mid level mob book id say. not bad not great but a good listen.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Mob Boss by Jerry Capeci and Tom Robbins is an amazing re-telling of what Little Al D'Arco experiences and his knowledge of the Mob. Al D’Arco going to the Government’s side and being witness at many of the trials of Mob Leaders and lower gangsters is responsible for much of the decline of the American Mafia. That was a major breakthrough for the Federal Government. This book will tell you why it happened.The authors spent endless hours of interviewing Al D’Arco. It was very difficult to lay this book down. Now I understand much more than I did before reading this book about the Mob. This book is part biography, history, drama and even a little bit of gruesome comedy. There is a family tree with photos of the major wiseguys in the Luchese family the front of the book that made it easier to follow. Al D’Arco was at a time the acting boss/captain of the family while the boss, Vic Amiso and the underboss, Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso were on the lam. At that time, the five families’ mob families were the Luciano, Costello, Genovese, Anastasia and Luchese families. Mob Boss tells how the different families related to each the other, the old rules and later on the new rules. Learning this makes me want to read more about this underworld crime culture. The biography part of the book tells of Al as a young boy growing up in Little Italy and there are times that Al could have chosen a different life than being a mobster. That is intriguing in itself. Al has a tremendous memory so he knew the details of many of the gang members who were in other family. Throughout the book, we learn about the different personalities and nicknames for the different ones. In the back of this book there is an Afterword which lists the main mob members that Al knew. It also gave what became of them. Just a few of the monikers are “Tommy the Red”, “The Golfer”,”Gaspipe”, “Benny Eggs” and Matty the Horse”. It is so difficult to not tell more of this book. I think if you are interested in how the mob worked, the moss history and an in depth biography of a mob leader, you must read this book. I very highly recommend this book.I received this book from the publishers because of a win on FirstReads but that in no way influenced my thoughts or statements in this review.