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And Never Let Her Go: Thomas Capano: The Deadly Seducer
By Ann Rule. 1999
From the #1 New York Times–bestselling author, the true story of a woman’s disappearance after her affair with a married…
man is a “true page-turner” (Booklist).The author of fifteen New York Times bestsellers, Ann Rule, a former Seattle policewoman, has researched thousands of homicides and understands every facet of murder investigation. Now, in the most shocking book of her long career, she explores the details of a fatal affair between a beautiful young woman and a widely admired millionaire attorney who was an immensely popular political figure.On June 27, 1996, thirty-year-old Anne Marie Fahey, a secretary for the governor of Delaware, had dinner with a married man she had been having a secret affair with for more than two years. “Tommy” Capano, forty-seven, was perhaps the most politically powerful man in Wilmington. Son of a wealthy contractor, former state prosecutor, partner in a prestigious law firm, advisor to governors and mayors, Tom Capano had a soft-spoken and considerate manner that endeared him to many. But sometime after 9:15 that night when Anne Marie and Tom left the restaurant, something terrible happened to Anne Marie. It would be forty-eight hours before her brothers and sisters realized that she had disappeared entirely.Ann Rule brilliantly traces the lives of both Fahey and Capano as she discloses the intimate details of their ill-fated connection. A vulnerable, trusting woman becomes spellbound by a charming, duplicitous married man, and what begins as a seemingly unremarkable affair is slowly transformed into an obsessive, convoluted, and deadly relationship.“ [A] truly creepy true-crime story.” —People“[Rule] tell[s] the sad story with authority, flair, and pace.” —The Washington PostThe Negotiator: A Memoir
By George J. Mitchell. 2015
Compelling, poignant, enlightening stories from former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell about growing up in Maine, his years in the…
Senate, working to bring peace to Northern Ireland and the Middle East, and what he’s learned about the art of negotiation during every stage of his life.It’s a classic story of the American Dream. George Mitchell grew up in a working class family in Maine, experiencing firsthand the demoralizing effects of unemployment when his father was laid off from a lifelong job. But education was always a household priority, and Mitchell embraced every opportunity that came his way, eventually becoming the ranking Democrat in the Senate during the administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.Told with wit, frankness, and a style all his own, Senator Mitchell’s memoir reveals many insights into the art of negotiation. Mitchell looks back at his adventures in law and politics—including instrumental work on clean air and water legislation, the Iran-Contra hearings, and healthcare reform—as well as life after the Senate, from leading the successful Northern Ireland peace process, to serving as chairman of The Walt Disney Company, to heading investigations into the use of steroids in baseball and unethical activity surrounding the Olympic Games. Through it all, Senator Mitchell’s incredible stories—some hilarious, others tragic, all revealing—offer invaluable insights into critical moments in the last half-century of business, law, and politics, both domestic and international.Butch Cassidy: The True Story of an American Outlaw
By Charles Leerhsen. 2020
Charles Leerhsen brings the notorious Butch Cassidy to vivid life in this &“lyrical and deeply researched&” (Publishers Weekly) biography that…
goes beyond the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to reveal a more fascinating and complicated man than legend provides.For more than a century the life and death of Butch Cassidy have been the subject of legend, spawning a small industry of mythmakers and a major Hollywood film. But who was Butch Cassidy, really? Charles Leerhsen, bestselling author of Ty Cobb, sorts out the facts from folklore and paints a &“compelling portrait of the charming, debonair, ranch hand-turned-outlaw&” (Ron Hansen, author of The Kid) of the American West.Born into a Mormon family in Utah, Robert Leroy Parker grew up dirt poor and soon discovered that stealing horses and cattle was a fact of life in a world where small ranchers were being squeezed by banks, railroads, and cattle barons. A charismatic and more than capable cowboy—even ranch owners who knew he was a rustler said they would hire him again—he adopted the alias &“Butch Cassidy,&” and moved on to a new moneymaking endeavor: bank robbery. By all accounts a smart and considerate thief, Butch and his "Wid Bunch" gang eventually graduated to more lucrative train robberies. But the railroad owners hired the Pinkerton Agency, whose detectives pursued Butch and his gang relentlessly, until he and his then partner Harry Longabaugh (The Sundance Kid) fled to South America, where they replicated the cycle of ranching, rustling, and robbery until they met their end in Bolivia.In Butch Cassidy, Leerhsen &“refuses to buy into the Hollywood hype and instead offers the true tale of Butch Cassidy, which turns out to be more fascinating and fun than the myths&” (Tom Clavin, bestselling author of Tombstone). In this &“entertaining…definitive account&” (Kirkus Reviews), he shares his fascination with how criminals such as Butch deftly maneuvered between honest work and thievery, battling the corporate interests that were exploiting the settlers, and showing us in vibrant prose the Old West as it really was, in all its promise and heartbreak.A New York Times bestseller, Jeff Guinn&’s definitive, myth-busting account of the most famous gunfight in American history reveals who…
Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the Clantons and McLaurys really were and what the shootout was all about—&“the most thorough account of the gunfight and its circumstances ever published&” (The Wall Street Journal)On the afternoon of October 26, 1881, in a vacant lot in Tombstone, Arizona, a confrontation between eight armed men erupted in a deadly shootout. The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral would shape how future generations came to view the Old West. Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and the Clantons became the stuff of legends, symbolic of a frontier populated by good guys in white hats and villains in black ones. It’s a colorful story—but the truth is even better.Drawing on new material from private collections—including diaries, letters, and Wyatt Earp’s own hand-drawn sketch of the shootout’s conclusion—as well as archival research, Jeff Guinn gives us a startlingly different and far more fascinating picture of what actually happened that day in Tombstone and why.Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson
By Jeff Guinn. 2013
The New York Times bestselling, authoritative account of the life of Charles Manson, filled with surprising new information and previously…
unpublished photographs: &“A riveting, almost Dickensian narrative…four stars&” (People).More than forty years ago Charles Manson and his mostly female commune killed nine people, among them the pregnant actress Sharon Tate. It was the culmination of a criminal career that author Jeff Guinn traces back to Manson’s childhood. Guinn interviewed Manson’s sister and cousin, neither of whom had ever previously cooperated with an author. Childhood friends, cellmates, and even some members of the Manson family have provided new information about Manson’s life. Guinn has made discoveries about the night of the Tate murders, answering unresolved questions, such as why one person near the scene of the crime was spared.Manson puts the killer in the context of the turbulent late sixties, an era of race riots and street protests when authority in all its forms was under siege. Guinn shows us how Manson created and refined his message to fit the times, persuading confused young women (and a few men) that he had the solutions to their problems. At the same time he used them to pursue his long-standing musical ambitions. His frustrated ambitions, combined with his bizarre race-war obsession, would have lethal consequences. Guinn’s book is a “tour de force of a biography…Manson stands as a definitive work: important for students of criminology, human behavior, popular culture, music, psychopathology, and sociopathology…and compulsively readable” (Ann Rule, The New York Times Book Review).Wrecking Crew: Demolishing The Case Against Steven Avery
By John Ferak. 2023
Updated 5th Anniversary Edition Including Exclusive Interview with Steve Avery In 2016-17, while working for the USA TODAY NETWORK's Wisconsin…
Investigative Team, author John Ferak wrote dozens of articles examining the murder case against Steven Avery, who had already beaten one wrongful conviction only to be charged again with the murder of Teresa Halbach in 2005. This case captured global attention through the Netflix documentary "Making A Murderer." In this anniversary edition of WRECKING CREW: Demolishing the Case Against Steven Avery, Ferak not only lays out in meticulous detail the post-conviction strategy of Kathleen Zellner, the high-profile, high-octane lawyer fighting to free Avery but also includes a new "Five Years Later" section. This update provides fresh insights and developments in Avery's ongoing legal battle. Additionally, this special edition features an exclusive epilogue: a November 2023 interview with Steven Avery. For this book, Zellner, arguably America's most successful wrongful conviction attorney, granted Ferak unprecedented access to the exhaustive pro bono efforts she and her small suburban Chicago law firm have invested in a man she believes to be wrongfully ensnared by Manitowoc County's unscrupulous justice system. This anniversary edition offers new revelations and a comprehensive look at a case that continues to stir public debate and demand justice.Calling Sergeant Crockford: The story of a pioneering policewoman in the 1960s
By Ruth D'Alessandro. 2024
It's the dawn of the Swinging Sixties. The Cold War is at its height and support for the Campaign for…
Nuclear Disarmament is building. The Berkshire Constabulary's Detective Gwen Crockford is promoted to Woman Police Sergeant in Newbury – the town at the heart of Britain's atomic weapons programme.Gwen's initial reservations that her posting in rural Berkshire will be boring soon prove to be unfounded. A serial sex attacker on the loose, an attempted murder at Greenham Common US Airforce Base, and a charismatic heiress with a family secret keep things interesting for the capable sergeant.Laser-focused on her police career – and resigned to the single life – Gwen is forced to re-evaluate her plans when a nature-loving war veteran PC walks into the station with an orphaned fox cub, and there's a shocking discovery in a railway station lavatory.Written by her daughter Ruth and rich in social history, this is the story of a real-life woman police sergeant at the top of her game, guiding her WPCs through the immense societal changes of the early 1960s.Calling Sergeant Crockford: The story of a pioneering policewoman in the 1960s
By Ruth D'Alessandro. 2024
It's the dawn of the Swinging Sixties. The Cold War is at its height and support for the Campaign for…
Nuclear Disarmament is building. The Berkshire Constabulary's Detective Gwen Crockford is promoted to Woman Police Sergeant in Newbury – the town at the heart of Britain's atomic weapons programme.Gwen's initial reservations that her posting in rural Berkshire will be boring soon prove to be unfounded. A serial sex attacker on the loose, an attempted murder at Greenham Common US Airforce Base, and a charismatic heiress with a family secret keep things interesting for the capable sergeant.Laser-focused on her police career – and resigned to the single life – Gwen is forced to re-evaluate her plans when a nature-loving war veteran PC walks into the station with an orphaned fox cub, and there's a shocking discovery in a railway station lavatory.Written by her daughter Ruth and rich in social history, this is the story of a real-life woman police sergeant at the top of her game, guiding her WPCs through the immense societal changes of the early 1960s.The Woman Who Wasn't There: The True Story of an Incredible Deception
By Robin Gaby Fisher, Angelo J. Guglielmo Jr.. 2012
It was a tale of loss and recovery, of courage and sorrow, of horror and inspiration. Tania Head’s astonishing account…
of her experience on September 11, 2001—from crawling through the carnage and chaos to escaping the seventy-eighth-floor sky lobby of the burning south tower to losing her fiancé in the collapsed north tower—transformed her into one of the great victims and heroes of that tragic day. Tania selflessly took on the responsibility of giving a voice and a direction to the burgeoning World Trade Center Survivors’ Network, helping save the “Survivor Stairway” and leading tours at Ground Zero, including taking then-governor Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg, and former mayor Giuliani on the inaugural tour of the WTC site. She even used her own assets to fund charitable events to help survivors heal. But there was something very wrong with Tania’s story—a terrible secret that would break the hearts and challenge the faith of all those she claimed to champion. Told with the unique insider perspective and authority of Angelo J. Guglielmo, Jr., a filmmaker shooting a documentary on the efforts of the Survivors’ Network, and previously one of Tania’s closest friends, The Woman Who Wasn’t There is the story of one of the most audacious and bewildering quests for acclaim in recent memory—one that poses fascinating questions about the essence of morality and the human need for connection at any cost.Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit (Cases Of The Fbi's Original Mindhunter Ser. #2)
By John E. Douglas, Mark Olshaker. 2017
Now a Netflix original series Discover the classic, behind-the-scenes chronicle of John E. Douglas&’ twenty-five-year career in the FBI Investigative…
Support Unit, where he used psychological profiling to delve into the minds of the country&’s most notorious serial killers and criminals.In chilling detail, the legendary Mindhunter takes us behind the scenes of some of his most gruesome, fascinating, and challenging cases—and into the darkest recesses of our worst nightmares. During his twenty-five year career with the Investigative Support Unit, Special Agent John Douglas became a legendary figure in law enforcement, pursuing some of the most notorious and sadistic serial killers of our time: the man who hunted prostitutes for sport in the woods of Alaska, the Atlanta child murderer, and Seattle's Green River killer, the case that nearly cost Douglas his life. As the model for Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs, Douglas has confronted, interviewed, and studied scores of serial killers and assassins, including Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and Ed Gein, who dressed himself in his victims' peeled skin. Using his uncanny ability to become both predator and prey, Douglas examines each crime scene, reliving both the killer's and the victim's actions in his mind, creating their profiles, describing their habits, and predicting their next moves.Company Man: Thirty Years of Controversy and Crisis in the CIA
By John Rizzo. 2014
The “revealing” (The New Yorker) insider history of the CIA from a lawyer with a “front-row seat on the hidden…
world of intelligence” (The Washington Post). Former CIA director George J. Tenet called Company Man a “must read.”Over the course of a thirty-four-year (1976-2009) career, John Rizzo served under eleven CIA directors and seven presidents, ultimately becoming a controversial public figure and a symbol and victim of the toxic winds swirling in post-9/11 Washington. In Company Man, Rizzo charts the CIA’s evolution from shadowy entity to an organization exposed to new laws, rules, and a seemingly never-ending string of public controversies. As the agency’s top lawyer in the years after the 9/11 attacks, Rizzo oversaw actions that remain the subject of intense debate, including the rules governing waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques.”Rizzo writes about virtually every significant CIA activity and controversy over a tumultuous, thirty-year period. His experiences illuminate our nation’s spy bureaucracy, offering a unique primer on how to survive, and flourish, in a high-powered job amid decades of shifting political winds. He also provides the most comprehensive account of critical events, like the “torture tape” fiasco surrounding the interrogation of Al Qaeda suspect Abu Zubayadah, and the birth, growth, and death of the enhanced interrogation program. Company Man is the most authoritative insider account of the CIA ever written—a groundbreaking, timely, and remarkably candid history of American intelligence. This is “emphatically a book for anyone who cares about the security of this country” (The Wall Street Journal).Murder in St. Augustine: The Mysterious Death of Athalia Ponsell Lindsley (True Crime Ser.)
By Elizabeth Randall. 2016
The true story of the long-unsolved killing of a celebrity in northern Florida: &“A page-turner.&” —First Coast Living The…
murder of Athalia Ponsell Lindsley, a former model and television hostess who was once engaged to Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., is still notorious more than four decades after it occurred. The only eyewitness said a man attacked Lindsley with a machete in broad daylight on the front steps of her mansion. Gossip swirled that neighbor Frances Bemis knew who killed Lindsley and would notify authorities—and then Bemis was later murdered on her nightly walk. Police arrested only one suspect for Lindsley&’s murder, which remains unsolved to this day. Here, Elizabeth Randall replaces the rumors with research, and draws from over one thousand pages of depositions, records, official county documentation, and interviews to reveal the story behind this shocking crime.Includes photosThe Negotiator: A Memoir
By George J. Mitchell. 2015
Compelling, poignant, enlightening stories from former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell about growing up in Maine, his years in the…
Senate, working to bring peace to Northern Ireland and the Middle East, and what he’s learned about the art of negotiation during every stage of his life.It’s a classic story of the American Dream. George Mitchell grew up in a working class family in Maine, experiencing firsthand the demoralizing effects of unemployment when his father was laid off from a lifelong job. But education was always a household priority, and Mitchell embraced every opportunity that came his way, eventually becoming the ranking Democrat in the Senate during the administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.Told with wit, frankness, and a style all his own, Senator Mitchell’s memoir reveals many insights into the art of negotiation. Mitchell looks back at his adventures in law and politics—including instrumental work on clean air and water legislation, the Iran-Contra hearings, and healthcare reform—as well as life after the Senate, from leading the successful Northern Ireland peace process, to serving as chairman of The Walt Disney Company, to heading investigations into the use of steroids in baseball and unethical activity surrounding the Olympic Games. Through it all, Senator Mitchell’s incredible stories—some hilarious, others tragic, all revealing—offer invaluable insights into critical moments in the last half-century of business, law, and politics, both domestic and international.The Man to See
By Evan Thomas. 1978
This bestselling biography of legendary trial lawyer Edward Bennett Williams is "a skillful and lively portrait of a larger-than-life lawyer"…
(Kirkus Reviews).Legendary attorney Edward Bennet Williams was arguably the best trial lawyer ever to practice. Now, for the first time, bestselling author Evan Thomas takes us into the courtrooms of Williams's greatest performances as he defends "Godfather" Frank Costello, Jimmy Hoffa, Frank Sinatra, The Washington Post, and others, as well as behind the scenes where the witnesses are coached, the traps set, and the deals cut. In addition to being a lawyer of unprecedented influence, Williams was also an important Washington insider, privy to the secrets of America's most powerful men. Thomas tells the truth behind the stories that made Williams one of the most talked about public figures of his time, including Williams's role in the publication of the Pentagon Papers and the possibility that Williams may have been Watergate's Deep Throat. Based on Thomas's exclusive access to Williams's papers, The Man to See is an unprecedented look at the strategies and influence of this exceptional man.Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story
By Julie K. Brown. 2021
The New York Times Bestseller“A gripping journalistic procedural… Spotlight meets Erin Brockovich.” —Michelle Goldberg, The New York Times“Julie K. Brown's important…
book offers not just a definitive account of the Epstein case, but a compelling window into her own experiences as a dogged reporter at a regional newspaper, facing off against powerful interests set against her reporting.” —Ronan Farrow, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Catch and KillDauntless journalist Julie K. Brown recounts her uncompromising and risky investigation of Jeffrey Epstein's underage sex trafficking operation, and the explosive reporting for the Miami Herald that finally brought him to justice while exposing the powerful people and broken system that protected him.For many years, billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's penchant for teenage girls was an open secret in the high society of Palm Beach, Florida and Upper East Side, Manhattan. Charged in 2008 with soliciting prostitution from minors, Epstein was treated with unheard of leniency, dictating the terms of his non-prosecution. The media virtually ignored the failures of the criminal justice system, and Epstein's friends and business partners brushed the allegations aside. But when in 2017 the U.S Attorney who approved Epstein's plea deal, Alexander Acosta, was chosen by President Trump as Labor Secretary, reporter Julie K. Brown was compelled to ask questions.Despite her editor's skepticism that she could add a new dimension to a known story, Brown determined that her goal would be to track down the victims themselves. Poring over thousands of redacted court documents, traveling across the country and chasing down information in difficulty and sometimes dangerous circumstances, Brown tracked down dozens of Epstein's victims, now young women struggling to reclaim their lives after the trauma and shame they had endured.Brown's resulting three-part series in the Miami Herald was one of the most explosive news stories of the decade, revealing how Epstein ran a global sex trafficking pyramid scheme with impunity for years, targeting vulnerable teens, often from fractured homes and then turning them into recruiters. The outrage led to Epstein's arrest, the disappearance and eventual arrest of his closest accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, and the resignation of Acosta. The financier's mysterious suicide in a New York City jail cell prompted wild speculation about the secrets he took to the grave-and whether his death was intentional or the result of foul play.Tracking Epstein’s evolution from a college dropout to one of the most successful financiers in the country—whose associates included Donald Trump, Prince Andrew, and Bill Clinton—Perversion of Justice builds on Brown's original award-winning series, showing the power of truth, the value of local reportage and the tenacity of one woman in the face of the deep-seated corruption of powerful men.The Last Testament of Bill Bonanno: The Final Secrets of a Life in the Mafia
By Bill Bonanno, Gary B. Abromovitz. 2011
An eye-opening look at life—and death—inside the Mafia, The Last Testament of Bill Bonanno is a stunning document written by…
the son of notorious crime boss Joe Bonanno. Published at the author’s request after his death, The Last Testament of Bill Bonanno provides highly confidential secrets about the inner workings of La Cosa Nostra—offering a behind-closed-doors look at the secret Commission meetings of the ’30s through ’60s and clandestine details of the Mafia’s most venerable rituals, techniques, and indoctrination ceremonies…plus pages of never-before-seen photos. Bonanno’s Last Testament stands alongside Talese’s Honor Thy Father, Pileggi’s Wiseguys, Maas’s The Valachi Papers and Underboss, The Good Rat by Jimmy Breslin, and T.J. English’s Havana Nocturne as an essential work of contemporary crime history—a must-read for fans of The Sopranos and The Godfather.Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer: An Edgar Award Winner
By James L. Swanson. 2006
Soon to be an Apple TV+ Series“A terrific narrative of the hunt for Lincoln’s killers that will mesmerize the reader…
from start to finish.”—Doris Kearns GoodwinThe murder of Abraham Lincoln set off the greatest manhunt in American history--the pursuit and capture of John Wilkes Booth. From April 14 to April 26, 1865, the assassin led Union cavalry troops on a wild, 12-day chase from the streets of Washington, D.C., across the swamps of Maryland, and into the forests of Virginia, while the nation, still reeling from the just-ended Civil War, watched in horror and sadness.Based on rare archival materials, obscure trial transcripts, and Lincoln’s own blood relics Manhunt is a fully documented, fascinating tale of murder, intrigue, and betrayal. A gripping hour-by-hour account told through the eyes of the hunted and the hunters, it is history as it’s never been read before.Bringing Adam Home: The Abduction That Changed America
By Les Standiford, Joe Matthews. 1991
“Les Standiford’s account of the decades-long attempt to solve the murder of Adam Walsh is chilling, heartbreaking, hopeful, and as…
relentlessly suspenseful as anything I’ve ever read. A triumph in every way.”—Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River“The most significant missing child case since the Lindbergh’s….A taut, compelling and often touching book about a long march to justice.”—Scott Turow, author of Presumed InnocentThe abduction that changed America forever, the 1981 kidnapping and murder of six-year-old Adam Walsh—son of John Walsh, host of the Fox TV series America’s Most Wanted—in Hollywood, Florida, was a crime that went unsolved for a quarter of a century. Bringing Adam Home by author Les Standiford is a harrowing account of the terrible crime and its dramatic consequences, the emotional story of a father and mother’s efforts to seek justice and resolve the loss of their child, and a compelling portrait of Miami Beach Homicide Detective Joe Matthews, whose unwavering dedication brought the Adam Walsh case to its resolution.Gotti's Rules: The Story of John Alite, Junior Gotti, and the Demise of the American Mafia
By George Anastasia. 2015
From the New York Times bestselling author of Blood and Honor and The Last Gangster—“one of the most respected crime…
reporters in the country” (60 Minutes)—comes the sure to be headline-making inside story of the Gotti and Gambino families, told from the unique viewpoint of notorious mob hit-man John Alite, a close associate of Junior Gotti who later testified against him.In Gotti’s Rules, George Anastasia, a prize-winning reporter who spent over thirty years covering crime, offers a shocking and very rare glimpse into the Gotti family, witnessed up-close from former family insider John Alite, John Gotti Jr.’s longtime friend and protector. Until now, no one has given up the kind of personal details about the Gottis—including the legendary “Gotti Rules” of leadership—that Anastasia exposes here. Drawing on extensive FBI files and other documentation, his own knowledge, and exclusive interviews with insiders and experts, including mob-enforcer-turned-government-witness Alite, Anastasia pokes holes in the Gotti legend, demystifying this notorious family and its lucrative and often deadly machinations.Anastasia offers never-before-heard information about the murders, drug dealing, and extortion that propelled John J. Gotti to the top of the Gambino crime family and the treachery and deceit that allowed John A. “Junior” Gotti to follow in his father’s footsteps. Told from street level and through the eyes of a wiseguy who saw it all firsthand, the result is a riveting look at a family whose hubris, violence, passion, and greed fueled a bloody rise and devastating fall that is still reverberating through the American underworld today.Gotti’s Rules includes 8 pages of black-and-white photographs.The Sinatra Club: My Life Inside the New York Mafia
By Sal Polisi, Steve Dougherty. 2012
The Mob was the biggest, richest business in America—too dangerous and too deadly to fail. Until it was destroyed from…
within by drugs, greed, and the decline of its traditional crime Family values. And by guys like Sal Polisi. He was born in Brooklyn—the same place that spawned Murder, Inc., Al Capone, and John Gotti, the future Mob godfather who became his friend. Polisi was raised on a family legacy that led him into the life he loved as a member of the Colombos, one of the New York Mob’s feared Five Families, and came of age when the Mafia was at the height of its vast wealth and power. Known by his Mob name, Sally Ubatz (“Crazy Sally”), he ran an illegal after-hours gambling den, The Sinatra Club, that was a magic kingdom of crime and a hangout for up-and-coming mobsters like Gotti and the three wiseguys immortalized in Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas—Henry Hill, Jimmy Burke, and Tommy DeSimone. For Polisi, the nonstop thrills of glory days spent robbing banks, hijacking trucks, pulling daring heists—and getting away with it all, thanks to cops and public servants corrupted by Mob money—were fleeting. When he was busted for drug trafficking, and already sickened by the bloodbath that engulfed the Mob as it teetered toward extinction, he flipped and became one of a breed he had loathed all his life—a rat. In this riveting, pulse-pounding, and, at times, darkly hilarious first-person chronicle of his brazen crimes, wild sexual escapades, and personal tragedies, Polisi tells his story of life inside the New York Mob in a voice straight from the streets. With shocking candor, he draws on a hard-won knowledge of Mob history to paint a neverbefore- seen picture of the inner workings of the Mob and the larger-than-life characters who populated a once extensive and secret underworld that, thanks to guys like him, no longer exists. *** I was always a street guy. I was into robbing and stealing and gambling and loan sharking. I wasn’t involved in the bigmoney sit-downs, the labor racketeering and construction company shakedowns, the Garment District and garbage and cement company kickbacks. . . . For guys like me and Fox, my blood brother and crime partner, the thing we loved about being in that life was the action, the excitement. . . .We were in it for the money, sure. But it was the danger, the thrills that made the life of crime something special. A guy like John Gotti was different. He was far more ambitious than me and Fox. He wasn’t just in it for the rush and the riches. He wanted the power and the glory. John Gotti’s tragedy, if you can call it that, was that he was born too late for the old-school gangster crown that he craved. He began his rise as the Mob was beginning to crumble; by the time he got to the top, the bottom had dropped out. From the beginning, John was charismatic and smart. He just wasn’t cut out to be godfather. Once he became boss, he drove the bus right off the bridge. Or maybe it was the bus that drove him. Either way, I watched him go. Here’s how it all happened.