Book details

Five Families

The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires

Author: Selwyn Raab

Five Families

Five Families

$13.99

About This Book

Genovese, Gambino, Bonnano, Colombo and Lucchese. For decades these Five Families ruled New York and built the American Mafia (or Cosa Nostra) into an underworld empire. Today, the Mafia is an endangered...

Page Count
784
Genre
On Sale
05/13/2014

Book Details

Genovese, Gambino, Bonnano, Colombo and Lucchese. For decades these Five Families ruled New York and built the American Mafia (or Cosa Nostra) into an underworld empire. Today, the Mafia is an endangered species, battered and beleaguered by aggressive investigators, incompetent leadership, betrayals and generational changes that produced violent and unreliable leaders and recruits. A twenty year assault against the five families in particular blossomed into the most successful law enforcement campaign of the last century.

Selwyn Raab's Five Families is the vivid story of the rise and fall of New York's premier dons from Lucky Luciano to Paul Castellano to John Gotti and more. The book also brings the reader right up to the possible resurgence of the Mafia as the FBI and local law enforcement agencies turn their attention to homeland security and away from organized crime.

Imprint Publisher

Thomas Dunne Books

ISBN

9781429907989

In The News

“A classic piece of reporting by a man who knows the bloody, brutal, corrupt territory.” —Mike Wallace, 60 Minutes

“In my more than fifty years as a reporter, there is no journalist who I've respected more than Selwyn Raab at The New York Times in covering New York's criminal justice system. He was tireless and painstaking in investigating the investigators, sometimes helping to prove innocence, but equally fair and conscientious in cases that ended in conviction. His riveting book will be I'm sure the definitive history of the Mafia in New York for a long time to come. It is a model of what journalism can be.” —NAT HENTOFF

“After an eight-decade run in which its executives built the most powerful criminal organization in U.S. history, the American Mafia began to unravel at the end of the 20th century. It did so in a convulsion of blood and treachery, fueled by out-of-control egos. Selwyn Raab was there, in the streets, the precinct houses, and the courtrooms to record that story. No one does it better. ” —TOM ROBBINS, Reporter, Village Voice

About the Creators

Five Families

Five Families

$13.99