Cigar City Mafia: A Complete History of the Tampa Underworld (Paperback)

by Scott M. Deitche (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Bootleggers, gambling, ringleaders, arsonists, narcotics dealers and gang murders--a variety of characters flourished in the era known as Prohibition, and Tampa, Florida was where they battled for supremacy of the criminal underworld.

From the Author
Quick comment on Steve's review. I'm not going to dispute opinions of writing style or grammatical errors. I want to clarify a factual error he mentioned. The City of Tampa was incorporated in 1855. However, the charter was suspended in 1862 (then reorganized, and resuspended). Modern Tampa was not incorporated in it's present form until August 11, 1873. Also Red Italiano retired to New Orleans before finishing his days in Mexico. I appreciate everyone taking the time to review my book. I have 2-3 more Tampa (and a few non-Tampa) OC-related books on the horizon, including one on Santo Trafficante Jr. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Barricade Books (July 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569802874
• ISBN-13: 978-1569802878
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #106,835 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Tampa natives will enjoy, but others should look elsewhere.., March 1, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Cigar City Mafia: A Complete History of the Tampa Underworld (Hardcover)

I'll break this down quickly:

In general, this book is poorly written and poorly edited with lots of typos and poorly constructed sentences and paragraphs.

However, Tampa natives like myself will enjoy the content due to the familiarity of the names and places involved.

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Author wacks mob book, July 24, 2004

By	Steve (Tampa, Florida USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cigar City Mafia: A Complete History of the Tampa Underworld (Hardcover)

I really looked forward to reading this book. My family was a part of Ybor City for 3+ generations and my grandfather never tires of telling tales of Tampa's lawless past. (Although he was not a participant, it was impossible to live in that time and place and not know stories of the open corruption all around.)

I should have just listened to my abuelo. This book takes a potentially fascinating topic and turns it into a mind-numbingly dull list of names and murders. It reads like a rap sheet, with very little color or context. It's not even chronological, with brief tales of one mobster plopped between stories from different decades for no apparent reason.

As an aspiring author myself, it pains me to see prose tortured worse than a ratted-out FBI informant. Unfortunately, that's what happens much more often one would expect in a published work. Sentences are sometime tangled worse than a bowl of linguini, forcing the reader to tease them apart. And if read "part of his face was blown off" one more time in a description of a mafia hit, my own face may have blown off.

Besides the stylistic problems, there were also some factual errors. I found one pretty quick: on the first page of the first chapter. The author states that Tampa became a city in 1873 when it was actually incorporated in 1855. That's a pretty basic fact, but it might slip by the casual reader. And there were many more like it sprinkled throughout the text.

More obvious are other mistakes in which the author contradicts himself. For example, a mobster named Red Italiano is stated to have fled to Sicily when the feds were closing in, then later retired to New Orleans. But several pages later, the author states that Italiano fled to Mexico and "there lived out the rest of his life" (another overused phrase in this book). I don't know where Red ended up. Neither does the author, apparantly.

For the reasons above, this book was a major disappointment. Even worse is that since the topic is of limited commercial appeal, it will probably be the final say on the subject for years to come. By the time anyone else tries to revisit the tale, the major and minor players may have all passed away and the real history will be irretrievably lost.

The bloody, intriguing, and still partially covered-up story of Tampa's colorful past deserves better than this.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Take the Cannoli, Leave the Book , July 14, 2005

By	andrew huse (Tampa, Fl. United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Cigar City Mafia: A Complete History of the Tampa Underworld (Hardcover)

I tried in vain to read this book, as I am very interested in Tampa's rich history. I didn't see the first citation until several chapters in, and the research in general is extremely weak. The author simply repeats newspaper accounts without adding anything else, so he perpetuates flawed or false accounts without questioning them.

The terrible methodology would be partly forgivable if the author supplied a compelling text that was fun to read. Instead, the writing itself is laughable, with no real attempt to edit for style or content. There is certainly no artistry in the writing--- it is bone dry.

As an aspiring historian with a deep interest in Florida history, this book was too bad to finish. I'm happy that I borrowed it from a friend rather than buy a copy. If I had bought a copy, I think i would have sent the book to the author, only beside a fish wrapped in newspaper. "Cigar City Mafia sleeps with the fishes."