Il Dottore: The Double Life of a Mafia Doctor [Hardcover]

Ron Felber (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 25, 2004

The gripping story of the man who was the doctor to all of the top NY mafioso in the 70s and 80s, who got caught in the middle of a federal investigation.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A respected thoracic surgeon and also a Mafia confidant, Elliot Litner was a self-described "nerdy, Jewish kid from the Bronx" who'd witnessed a slaying as a boy yet kept mum, impressing local hoodlums; later, his acquaintance with mobsters' sons provided entree to New York's Cosa Nostra during its heyday. In 1971, while a surgical resident, Litner helped Gambino family associates establish clandestine abortion clinics. Soon, Litner was the Gambinos' go-to for sensitive medical emergencies and even served as a courier for the family. His enthusiasm for the gangsters' rough-edged lifestyle wrecked his marriage, even as his career was, according to Felber, abetted by hospital associates with mob connections. In an overwrought narrative, Felber (The Privacy War, etc.) alternates depictions of Litner's divided life with the narrative of how Paul Castellano unwisely divided the Gambino family into white collar and "muscle" crews. This led to open warfare in the 1980s, Castellano's assassination and Rudy Giuliani's devastating RICO prosecutions. Things climaxed for Litner in 1986, when he was asked to engineer an "accident" during surgery on Giuliani witness Ralph Scopo, the request accompanied by John Gotti's threats. Litner's story, though provocative, is related with melodrama and purple prose and sheds little new light on figures like Castellano and Gotti.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In the guise of a biography of Mob-connected surgeon Elliott Litner, Felber presents a rambling history of the American Mafia and its Sicilian roots and intertwined profiles of former prosecutor and New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and erstwhile "Teflon Don" John Gotti. Litner grew up in an Italian and Jewish neighborhood. As a schoolboy he covered for the son of a local caporegieme; later he matriculated from low-scale academic fraud to the wise guys' payroll. Ultimately, he faced a moral decision regarding a mafioso whose survival would be inconvenient, but by then, with Giuliani apparently triumphant and Gotti in jail, the Mob was in shambles. Introduced to Litner by godfather Joseph Bonano's son Bill, Felber became "enamored with the notion" of Litner's double life as "high-society Manhattan physician" and "sex addict and inveterate gambler working secretly for the Mafia." Felber depends on long conversations Litner reported verbatim, and some may be annoyed that he fails to reveal significant details of Litner's sex addiction. Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Barricade Books (October 25, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569802785
• ISBN-13: 978-1569802786
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,587,714 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars FANS OF THE GODFATHER AND THE SOPRANOS WILL LOVE THIS STORY., May 27, 2009

By 

Barbara Lane "Audio Books only" (Sydney Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Il Dottore: The Double Life of a Mafia Doctor (Hardcover)

Il Dottore is a true story of a "nerdy Jewish kid" in the Bronx who grows up mixing with the future mafia kids. They trust him and have always protected him on the streets when other rough kids picked on him while he was growing up. He goes to university and becomes a physician to the top Mafia Dons including John Gotti, Carlos Gambino and Joe Bonanno.

His name was know among the Mafia as a medical genius but he also becomes one America's top cardiac surgeons.

This story paints a very real portrait of this doctor's unlikely life in the fast lane wining and dining and doing favours for the top Mafia. Eventually he has to make a choice between his loyalty to the Mafia and kill someone on the operating table or be true to his medical career.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Super Read!, September 23, 2004

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Il Dottore: The Double Life of a Mafia Doctor (Hardcover)

I've read a lot about the mafia, but reading Il Dottore by Ron Felber is like eating popcorn at a movie theater, you just can't stop. Elliot Litner's (Il Dottore) life is a roller coaster ride through a time when giants walked the streets of NYC: John Gotti, Carlo Gambino, Joe bonanno, Rudy Giuliani. The gang's all here, and they've never looked better.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I know this man, April 19, 2007

By 

Gerard Freisinger "Balance in All" (NY,) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Il Dottore: The Double Life of a Mafia Doctor (Hardcover)

Over the past 10 years, i have referred hundred of patients to "Elliot". He is an excellent cardiac surgeon and 5 years ago performed a five vessel bypass on me. And I am not even Italian. On a holiday no less 3 months after 911.

Had I had my coronary arteries "cauterized " mentioned twice on page 230, I would not be in good shape. Catheterized is what is meant. Also, Simon Dack at Mt Sinai was not a surgeon. He was a cardiologist and actually the founder of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology"

Reading the book is a bit like looking into a bowl of spaghetti in which each strand has a name. A tangleled web of Italian names intermingled and many slurped away eventually by the fork and spoon of Rudy. Would have liked more on Il Dottore and less on Mafia. I am surprised the book is not yet a movie.