| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Elegy for the Mob of old,
By A Customer
This review is from: Frank Costello: Prime Minister of the Underworld (Hardcover)
There has been much attention focused on this book in the last year or so. First Harold Ramis, noted "Prime Minster of the Underworld" as inspiration for his mob picture, "Analyze This". Then I read where former CBS President Tom Leahy along with Norman Twain obtained an option to do the book as a movie. It made me go out and get a copy. I was not disapointed! "Prime Minister" is the sort of book that isn't written much anymore. It is done with elan' and the subject, Frank Costello, the "capo di capo" is treated with great dignity. It is a dignity that Costello strove for in life, even as he headed an organized crime family. Costello's attorney wrote this book with the outstanding author Joseph DiMona. Together they weave an adventurous tale of an immigrant who through the din of will, grit and native intellect rose to the top of the "Cosa Nostra". Costello preferred negotiations to violence and acted as the Mob's peacemaker. "Prime Minister of the Underworld" presents a man of fundamental decency, ambivalent about life as a mobster, yet one of the most successful gangsters. It is this riddle, this internal contradiction that makes Costello compelling and drives this story. Wolf and DiMona display great restraint, they let the action speak for itself and there is not a moment gratutitous violence or moralizing. So complex is Costello's character that it needs no adornment and will bear no easy analyzation. What emerges is a clean portrait of an everyman as killer. George Wolf and Joe DiMona fashioned one of the great mob books of all time. A book as subtle and powerful as its' topic.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good,
By A Customer
This review is from: Frank Costello: Prime Minister of the Underworld (Hardcover)
I enjoyed the first section on his childhood which was all new to me. But what I really enjoyed was the second section on the bootlegging days. It went into more detail than I could have asked for on how he set it up and even gave some detail on some of the gun fights men like Bugsy Seigel got into. I would have liked the book better if this section would have been a lot bigger. The rest of the book was good too and supplied an interesting theory on Lucky Luciano's infamous ride but didn't go into any real detail on how he ran and operated the crime family it focused more on his personal businessess. All in all interesting (especially the bootlegging section) and a fairly good story. I recommend at least giving it a try.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Good History of Organized Crime!,
By
This review is from: Frank Costello: Prime Minister of the Underworld (Hardcover)
This was a very good biography of Frank Costello. In addition you also recieved a good history of organized crime.This booktells of Costello's leadership role in the Mafia. You are taken through bootlegging.the gambling empires that were built by organized crime as well as the House un-American activities hearings. The author also gives you good insight into the attempted murder of Costello by rival forces.You also get a good insight into Bugsy Seigel,Meyer Lansky, and other prominent figures in organized crime. This isn actually a very good book.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
|
|
