Customer Reviews

Gangbusters: The Destruction of America's Last Mafia Dynasty

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The fact that Volkman decided to write a biography on a crime family other than the Gambinos and John Gotti (for once) was the initial reason for my interest in the book. To be sure, Volkman's writing style is pleasant and does not contain personal interjections (thankfully), or apostrophes -- another irritating feature in some books -- but it lacks the substance needed for a solid read. There has been much more media attention and surveillance of the Gambino crime family and its ineffective boss, John Gotti, than the Lucchese family or another other New York criminal organization. This is mainly due to the aforamentioned Gotti's disposition for the cameras and mainly because his family was the largest and most powerful, at least at the time. However, the Lucchese family was one of the most deceptive, small and confined to a remote borough, yet powerful enough to cripple JFK airport and bring the garment district to its knees. Beyond this, its past bosses (with the exception of the poorly chosen previous bunch, Amuso et al.) were circumspect, keeping their heads low, and their royalties hidden. As a result they were still powerful in 1986, when Antonio Corallo went away to prison forever, and it took two intellectually-challenged hooligans to finally bring it down crashing. There is less material to work with, therefore, and a biography on a criminal enterprise such as the Lucchese family would be most difficult to achieve, contrary to the Gambinos.
While Volkman tries to counter this, mainly by creating dialogue between the characters when it was later proven this was just bolony to fill the pages, it is painfully obvious that he is just putting together a massive newspaper article, with clippings from sources reliable and not, and from his own imagination at the same time. He later publicly apologized for making countless mistakes and anacronisms in the story. We never got to know anything about Thomas Lucchese other than that he ran a garment centre and was fidgety with objects around him. We never got to know what Tony Corallo's house looked like or what he talked about in his jaguar (other than very brief snippets of conversations in the car, which was said to contain a 770 hours of tape [why did he not research more dialogue?]). Finally, in the end of the book, the entire dialogue in the prison cell between prosecutor Charles Rose and Anthony Casso was later revealed by the author himself to be complete fantasy. This is where Rose supposedly dangled an autopsy report in front of Casso to test his abilities at being truthful about the victim's injuries, only to realize that he is a total liar (no kidding).
In the end, we end up with a story that has no solid substance, just gloss value, and does not inform us at all on the characters themselves or any intelligence resulting from the surveillance by the agencies who followed them. Perhaps Volkman will write another Gambino biography in the near future.

6/10

This book might be interesting to someone from Iowa or Kansas or somewhere where the Mafia has not been reported on much. To anyone who is knowledgable about the subject this will be a plodding, not terribly well-written rehash of familiar material. Don't be fooled by the five-star customer reviews. This book doesn't even belong on the shelf with the really good mob books (Wiseguy, Donnie Brasco, The Westies, etc.).

This book is quite an achievement. The breadth of historical and political research is reminiscent of Robert Caro. The delivery and pacing is Scorcesian. The attention to details of method (such as a team of detectives practicing for weeks the speedy dismantling of a Jaguar's dashn order to plant a bug) brings to mind Stuart Herrington's book on spy catching.

Beyond all the above, what I liked most about Gangbusters was the way it gives the lie to the Hollywood version of the mafia. Ever since Puzo hit the jackpot in the seventies, writers and filmmakers have given us progressively more romantic and glamorous versions of ever more despicable acts by the mob, almost as though its lawbreaking was exempt from social condemnation because it was a part of their culture, and therefore valuable. In this worldview, Thomas Dewey is a martinet and Gaetano Lucchese a pillar of society. Rudolf Giuliani is a fanatical fascist and Sam Gravano a courageous hero. The CIA and FBI are evil conspiracies, while the Cosa Nostra is a benevolent organization devoted to helping the working guy.

Gangbusters demolishes these ridiculous social myths in many ways, probably the most powerful being the story of Jerry Kubecka, a simple man with the modest aspiration of running a garbage hauling business on Long Island. Refusing to pay off the mafia thugs who demanded control of his business, Kubecka let himself in for decades of vandalism and violence, that only ended after his son had been murdered.

The political powers in New York and elsewhere looked the other way for decades. Special sections were set up in prisons for mobsters to pass away nominal sentences in luxury. As early as the thirties J. Edgar Hoover was saying there was no such thing as the mafia. As late as 1986 Mario Cuomo was saying in the New York Times that there was no such thing as the mafia. Volkman skillfully tells the story of the people who exposed and put a stop to these monstrous public lies, and the vast crimes they were intended to conceal.

I found this book to be immensely interesting that had more precise facts than any other mafia book I've previously read. Volkman goes in depth on such violent mafia figures as "Gas Pipe" Casso and Vic Amuso and reveals everything. A major achievement considering his previous book Goombata, which had inexact information and horrible incite. I recommend this book to all mafia fanatics. A great read.

This is a pretty good book on the luchese family. It doesn't go much into the history of the family, but concentrates on the events which brought down a few notches. It mostly is concerned with Vic Amuso and Sam Casso..the two who helped bring it down. Actually, Amuso wasn't chosen to be the boss but he was on the same crew that Tony Corrallo's chosen successor Luon was on..a guy who conviently diappeared never to be found after having been chosen boss. Amuso and Casso convinced Corralo to appoint Amuso the new boss and he agreed to it despite being warned about putting these two psychopaths in control. They go about about whacking out a good portion of the luchese family..because they were creeps as Casso would say..they were going to hit a prosecutor..not good idea..they go on the lamb. Casso becomes a rat..he also tried to help Chin Gigante to whack John Gotti.

I FOUND GANGBUSTERS TO BE QUITE A GOOD BOOK.IT IS A CREDIT TO THE AUTHOR THAT HE CAN WRITE A WELL RESEARCHED INFORMATIVE BOOK AND STILL BE ENJOYABLE.ANYONE INTRESTED IN THE MAFIA WILL REALLY LIKE THIS BOOK.

Just finished the book. I had a lot of stops and starts because after the first quarter of the book, it got tiresome. I like the way the "reality" of the mafia was told like a fictional story. There was really no main character or characters however. This lack made the book weak in my opinion because Volkman was forced to use the victims as sort of revolving protagonists and to add his own voice to the narrative (As in when Volkman calls various gansters stupid, breathtaking stupid, or dim bulbs.)
I was wondering how Volkman would have had access to the private conversations necessary to hold my flagging interest during some of the parts of the book. IT IS AFTER ALL MARKETED AS NON-FICTION. Turns out that he made it up. This was a disappointment. Once an author resorts to using fantasy in a book that is supposed to be well researched, he has lost all credibility with me. I am guessing that at least portions of the book were true and I was interested in the structure and story of the mob. This book generally satisfied that interest.

Earnest Volkman`s research in to this book is quite outstanding, as he charts the rise and fall of the Lucchese crime family, I certainly enjoyed the early chapters in book as he explains in great detail of how Cosa Nostra shaped itself at the turn of the last century and goes on to tell us again in great detail about the forming of the comission. But the middle chapters of the book started to get very long winded and the book begins to get a little bit boring and unintresting as he seems to take forever telling us about how the FBI was restructuring itself against organized crime. He also gets extremely iratating as he is forever describing the hoods as dim, stupid and not very bright and then contradicts himself by telling us how much money they were making from running unions amongst other things according to volkman any made guy is halfwit, I agree yes, no doubt some of them are dim and halfbaked but he also says that about the boses, unerbosses, capos e.t.c. This for me was very annoying and would have spoilt the whole book if it wasn`t for a very good finale where the Feds go looking for Amuso and Casso whilst on the lam as whole hell breaks lose and the Lucchese Crime family begins to wobble and shake to the very core. Overall it is ok, he details the later years very well indeed and gives a very detailed history of the Lucchese crime family. I am glad that I purchased the book If you can get past his constant mobster insults and you want to know in great detail of how a once powerfull crme family was structured and the how they go about maintaining their important union rackets(as his research in to this is quite unbeleivable) then go buy it.. If it wasn`t for his constant insults to the characters I would have given this 4 stars, but the after all the price is very good. A bargain for such knowledge and information about the Mafia new and old.

This is a great book for those who want to understand the mafia. If you don't have a real good background on the mafia, you might get a little confused with all the names.Focusing on just one family, this is a great book for those readers who know a little about the Lucchese family, but want to know more.

Gangbusters is probably the best book that explains the history of the Lucchese Family. I was quite impressed of how Volkman wrote this masterpeice. I reccomend this book to anyone who wants to learn about the Underworld.