"I Heard You Paint Houses": Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa [Kindle Edition]

Charles Brandt (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Pre-production of the movie 'The Irishman' is moving ahead. That's the name currently given to the film based on Charles Brandt's book, 'I Heard You Paint Houses.' It's a compelling, can't-put-down account of the life of Philadelphia-area mobster Frank Sheeran." 

—Delaware News Journal


“Is Sheeran believable? Very . . . and ‘I Heard You Paint Houses’ is a very enjoyable book.”

—Trial Magazine

 

“A page-turning account of one man’s descent into the mob.”

—Delaware News Journal

 

“Sheeran’s confession that he killed Hoffa in the manner described in the book is supported by the forensic evidence, is entirely credible, and solves the Hoffa mystery.”

– Michael Baden, M.D., former Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York

 

“I’m fully convinced – now – that Sheeran was in fact the man who did the deed. And I’m impressed, too, by the book’s readability and by its factual accuracy in all areas on which I’m qualified to pass judgment. Charles Brandt has solved the Hoffa mystery.”

—Professor Arthur Sloane, author of Hoffa

 

“One of Sheeran’s virtues was his gift as a storyteller; one of his flaws was his tendency to murder, in mobster jargon, ‘to paint houses.’ . . . Sheeran acknowledged that he was the one who killed the Teamsters boss. . . . On July 30, 1975, Hoffa disappeared. Sheeran explains how he did it, in prose reminiscent of the best gangster films.”

– Associated Press

 

“Told with such economy and chilling force as to make The Sopranos suddenly seem overwrought and theatrical.”

—New York Daily News

 

“Brandt’s book gives new meaning to the term ‘guilty pleasure.&rs...

Product Description

"I Heard you Paint Houses" are the first words Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke to Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran. To paint a house is to kill a man. The paint is the blood that splatters on the walls and floors. In the course of nearly five years of recorded interviews Frank Sheeran confessed to Charles Brandt that he handled more than twenty-five hits for the mob, and for his friend Hoffa. Sheeran learned to kill in the U.S. Army, where he saw an astonishing 411 days of active combat duty in Italy during World War II. After returning home he became a hustler and hit man, working for legendary crime boss Russell Bufalino. Eventually he would rise to a position of such prominence that in a RICO suit then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani would name him as one of only two non-Italians on a list of 26 top mob figures. When Bufalino ordered Sheeran to kill Hoffa, he did the deed, knowing that if he had refused he would have been killed himself. Sheeran's important and fascinating story includes new information on other famous murders, and provides rare insight to a chapter in American history. Charles Brandt has written a page-turner that is destined to become a true crime classic.

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 1509 KB
• Publisher: Steerforth (April 15, 2008)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B00182HLN8
• Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (81 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #23,861 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #32 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > True Accounts > Organized Crime

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hoffa Murder Solved -- Perhaps, March 8, 2005

By 

Wayne A. Smith (Newark, DE) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran and the Inside Story of the Mafia, the Teamsters, and the Final Ride of Jimmy Hoffa (Hardcover)

Charles Brandt has proved twice over the last twenty years that he is a pretty good author. This non-fiction work (the title refers to the code Mafiosi used to inquire whether someone did hits -- the blood spatter being the paint) detailing the life of Frank Sheeran and his buddy Jimmy Hoffa is first rate.

Brandt combines passages of Sheeran's own words with the author's background and fill-in's to tie together an impressive mob memoir. Frank Sheeran, besides hailing for a time from my own Wilmington, Delaware, was one vicious and disciplined mobster. This is his story. His hardscrabble life (his father would make him fight people in bars as a teen for beer -- the beer going to his father, not Frank) perhaps made a life a amorality unsurprising. What is amazing is that this recount by an old man facing death is not a repentance for a life lived horribly wrong, but a simple detailing of the events of that life. The banality of Sheeran describing his career -- hits, butchering, beatings told the way an accountant would detail audits or financial statement presentations -- is fascinating and speaks to a man wholly absorbed in doing his part for organized crime and the Teamsters.

Hoffa is presented as an interesting figure; one who starts using the mob for the benefit of "his" teamsters but makes the tragic mistake of believing he is too big to be bound by mob rules. His story and will to take over what was once the most powerful union in America is a remarkable tale in its own right and told interestingly in this book.

Sheeran idolizes Hoffa. Then he kills him (according to Sheeran). The punch of this book is a detailed and blow-by-blow telling of Hoffa's supposed meeting with his executioner (the mob supposedly sends someone you would never expect when it is decided you've pushed their patience too far) and the deed. Sheeran is detailed and convincing in his telling. Sheeran also hints that Hoffa and certain mob bosses were behind the JFK assassination as a payback for Bobby Kennedy's war against organized crime as a Senate attorney and later Attorney General. In fact, Sheeran thinks he may have delivered a package that was Lee Harvey Oswald's rifle to a contact in Baltimore days before the shooting of the president.

Whether or not this is the true story of what happened to Jimmy Hoffa (and whether or not he was involved in JFK's assassination) will have to be for each reader to judge. But the story is one heck of an interesting ride into the sordid doings of organized crime. Mr. Brandt, you should pick up the pen more frequently.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I'm convinced!, June 8, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran and the Inside Story of the Mafia, the Teamsters, and the Final Ride of Jimmy Hoffa (Hardcover)

I must say, when I first heard that there was a new book out that supposedly had the inside info on what actually happened to Jimmy Hoffa, I was skeptical. After all... after years of myths and mysterious tales that included the Teamster boss' burial beneath the Giant Stadium End Zone, I figured this would be more of the same... speculative journalism. Was I wrong! This book has more than the ring of truth, it has the look, feel and smell of truth. Frank Sheeran's story, as reported and commented on by the author, is clearly authentic. The way the story unfolds -- as first person narration with commentary -- provides the reader with an in-depth journey through a life of crime, murder, mob relationships, and betrayal on a grand scale. It's not only solid history and a superb biography of a complex individual, it's one of the best non-fiction crime books I've ever read. And the big questions... who killed James R. Hoffa... why and how did it go down? I'm convinced they are answered. Case closed. And the insights the book gives us into a life in crime are fascinating. Go for it!

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Last Word on Hoffa Hit, July 16, 2004

By 

Edward D. Terhune "Ed T." (Basking Ridge, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran and the Inside Story of the Mafia, the Teamsters, and the Final Ride of Jimmy Hoffa (Hardcover)

Enough law enforcement officials have given credit to the veracity of Sheeran's account and it certainly rang true to me as I read it. There are no particularly startling revelations here, at least as regards the Hoffa matter. Those who orchestrated the hit are the same people who were always suspect- Bufalino, Provenzano, etc. However, at the very least, we can now dispense with some of the more fanciful notions that have evolved over the years- Hoffa was buried in a NJ dump, Hoffa rests in the end zone of Giants stadium, etc. I was surprised to read about Sheeran's claiming credit for the Joe Gallo hit in NY in 1972. As a frequent patron of the old Umberto's restaurant on Mulberry Street where the colorful Gallo met his end (you could still see the bullet holes that dispatched Gallo for years afterward and the restaurant became something of a tourist attraction), I always credited the claim of Joseph Luparelli that 3 gunmen were involved in the hit. The only real problem I had with the book was that, despite all his forthcoming self-analysis and revelatory details, I ended the narrative with no real sense beyond the superficial of what made Sheeran tick. Impoverished background? The brutality of his combat experiences? How many people have gone through all that and more without becoming underworld killers? Perhaps it's inevitable that someone like Sheeran is destined to remain an enigma. Or perhaps the prosaic reality is that Frank Sheeran was an essentially shallow, empty man whose only true value in the world in which he moved was the brutality and violence of which he was so obviously capable of performing without much notice or preparation. It would have been interesting to hear from his alienated, embittered daughters to get a glimpse of the man's personality from another vantage point. I did find it interesting and somewhat ironic that Sheeran supposedly made his confessions so that he would be able to be buried in a Catholic cemetery. My father's family has a burial plot in a Catholic cemetery in NJ and not many yards away is the burial plot of Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano, a man who allegedly was intimately involved in the Hoffa assassination and yet a man who could claim burial in sanctified ground without having to go through the process of making public confession of his various crimes and sins.