Customer Reviews

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

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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.

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!

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.

Sheeran now has three purported deathbed confessions: 1. In this book he shot Hoffa twice in the back of the head as he tried to run from the mystery house. 2. In a Detroit Free Press article (3/13/04), he got to the house after the deed was done and took the body to Vitale's incinerator. 3. In a Philadelphia Daily News article (3/17/04) he claims to have shot Hoffa while they were in the car after leaving the Red Fox.

What surprises me is that no one has made an issue over his insinuation in the book that the mob assassinated JFK as a favor to Hoffa. He claims to have delivered the rifles to David Ferrie to take to Dallas. I have always believed it was the mob and Hoffa because of the pressure RFK put on them along with the double cross by Joe Kennedy to Sam Giancana.

I really looked forward to buying this book. It gives some fascinating insight about the infiltration of the mob into the teamster's. Hoffa has the classic little man's syndrome and he sold out his fellow teamster's so he could be a big man. In the end, that probably led to his sad ending.

Sheeran knows something.

When I read this book's review in the NY Times, I knew I had to read it, and I was not disappointed. No one should miss this absolutely compelling and fascinating insider's story of his life with the Mafia, Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters.

In addition to making some very astonishing revelations about Joe Kennedy, The Bay of Pigs and the assassination of John F. Kennedy, this book also reveals Frank Sheeran to be a rather likeable character. And that was a complete surprise to me. I anticipated a far more despicable personality.

Is it all true? I think it is. Read it and make your call.

Brandt--with his experience as a former prosecutor and Chief Deputy Attorney General of the State of Delaware and an expert on cross-examination--has provided more than enough evidence to, finally, solve one of the greatest mysteries of our time. His book is extremely well written, exciting to read, and very informative, as it dives into an amazing and fascinating life story of the real life Mafia hit man Frank Sheeran. This is better than any Soprano's episode ever written, and it is the "real deal." I couldn't put the book down! Know doubt, Brandt has reserved himself a place in literary history.

The book tells an amazing but very believeable account of the life of a man deep inside the organization.

This book answers a lot of questions about several key events of the last forty years from Hoffa's disappearance to the Kennedy assassination.

What irks me most about the usual "hitman's tale," is that there is no true "life" story told; at most, we are usually served up with a clump of killings. However, author Brandt brings to the reader, in a most unusual and well written fashion, The "Irishman's" life story: a "blue collar" hitman's life, including his experiences as a highly accomplished world war two combat "killer," a respected and loved father and family man, a hit man for a top mafia figure, the man who confesses to having Painted a House with Jimmy Hoffa's blood, and more. The book is a gem. It is a great read for any season. More importantly, it's a must read for any one that wants more of it when they have finished the book, as the Irishman's confessions are now bearing fruit, i.e., Michigan and Federal law enforcement are giving the book its due by conducting forensic testing on evidence seized at the home where the Irishman describes the Hoffa hit. The book is well worth the price of admission! Bravo, Mr. Brandt!

I have to agree with the person from Rolling Meadows. You have to question Sheeran's credibility. But that aside, it is a great book to read. It gives you insight into the mob infiltration of the teamsters and other unions. It also makes you realize that Sheeran most likely participated in some aspect of Hoffa's disappearance Whether he is the actual killer or just an accomplice, he definitely knew something.

This is a very enjoyable book if you have any interest at all in the mob, the teamster's or Hoffa.

Gangsters are notorious for their crimes. Yet - and this is particularly true of the, shall we say, retired "old school" mobsters - they are even _more_ notorious for their fantasies and braggings over fictitious deeds. Their "scores" grow by 1000%, they "know" all people from all circles, they saw or conducted the most infamous "hits" in organized crime history... the more recognized a true crime story is, the more self-admitted mob "participants" in it you will find. If you counted all the gangsters who, at one time, claimed - usually, of course, in conversations with their mob friends - that they had something to do with, say, the death of John F. Kennedy, you would have to believe that everyone in Dallas was a gangster involved in the shooting - except for Lee Harvey Oswald.

The case of James Hoffa spawned probably even more mob braggards than all the rest combined. Teamster and mobster Frank Sheeran decided to join them with his own flim-flam and, with the help of his lawyer, spinned a legend that would make the Grimm brothers look up in interest - and recognize it as pure fantasy.

The 2005 DNA analysis of human blood found in the house that Sheeran and this book named as the place of Hoffa's death - the blood found underneath the floor of the very corridor and kitchen in which, Sheeran claimed, Hoffa was shot and dragged outside - proved conclusively that the blood was not that of James R. Hoffa... and thus yet another mobster's fantasy crumbled.

I suspect Sheeran did kill someone in that house - or at least witnessed a murder - and decided to combine that real story with the known details of Hoffa's disappearance, to create a seemingly feasible tale... I would not be surprised had he made a deal with Brandt to split half of the profits from the sales of this fairy tale with, for instance, his son.

Admittedly, the book is an interesting reading if you treat it as fiction, as a "what if..." take on the Hoffa story. Just don't treat as an actual explanation.