Customer Reviews

The Pizza Connection: Lawyers, Money, Drugs, Mafia

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This book is an exhaustive account of the first successful RICO prosecution of New York racketeers headed by the then up-and coming Rudy Guiliani and Louis Freeh. It precedes the mafia cleanup in Italy, that resulted in horrific murders of investigating judges, and yet features many of the same names, "families", and same tentacles. The case went on forever, each mafioso from high to low represented by a scrum of lawyers, all battling for their moment in the spotlight. The title comes from the heroin traffic fronted by pizza restaurants, good for money laundering as well as handy pickup points. Alexander seems to have spent every day in court, finding something interesting to say even when the case bogged down in legal flummery. She covers both sides and the infighting that went on behind the scenes. What I most liked were the portraits of the gangsters, she was hip to their efforts to look like sick underdogs when in reality they were multimillionaires!

By reading the Pizza Connection, I was brought into the Italian mafia crime families of the past. I remember as a child watching the news coverage regarding the Pizza Connection. Sadly, the coverage was quite redundant and repetitive and lacked my interests. Surprised to know how Giuliani orchestrated this trial which costs the taxpayers of New York more than 50 million because he was obviously eyeing to become Mayor even then. I still don't like Giuliani because I felt that the 22 defendants and their numerous attorneys clogged the court system for 16 months. The trial of drug trafficking and the mob seemed to be endless. Shana Alexander has written about subjects but this book will probably be her finest works to date. It is mind-boggling to read about the characters in this case, the families, the defendants, the lawyers, and others involved. Shana has delivered charts, chronology of events, family trees to help explain and you will need to in understanding the enormousness of the crime. In the end, I still get hungry for a little pizza.

I love mob books and this one doesn't dissappoint. Must have for the mob book lover.