American Mafia: A History of Its Rise to Power

I enjoyed this book for the most part. Part of the strength of the book is also its weakness. Thomas Reppetto is a former detective, and brings in a law enforcement perspective to the history that a jounalist or historian probably couldn't achieve. The result is more insiders view of the various investigations into mob activity, and also the surprisingly strong relationship the American mafia had with local police departments and politicians. The downside is that the writing loses its focus for me at times, and I found it hard to keep track of the rather large cast of characters in the book from the way Reppetto tells his various storys. Reppetto is a pretty engaging story teller, and the history is more a series of tales woven together over several decades. That may not qualify this book as a definitive history, but it is an enjoyable read.

Readers interested in this genre should have this book in their collection. Rita Schiano, author "Painting The Invisible Man" Painting the Invisible Man

[...] There was a time when a working man heavy with dinner could sit in his cold water flat and savor his evening paper's reports of criminals like Kit Burns, given to biting off the heads of live rats, or Monk Eastman, leader of a gang of twelve hundred, to say nothing of misunderstood fraternal associations like the Gophers, Dead Rabbits, Bowery Boys, and the Five Pointers. That time is long gone. We live in the age of the dull criminal, twin to the dull politician. In this dark period, we have only the occasional book by a boring writer about boring bumblers who have managed, from the viewpoint of the bored working man, to bring crime into disrepute. Today, criminal defendants look like accountants. Thomas Reppetto's American Mafia, however, is not such a book, nor are the criminals in it the slack jawed specimens in yesterday's Daily News. His fact-driven narrative, written in a gentlemanly prose, detached, sometimes whimsical, quietly intellectual, always temperate, never judgmental, is pitched to that tension that draws the hand to turn the page. The book, notwithstanding its perhaps sardonic title, proves that there was no Sicilian based Mafia in this country, except the one created by potbellied reporters who, lacking style, dug into the deep pockets of fiction. Reppetto's book opens in October, 1890 in New Orleans with the sound of a shotgun blast that kills the police chief as he reaches home. His dying words are,"The dagos did it", a foreshadowing of the chapters that follow. Mayor Joseph Shakespeare orders the arrest of every Italian in sight. After a jury acquits six and disagrees as to three, a crowd of 6,000 attacks the jail and murders eight of the defendants. The New York Times deplores the event but can find no one who "deplored it very much". Today, the Times would give its entire thirty pound Sunday issue to the attack. Turning north, Reppetto begins his central theme, the alliance of criminals with corrupt politicians, judges, prosecutors, and police. In detail, he renders the reign of the Morello clan, the protection by Tammany's Big Tim Sullivan of the Jewish gang led by Monk Eastman and the hundreds of thugs led by Paul "Kelly" (née Vaccarelli). He describes Detective Giuseppe Petrosino, a squat, solitary figure, given to playing the violin in his small tenement room, the pursuer of Italian criminals who prey upon their own. He is sent to Italy on a suicide mission to investigate the backgrounds of Italian criminals in America, and is shot to death in Palermo. He lays in state in St Patrick where 250,000 attend his funeral. As New York descends into criminal control, Chicago dives head first into overwhelming crime and official corruption. Prostitution there was so open that its master pimp, Calabria born "Diamond Jim" Colosimo, oversaw about 200 cathouses,one named "Everleigh". Reppetto makes Sodom and Gomorrah look like adjoining convents compared to Chicago. It was as nothing for Anthony D'Andrea,

For anyone wishing an introduction to Mafia history in the United States this book is an excellent primer. Reppetto traces the rise of the American Mafia from late 19th century New Orleans to the heyday, just before the U.S. government started paying organized crime their due in attention and resources in the early '60's.We are introduced to various luminaries of the underworld, their crimes and their fates (not surprisingly usually a violent death, exile or a prison cell). Reppetto's section on Lucky Luciano is particularly good. Readers already familiar with the Mafia will find little new here. The book certainly doesn't rival Gus Russo's seminal book from 2002, "The Outfit" which provides far more depth, representing infinitely more research and scholarship.Reppetto is unflinching in his exposure of police corruption in U.S. cities far and wide, but fails to put organized crime in its proper place within the tangled web they weaved within corporate America and the government. He also portrays far too flattering a portrait of J. Edgar Hoover, glossing over his motives for not pursuing the Mafia more aggressively.It is as an intro to the Mafia for new readers that I give "American Mafia..." four stars, assuming they to be the book's primary audience. Those more familiar with the Mafia should be directed to Russo's book and others such as ones on Al Capone, Sam Giancanna, Meyer Lanksy and Arnold Rothstein.