The Sixth Family: The Collapse of the New York Mafia and the Rise of Vito Rizzuto

I found this book to be highly enjoyable and informative. It wasn't lacking for information. I admit at times a lot of names were being mentioned and it gets hard to keep them all straight but that is nothing new with reading books regarding the Mafia. I have read over 50 organized crime books regarding the Mafia/La Cosa Nostra/Camorra, etc. I would recommend this book for anyone wanting to understand the workings of the Mafia in Canada. I have read books that dance around the topic such as Mafia Enforcer, Last Days of the Sicilians, Last Godfather, etc but this book really gives you all you want or need to know. This book debunks the myth that the Montreal or Canada mafia was just a faction of the Bonanno Family. It detials the international reach of the Rizzutos and the Sixth Family, who they worked with in other countries, other criminal organizations they partnered with, scope of the drug trade, etc. The book is also relatively current going up to 2004-2005. This book is a must for any true cime library.

hell i didn't know there was one as big as the sixth family , as donnie brasco would say fughetaboutit. lol

This is a well written and brilliant book which comes from two accomplished, experienced journalists who are experts on the global history of organized crime and the Mafia. The amount of research and analysis that has gone into this book is amazing and it fully enjoys a 5 star review. The book is very detailed and can be dense at times to wade through the facts and absorb the international and national ramifications of this book. Hang in there and read it carefully, l sometimes read some chapters two or three times to grasp fully the international links of Mafia clans based in North America, South America and Europe. A branch of the Sicilian mafia has planted cells in the North and South America that have been active since the 1940's and have slowly grown into powerful criminal cartels with links all over the world. In particular Canada which is the home of the Sixth Family with clever and powerful Vito Rizzutto as first among equals. Drugs are the main game for the Sixth Family, but according to this book they are also active in counterfeiting, stock fraud and was even involved in a bizarre search for some lost gold ingots in the Philippines that used to belong to ex President Marcos, l would not even be surprised if they even made a buck out of this book too. The Bonanno mafia family from New York sent its feared enforcer Carmine Galante to Montreal in the 1950's to setup an offshoot of its own in that city. Galante succeeded so well that for years tribute flowed from Montreal to New York and that city was used to traffic drugs into the USA from the French connection and later Sicily. The Sixth Family bloomed in Montreal from the 1950's onward and gradually became the Montreal crime power in its own right as the New York influence dwindled away to nothing. This book also contains much information about the Bonanno crime family and its operations and how it tried to handle an influx of Sicilian born wise guys into its midst from the 1970's. Eventually there was much suspicion on both sides and some wiseguys ended up whacked. This is a great read for the true crime history buff

This was the most informative book I have read about the Canadian Mafia. Very interesting reading about the rise of Montreal Mafia.

It took a long time to get ahold this book. But it was worth the wait. Unlike most books on organized crime, The Sixth Family concentrates on how criminals work but also why their so powerful. As an American living in Canada I was surprised and shocked to discover this Canadian mafia family is in the forefront of the international drug trade and has been there for fifty years. I don't think this will make American mob watchers very pleased to find there is a sophisticated mafia family that holds control over the typical American family. But the facts are there. The authors seem to have spent years gathering information on Vito Rizzuto and members of his family. Unlike some mafia books, the Sixth family isn't about blood and bullets, although there are some murders. This is not a quick book and requires a little bit of knowledge about the under-world. The writers delve deeply into everything from the French Connection to the Piza Connection and along the way they find the Rizzuto family at work. I recommend this book as a good read as well as a source of research. Connie Bryce, Toronto, Ontario