As a part of my goal of reading books about Chicago in February one of my goals was definitly to dig into some of the seedier sides of the city, the lurid tales of the underworld. Of all the things I was expecting to read, stories of the blue-collar mafia weren't on the list. But this wasn't just a story about a bunch of dudes on a corner - this was the Outfit, the group that arose from the ashes of Capone's takedown. At one time the Outfit was biggest organized crime group in Chicago and it's influenced reached out east and to the southwest, as fictionalized in part in the movie "Casino". But really, at its core, this is a story about how a split between brothers, between a father and his son, led to one of the biggest mass-arrests and successful organized crime trials ever.
Jeff Coen does a fantastic job of retelling the process that the FBI went through to pull in evidence on the killers, starting with interviews to forensics to the politics of persuading a mobster to turn state's evidence against his fellow mobster. The mafia's house of cards began to fall when Frank Calabrese, JR. wrote to the FBI to alert them that years earlier, John Feccarotta had been murdered on behalf of the Outfit by his father, Frank Calabrese Sr. and uncle Nick. From there some of the brutal history of the Outfit's influence and actions in Chicago are splayed out in a clear fashion, with plenty of entertainment value provided from the book's colorful cast of mobsters including "The Hook", "The Clown" and the Spilantro brothers who had previously provided the inspiration for Joe Pesci's Nicky Santoro character from "Casino". Well written, clear, entertaining and true. Solid book, highly recommended.
No comments:
Post a Comment