Underboss: Sammy the Bull Gravano's Story of Life in the Mafia
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- Synopsis
- In March of 1992, the highest-ranking member of the Mafia in America ever to defect broke his blood oath of silence and testified against his boss, John Gotti. He is Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano, second-in-command of the Gambino organized- crime family, the most powerful in the nation. Because of Gotti's uncanny ability to escape conviction in state and federal trials despite charges that he was the Mafia's top chieftain, the media had dubbed him the "Teflon Don." With Sammy the Bull, this would all change. Today, Gotti is serving life in prison without parole. And as a direct consequence of Gravano's testimony, Cosa Nostra--the Mafia's true name--is in shambles. Peter Maas is the author of the international bestseller The Valachi Papers, which Rudolph Giuliani, then a federal prosecutor and now the mayor of New York City, hailed as "the most important book ever written about the Mafia in America." Until now. In Underboss, based on dozens of hours of interviews with Gravano, much of it written in Sammy the Bull's own voice, we are ushered as never before into the uppermost secret inner sanctums of Cosa Nostra--an underworld of power, lust, greed, betrayal, deception, sometimes even honor, with the specter of violent death always poised in the wings. It is a real world we have often read and heard about from the outside; now we are able to experience it in rich, no-holds-barred detail as if we were there ourselves. Unlike his glamorous boss John Gotti, Sammy the Bull honored Cosa Nostra's ancient traditions, jigging the shadows, avoiding the limelight, staying far from flashbulbs and reporters. But he was present at such key events of the modern Cosa Nostra as the sensational slaying of mob boss Paul Castellano, Gotti's predecessor, in front of a mid- town Manhattan steakhouse. Compulsively readable, Gravano's revelations are of enormous historical significance. "There has never been a defendant of his stature in organized crime," the federal judge in the Gotti trial declared, "who has made the leap he has made from one social planet to another." Gravano's is a story about starting out on the street, about killing and being killed, revealing the truth behind a quarter-century of shocking headlines. It is also a tragic story of a wasted life, of unalterable choices and the web of lies, weakness, and treachery that underlie the so-called Honored Society.
- Copyright:
- 1997
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Excellent
- Book Size:
- 306 Pages
- ISBN-13:
- 9780060182564
- Publisher:
- N/A
- Date of Addition:
- 01/09/02
- Copyrighted By:
- (c) by Peter Maas
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
- Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs, Social Studies
- Submitted By:
- Bookshare.org Volunteer
- Proofread By:
- Snehali (Holly) Marimuthu
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.