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A review by asteroidbuckle
Boss of Bosses: The Fall of the Godfather: The FBI and Paul Castellano by Andris Kurins, Joseph F. O'Brien
4.0
This book was excellent! It was written by two former FBI agents whose job was to study Paul Castellano's evey move in order to bring him to justice.
At times poignant, at times funny, this book recounts the efforts to gain intelligence on a man who rarely left his house and held court (as it was later discovered) in the dining room next to his kitchen.
Paul Castellano was the most powerful crime boss at the time, boss of the Gambino family. But he was also human and suffered from the same things that ailed "lesser" people - diabetes, impotence, insecurity, indigestion. He was a man who earned his millions by stealing them, yet desperately wanted to be seen as a legitmate business man. He was also being used by his own mistress, who began as his maid and ended up (for a short time) usurping his wife as woman of the house.
O'Brien and Kurins, the authors and former agents, came to grudgingly respect Castellano despite the fact that he was "the bad guy." What he did was illegal and immoral, but he did it with surprising grace and and stuck to his beliefs with an admirable tenacity, even as his enemies (both inside and outside the family) were closing in.
This was a terrific read and I found it very compelling.
At times poignant, at times funny, this book recounts the efforts to gain intelligence on a man who rarely left his house and held court (as it was later discovered) in the dining room next to his kitchen.
Paul Castellano was the most powerful crime boss at the time, boss of the Gambino family. But he was also human and suffered from the same things that ailed "lesser" people - diabetes, impotence, insecurity, indigestion. He was a man who earned his millions by stealing them, yet desperately wanted to be seen as a legitmate business man. He was also being used by his own mistress, who began as his maid and ended up (for a short time) usurping his wife as woman of the house.
O'Brien and Kurins, the authors and former agents, came to grudgingly respect Castellano despite the fact that he was "the bad guy." What he did was illegal and immoral, but he did it with surprising grace and and stuck to his beliefs with an admirable tenacity, even as his enemies (both inside and outside the family) were closing in.
This was a terrific read and I found it very compelling.