From Publishers Weekly
During the 1920s the Gambinos, members of the New York Cosa Nostra "Five Families," which also included the Colombo, Bonanno, Lucchese and Genovese families, controlled many businesses in Gotham. Among their strongholds were private carting, garment industry trucking and construction. The mob also had a powerful pull in the meat and supermarket businesses, along with the customary enterprises of loansharking, extortion and pornography. Additionally, the dons, having forbidden trafficking in drugs to subordinates, could not resist the vast profits and became involved themselves. Mafia founding fathers Vincent and Philip Mangano were succeeded by Albert Anastasia, who was murdered in 1957. The most effective leader, shows Davis, was Carlo Gambino, who emerged supreme in 1970, reigned for 19 years and was succeeded by his cousin Paul Castellano until he was killed at the behest of John Gotti, who was sentenced to life in prison in 1992. Davis ( Mafia Kingfish ) explores the history of the Cosa Nostra from its roots in Italy and brilliantly depicts the violent, vicious, vulgar brotherhood. Photos not seen by PW. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
One of New York City's five Mafia families, the Gambinos have been variously bossed by Albert Anastasia, Carlo Gambino, Paul Castellano, and--until his recent conviction (life imprisonment without parole)--most infamously by the flamboyant John Gotti. The author believes, perhaps prematurely, that the government's court victories have spelled the Mafia's doom. Davis, whose most recent work was Mafia Kingfish ( LJ 12/88), is most successful in chapters on Gotti and his final trial. Less inspired, though adequate, is the historical material, which has all been done before. In addition to John Cummings and Ernest Volkman's Goombata ( LJ 4/15/90) and Gene Mustain and Jerry Capeci's Mob Star (Watts, 1988), we can expect more books about Gotti; until then, this latest account is suitable for organized crime collections.- Gregor A. Preston, Univ. of California Lib., DavisCopyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
The Gambinos--they arrived in America from Sicily when the `20's roared with bootleg liquor.For thirty years they fought a bloody battle for control of New York's underworld to emerge as the nation's richest and most powerful crime family. Now Mafia expert John H. Davis tells their compelling inside story. Here are the chilling details and deceptions that created a vast criminal empire. Here are six decades of the uncontrolled greed and lust for power of such men as Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, Meyer Lansky, Vito Genovese, Albert Anastasia, Carlo Gambino, Paul Castellano, and John Gotti--men for whom murder and betrayal were business as usual. From the Gambinos' powerful stranglehold on New York's construction, garment, and waterfront industries to the government's onslaught against them in the `80s and `90s, Mafia Dynasty takes you into the mysterious world of blood oaths, shifting alliances, and deadly feuds that will hold you riveted from the first page to the last.

ANNOTATION

Mafia expert and bestselling author of The Kennedy Contract traces the Gambino family from its arrival to the U.S. in the '20s to the downfall of mob boss John Gotti in 1992. A violent saga of bloodshed and betrayal. Photos. Film rights have been optioned by Lester Persky Productions.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Among the thousands of Italian immigrants to arrive in New York City in the 1920s were the young Carlo Gambino and John Joseph Gotti. One was a rising star in the Sicilian "Honored Society," the other was a poor laborer. While John Joseph Gotti and thousands of poveracci like him plugged away at backbreaking, deadend jobs, slick Sicilian hotshots plunged into the illegal liquor business, setting up stills, warehouses, distribution lines, and trucking companies. They recruited battalions of bootleggers and opened up hundreds of speakeasies all over New York. It was this frenzied competition, writes Davis, that established the foundations for the five Mafia families that to this day run the New York underworld. And the richest and biggest of them all is the Gambino crime family. Davis depicts the deals that went into the creation of this vast enterprise, a mysterious world of blood oaths, shifting alliances, long-lasting feuds, and larger-than-life - or death - personalities: Salvatore Maranzano, the mafioso from the old school who read Caesar in the original Latin; Lucky Luciano, the ruthless young tough who reorganized the underworld in 1931 and gave it the structure it has had for the past sixty years; Albert Anastasia, the "Lord High Executioner," who, with Luciano, ran Murder Incorporated with a cadre of killers on retainer; Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, whose specialty was murder by ice pick; Frank Costello, the "Prime Minister of the Underworld." Mafia Dynasty shows the young John Gotti, raised in poverty, coming to admire the well-dressed, flashy gangsters in his East New York neighborhood, particularly the mighty Albert Anastasia, who was at the height of his power in 1956 when sixteen-year-old Gotti left school. But while Anastasia swaggered through the streets, Carlo Gambino stealthily built an empire of crime and cemented his control of it by Anastasia's barbershop execution. Davis depicts the remarkable reign of "Don Carlo," during which Gambino tentacles r

FROM THE CRITICS

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