All due respect to the Gambinos and the Genoveses, but the Italian mob families aren’t the only gangsters to make for compelling memoirs. In terms of relentless ruthlessness and its obsession with the almighty dollar, the Irish mob of Boston’s James "Whitey" Bulger could match its New York counterparts hit for bloody hit. For decades, Edward J. MacKenzie, Jr. (a.k.a. Eddie Mac) was a drug dealer, enforcer, and key associate of Bulger (on the lam as this book was published). Mac's first-person account of those years is rife with more gory details per page than the entire last season of The Sopranos.

By the brutal code of honor and loyalty in the streets, the candid dishing of such dirt marks MacKenzie as a world-class rat, second only to Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, the man who put John Gotti away. But Eddie Mac has some justification in spilling the beans; in exchange for his tips, the Feds turned a blind eye toward his crimes. (It's also worth nothing that Bulger himself was an informant for the FBI.) The author certainly doesn’t portray himself as any sort of hero or "gangster with a heart of gold." Witness his charming account of one of many attempts to "enlighten" a wayward associate: "Probation notwithstanding, I had to open Steve’s eyes a little. I headed over to Dunkin’ Donuts and bought a cup of coffee for $1.24. Medium, black, scalding hot. . . .Steve was still in his car, sleeping like a baby. The window was down and he had his head against the door, hands under his cheeks. I poured the hot coffee down the side of his face, making sure to get some on his eyeballs. . . I swear if I’d had enough money to buy the gasoline that day that’s what I would have done. . . but I’d only had $1.30, so the coffee had to do."

Although MacKenzie has not one but two ghost writers (Karas is a contributor to People magazine and the author of The Onassis Women, while Muscato is a self-described "strategic communications consultant"), the prose never rises above the level of the sleaziest pulp fiction. But that of course is exactly its appeal, and fans of the true-crime genre will find Street Soldier a supreme pleasure, guilty or not. --Jim DeRogatis


From Publishers Weekly
Former mobsters turning around and spilling their guts is nothing new, but this memoir is more than just true crime sensationalism or conscience-cleaning confessional. Instead, it's a window into an inconsistent world created by inner-city masculinity and the innate need to belong. While one-time drug dealer MacKenzie dispels the myth of James Whitey Bulger being a cross between Don Corleone and Robin Hood by portraying him as a murdering, child molesting, drug pusher who ratted on his own gang before disappearing, he admits to looking up to Bulger (who went into hiding in 1995 and is on the FBI's most-wanted list) and feeling proud doing his boss's dirty work. But Bulger's story, the essence of evil, takes a back seat, playing the foil to MacKenzie's tale of an internal struggle of good versus evil that speaks to America's obsession with the duality of mobster life. MacKenzie's brutally honest account of a childhood branded by absentee parents, foster homes, physical and sexual abuse and poverty is moving. He deftly walks the fine line of sentimentality, rarely blaming others for his transgressions while giving a chillingly detailed account of the role his past played in constructing his personality of contradictions: athlete-hood, husband-philanderer, role model drug dealer, parent-child, gangster-rat. Presenting these contradictions, MacKenzie's straightforward writing (with People magazine contributor Karas and communication consultant Muscato), shifts momentum like a street fight, weaving between the fantastic world of crime, violence and sex and the reality of their counterparts: prison, death and pregnancy. Permeated with the feeling that the now clean author still relishes the charge of criminal life, the memoir contains the edginess of a great thriller. Photos. Map not seen by PW. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"For decades the FBI let South Boston's James "Whitey" Bulger get away with murder. Bulger traded information - about rival mobsters and even members of his own gang - in exchange for continued control of his criminal enterprises. In 1995 the FBI decided to put an end to the sordid arrangement and moved to indict their longtime informer. But before they could act, someone tipped off Bulger and he fled. Today he follows top-ranked Osama bin Laden on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List." "During the 1980s, Edward J. MacKenzie, Jr., known to his Southie friends as Eddie Mac, was a drug dealer and enforcer who would do just about anything for Bulger. These days, Whitey and many of his former associates, including the ruthless mobster Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi and turn-coat FBI agent John Connolly, are all very much in the news. As is Whitey's brother, University of Massachusetts president and former high-ranking politician William M. Bulger, for refusing to testify before a congressional committee investigating the corrupt relationship between the FBI and Bulger's gang. In this compelling eyewitness account, the first from a Bulger insider, Eddie Mac reveals details from the past that shed light on the present." "Street Soldier is also a story of the search for family, for acceptance, for respect, loyalty, and love. Abandoned by his parents at the age of four, MacKenzie became a ward of the state of Massachusetts, suffered physical and sexual abuse in the foster-care system, and eventually drifted into a life of crime and Bulger's orbit." The Eddie Mac who emerges in these pages is complex: An enforcer who was also a kick-boxing and Golden Gloves champion; a womanizer who fought for custody of his daughters; a tenth-grade dropout living on the streets who went on, as an adult, to earn a college degree in three years; a man who lived by a strict code of loyalty to the mob, but set up a sting operation that would net one of the largest hauls of cocaine ever seized. No

FROM THE CRITICS

The New York Times

Eddie MacKenzie's graphic account of his life as a violent street criminal in South Boston (he calls himself an urban street predator) is almost unspeakably brutal, coldblooded, ruthless, merciless, callous, cruel -- and fascinating. Reading it is like happening upon a street crime and entering the perpetrator's mind. It's not pretty. — John W. Dean

The Washington Post

It's powerful stuff, with anecdotes so gruesome that some fastidious readers might want to close the covers and look away. — Les Roberts

Publishers Weekly

Former mobsters turning around and spilling their guts is nothing new, but this memoir is more than just true crime sensationalism or conscience-cleaning confessional. Instead, it's a window into an inconsistent world created by inner-city masculinity and the innate need to belong. While one-time drug dealer MacKenzie dispels the myth of James Whitey Bulger being a cross between Don Corleone and Robin Hood by portraying him as a murdering, child molesting, drug pusher who ratted on his own gang before disappearing, he admits to looking up to Bulger (who went into hiding in 1995 and is on the FBI's most-wanted list) and feeling proud doing his boss's dirty work. But Bulger's story, the essence of evil, takes a back seat, playing the foil to MacKenzie's tale of an internal struggle of good versus evil that speaks to America's obsession with the duality of mobster life. MacKenzie's brutally honest account of a childhood branded by absentee parents, foster homes, physical and sexual abuse and poverty is moving. He deftly walks the fine line of sentimentality, rarely blaming others for his transgressions while giving a chillingly detailed account of the role his past played in constructing his personality of contradictions: athlete-hood, husband-philanderer, role model drug dealer, parent-child, gangster-rat. Presenting these contradictions, MacKenzie's straightforward writing (with People magazine contributor Karas and communication consultant Muscato), shifts momentum like a street fight, weaving between the fantastic world of crime, violence and sex and the reality of their counterparts: prison, death and pregnancy. Permeated with the feeling that the now clean author still relishes the charge of criminal life, the memoir contains the edginess of a great thriller. Photos. Map not seen by PW. (May) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Mackenzie breaks his cardinal rule-Thou Shalt Not Rat-in this fascinating and disturbing memoir of a life in crime. Abused and neglected as a child, Mackenzie grew up full of rage and hostility, feelings he channeled into a kick-boxing career and, eventually, into a job as enforcer for Whitey Bulgar's South Boston mob. Working for Whitey gave him financial security, self-respect, and someone to idolize until the day he was busted as a drug dealer and learned that Whitey himself, as a longtime informer for the FBI, put him away. Mackenzie cut a deal, worked a sting against the Medellin cartel (not his South Boston cronies), and slowly tried to turn his life around even as Whitey disappeared. This book is often violent and seamy, but it's an almost unbeatable insider's account of the mob run by the brother of a former state senator and president of the University of Massachusetts. Though not for the faint of heart, it belongs in all true crime collections.-Deirdre Bray Root, Middletown P.L., OH Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews