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Five Families
- The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires
- Narrated by: Paul Costanzo
- Length: 33 hrs and 54 mins
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Summary
Genovese, Gambino, Bonnano, Colombo, and Lucchese. For decades these Five Families ruled New York and built the American Mafia (or Cosa Nostra) into an underworld empire. Today, the Mafia is an endangered species, battered and beleaguered by aggressive investigators, incompetent leadership, betrayals, and generational changes that produced violent, unreliable leaders and recruits. A 20-year assault against the five families in particular blossomed into the most successful law enforcement campaign of the last century.
Selwyn Raab's Five Families is the vivid story of the rise and fall of New York's premier dons, from Lucky Luciano to Paul Castellano to John Gotti and more. The book also brings the listener right up to the possible resurgence of the Mafia as the FBI and local law enforcement agencies turn their attention to homeland security and away from organized crime.
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Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- J W.
- 03-12-15
Excellent
Would you listen to Five Families again? Why?
I'd listen to this again Because, not only is it the best book I've ever read about the Cosa Nostra in the United States, engagingly written and well-researched, but the narration is superb.
What did you like best about this story?
The subject has always fascinated me, and in The Five Families the author, Selwyn Raab, has literally created a 'one-stop-shop' for the history of the Mafia in America.
Have you listened to any of Paul Costanzo’s other performances? How does this one compare?
I've not listened to any other of the narrator's performances, but I will. He is excellent. He doesn't try to do accents and dialects - he reads the book in a lively and thoughtful way.
If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
This is the one...
Any additional comments?
This is destined to be one of my favourites.
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17 people found this helpful
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- William
- 18-03-16
"Superb"
If you could sum up Five Families in three words, what would they be?
Well narrated, Interesting, informative,
What other book might you compare Five Families to, and why?
Mob Boss: The Life of Little Al D'arco, the Man Who Brought Down the Mafia, Along similar lines but different story and a different perspective of the life.
If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?
"The Five Families: The money the lies and the killing’s from Bensonhurst to Broadway"
Any additional comments?
Superb book couldn’t recommend it highly enough.
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14 people found this helpful
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- Ashlar1077
- 12-05-17
excellent
Massively detailed breakdown of the mafia. interesting and full of fact. learnt loads from this but I can't talk about it.😉
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13 people found this helpful
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- Andrew
- 14-04-16
Interesting and well-written history
Any additional comments?
This is the first book I've listened to (or read) on the subject. Fascinating, well-written, and well-narrated.
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13 people found this helpful
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- Steve
- 16-04-16
Interesting but 10 hours too long
After recently listening to Puzo's Godfather I thought it would be interesting to research the truth behind the stories.
This book is incredibly informative and detailed almost to a fault. The result is a very well written and narrated book that seems to go on forever. from about 20 hours in it became a bit of a slog to finish it.
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10 people found this helpful
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- ryan cusdin
- 04-12-16
Exceptional
The best book I've never read. Absolutely fascinating insight into the underworld. I highly recommend this audiobook.
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9 people found this helpful
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- Gary Leith
- 31-10-17
A serious listen!
This is a seriously indepth and long book on the New York Mafia families. I certainly enjoyed this listen but it takes a lot of concentration to keep up with all the many stories and characters mentioned throughout the book. I marked the story down to 3 as the content and length of this book was too long for me.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Guitar God
- 21-01-22
AI narration?
This is so horribly narrated. Punctuation and accentuation on words and phrases is so bad, it sounds like a robot. I can't listen anymore! How do I return audiobooks for a refund?
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1 person found this helpful
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- Ed
- 14-03-21
Fantastic
It has every single year from the mafias formation to "the end" in one book
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1 person found this helpful
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- jason coulson
- 14-02-21
Great audio
It was narrated really well, the in depth knowledge was amazing and overall one of the best audio books I have listened to, if you are interested in Mafia history then this is for you
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1 person found this helpful