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Five Families

The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires

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Five Families

By: Selwyn Raab
Narrated by: Paul Costanzo
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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.

©2005 Selwyn Raab (P)2015 Tantor Organized Crime True Crime Inspiring Thought-Provoking
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Critic reviews

"This masterpiece stands an excellent chance of becoming a bestseller with crossover appeal beyond devoted watchers of The Sopranos." ( Publishers Weekly)
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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.

Excellent

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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.

Interesting but 10 hours too long

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Excellent analysis and complete history of the Mafia, from Sicily to America. Excellently narrated also.

In-depth analysis on the Mob

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surely a must read for any Mafia boss on where everyone went wrong before them

Great epic history of the Mafia in NY

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Quite simply a masterpiece, with a condensed portion on the Secretive Genovese Borgata, led by the real King of the Mafiosi Vincent "Chin" Gigante.

The Seminal American Mafia Chronology!

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