Homicide Is My Business

Luigi the Zip: A Hitman’s Quest for Honor

De: Jerry Schmetterer, Michael Vecchione

Narrado por: Stephen Bel Davies

The story of Luigi Ronsisvalle is an intimate look at the life of a professional killer. It is, in some ways, the story of all workingmen and women with ambition who never achieve their ultimate goal. But what makes Luigi unique is that, for him to achieve his goal, people had to die. His ambition, from when he was twelve years old, was to be a made man in the Mafia. He once told a presidential commission, "American child falls in love with baseball, I fall in love with Mafia."

Coauthor Michael Vecchione spent months interviewing the hitman about his life in the Sicilian and American Mafia, finally becoming his confidant. Those days, weeks, and months together brought Luigi to realize that, despite the concept of omertà—the code of silence ingrained in him from an early age—the road to a truly honorable life meant turning on those he once admired.

Luigi had done everything asked of him by his Mafia bosses. This included the murder of thirteen people. But unlike other hitmen, Luigi was denied the Mafia recognition he felt he deserved. Drawing on personal files, handwritten notes, and official sources, this book attempts to explain his complicated life.

Contains mature themes.

©2022 Michael Vecchione and Jerry Schmetterer (P)2022 Tantor

My first view into the mafia!

Sure I’ve watched mob movies and shows, but to hear a true story from the perspective of both a ‘zip’ and DA - wow… so much I never knew that happened while I was a kid growing up on the east coast. I wouldn’t have minded an even more broken English representation of Luigi just to get an even more real sense of him. The greed and drugs within the mafia really surprised me, it’s a shame that honor is not a top priority anymore. But then again everyone’s definition of honor is different…

Very interesting, and entertaining!

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys mafia history. This book was very informative.

Loved it

A story of an unknown mobster & hitman that I haven't heard of and a bit of a deep dive into the life of a "zip" that had a big impact.

Highly recommend for organized crime fans.

Great insight into the life of a knock-around mobster

Ronsisvalle spent the better part of two decades knocking around the lower rungs of the Bonnano Family’s Knickerbocker Ave Sicilian crews. An inveterate gambler and womanizer he was never more than a brokester and would never fulfill his dream of becoming a made man. Still, his story is an interesting one.
There is much to recommend this book to fans of Mafia history. The people he was around are not often discussed in books. I may be wrong but I think Ronsisvalle was the only Zip from that era that flipped. He testified at the Pizza Connection trial along with Tomasso Buscetta. Even though he was at the bottom of the Pizza Connection he was still around a lot of guys. He talks about going around burning pizza places associated with the Gambino’s down. He was told it was for gambling debts, but it fits right into the timeline of Galante’s attacks on Gambino traffickers and their pizza shops.
The book is well written and will appeal to casual readers as well as fans of the genre.