A Brotherhood Betrayed

The Man Behind the Rise and Fall of Murder, Inc.

By: Michael Cannell

Narrated by: Gary Galone

The riveting true story of the rise and fall of Murder, Inc. and the executioner-turned-informant whose mysterious death became a legendary moment in Mob history.

In the fall of 1941, a momentous trial was set to begin that threatened to end the careers and lives of New York’s most brutal mob kingpins. The lead witness, Abe Reles, had been a trusted executioner for Murder, Inc., the enforcement arm of a coast-to-coast mob network known as the Syndicate. But the man responsible for coolly silencing hundreds of informants was about to become the most talkative snitch of all. In exchange for police protection, Reles was prepared to rat out his murderous friends, from Albert Anastasia to Bugsy Siegel - until the morning of the trial, when his shattered body was discovered on a rooftop outside his heavily guarded hotel room. Was it a botched escape, or punishment for betraying the loyalty of the country’s most powerful mobsters?

Michael Cannell's A Brotherhood Betrayed traces the history of Murder, Inc. through Reles’ rise from street punk to murder chieftain to stool pigeon, ending with his face-down death on a Coney Island rooftop. It resurrects a time when crime became organized crime: a world of money and power, depravity and corruption, street corner ambushes and elaborately choreographed hits by wise-cracking foot soldiers with names like Buggsy Goldstein and Tick Tock Tannenbaum.

For a brief moment before World War II erupted, America fixated on the delicate balance of trust and betrayal on the Brooklyn streets. This is the story of the one man who tipped the balance.

A Macmillan Audio production from Minotaur Books

©2020 Michael Cannell (P)2020 Macmillan Audio

History from the bottom up

A glimpse into the role that Jewish immigrants played in NYC organized crime - in and around the 1930’s.

Loved it!

Great retelling of the Murder Inc. saga. The people, the places, very compelling. Thank you.

Worst Reader...EVER

Narrator is very choppy and rough, really takes away from the story. I almost quit listening less than a chapter in.

Great story. Narrator reads unnaturally.

Great story with details, but the narrator kept irritating me with his un-natural reading style. This should be re recorded. That's the only flaw I can report.

qexcellemt book

one of the better mob books i have heard. it goes pretty deep in mrder inc xovering the players and their conxlusions.

Narrator is awful!!

The information was quite interesting but the narrator sounded more like AI than a real person. Had I not used a credit for this audio book, I would not have listened past the introduction.