Godfather of Night

A Greek Mafia Father, a Drug Runner Son, and an Unexpected Shot at Redemption

By: Kevin Pappas, Stephan Talty

Narrated by: Brian Troxell

What if you belonged nowhere and to no one? What if you learned as a teenager that the father who had mistreated you for years wasn't your father at all - and that you were actually born to the mistress of a Greek gangster? And what if the only way to connect with your real father was to become his fiercest rival?

Kevin Cunningham grew up in Tarpon Springs, Florida, just another kid from the wrong side of the tracks. But from his first days, Kevin gravitated toward power, and in Tarpon Springs that meant local crime boss Lukie Pappas. As a boy, Kevin hung out at the Pappas Restaurant, and he saw how the townspeople approached Lukie. How they respected him. How they came to him for help. How they called him nounos - Greek for “godfather.” From the shadows, Kevin admired it all.

When he turned 17, Kevin's world flipped upside down. His dying father confessed that Kevin was the son of another man - and not just any man. He was the son of Lukie Pappas. Suddenly, Kevin's destiny was clear. His lineage became his fate. His rightful place was beside the Greek godfather who ruled his hometown. But Lukie coldly rejected him, as both a son and a colleague. Fueled by rage and pride, Kevin claimed the Pappas name as his own and embarked on his own criminal enterprise. From two-bit swindling he rose quickly to high-stakes drug trafficking. Money laundering, gunrunning, and racketeering polished his underworld resume, even as they placed him squarely in the crosshairs of every federal agency with three initials and a most-wanted list.

Kevin Pappas's story is a true-crime epic for a new generation of wiseguys - full of the harrowing war stories and hard-won wisdom of a man who lived by his own rules, broke everyone else's, and dared the world to try to stop him.

©2009 Kevin Pappas (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

bland self rightous

let me see we have a bad guy then he go's to prison turn's his life around and make's some money and get's the girl wow I heard this story before bla bla bla

Fantastic book!!

This was great and hard to stop listening to. You almost felt like you were there. I love Tarpon Springs so the places that they were talking about we seen. Great, great book!

Awesome Listen

Would you listen to Godfather of Night again? Why?

No, not because of the book I just don't listen to the same book twice.

Any additional comments?

I didn't care for all the family issues. Other than that, I loved it.

Good story, but is it true?

The title says it all - it’s an entertaining story, parts of it ring true, but other parts said made up. This is more a story of Dirk Diggler (Boogie Nights) than that of a traditional mob book, in that his character is comically immature most of the time, and If this was made into a movie certainly Marky Mark would be the perfect lead. But back to the book. As far as the story goes the book moves fairly quickly and never really slows down - being someone born and raised just south of Tarpon Springs I always find local stuff more interesting than others might, but with that said moat of the story takes place elsewhere. The constant battle to get approval from daddy is the reoccurring theme, and it’s really kind of pitiful. The stories of action in the book are very entertaining, even if I felt a bit embellished or overproduced.

However the big thing is.... is any of this true? Go look up Kevin Pappas or his real name and you find... nothing. Absolutely nothing but links to this book. Go look up the 5100 drug trafficker group and you find nothing. Go try and find newspaper articles about events he says took place, that he was directly involved with, and you find nothing. In fact all you find when you search for anything about Kevin Pappas are articles saying nothing the guy says can be verified. Now - with that said I also didn’t find anything that shows the guy is a fraud , either.

I’d have loved to see some documentation that anything the guy says happened, actually happened, that he was in any places he said he was, that people around him that he named are real people. For example they say they bought an apartment block to hide drugs in people’s ceilings - OK, what apartment block, where the history of ownership and let’s see it changing hands at the time in question, explain how you buy an apartment block - like literally how do you do it- do you pay cash, do you go through a 3rd party, etc.

That’s the issue with this book - it’s just not believable. If this story is real however, then it should be a lot better known.

Overall 3 stars for the book since again, I’m not sure I believe it. But 5 stars for the story which kept me entertained. The reader did a good professional job, not in the top tier of readers but still a good professional job.