Mob Boss

The Life of Little Al D'arco, the Man Who Brought Down the Mafia

By: Jerry Capeci, Tom Robbins

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

Alfonso 'Little Al' D'Arco, the former acting boss of the Luchese crime family, was the highest-ranking mobster to ever turn government witness when he flipped in 1991.

His decision to flip prompted many others to make the same choice, including John Gotti's top aide, Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, and his testimony sent more than fifty mobsters to prison. In Mob Boss, award-winning news reporters Jerry Capeci and Tom Robbins team up for this unparalleled account of D'Arco's life and the New York mob scene that he embraced for four decades.

Until the day he switched sides, D'Arco lived and breathed the old-school gangster lessons he learned growing up in Brooklyn and fine-tuned on the mean streets of Little Italy. But when he learned he was marked to be whacked, D'Arco quit the mob. His defection decimated his crime family and opened a window on mob secrets going back a hundred years.

After speaking with D'Arco, the authors reveal unprecedented insights, exposing shocking secrets, and troublesome truths about a city where a famous pizza parlor doubled as a Mafia center for multi-million-dollar heroin deals, where hit men carried out murders dressed as women, and where kidnapping a celebrity newsman's son was deemed appropriate revenge for the father's satirical novel.

Capeci and Robbins spent hundreds of hours in conversation with D'Arco, and exhausted many hours more fleshing out his stories in this riveting narrative that takes listeners behind the famous witness testimony for a comprehensive look at the Mafia in New York City.

©2013 Jerry Capeci and Tom Robbins (P)2013 Tantor

All Criminal Minds Are Not The Same

Great read. Fascinating stories. In the search for understanding the criminal mind, I am left with a new understanding. All criminal minds are not the same. Someone can be parked in treason along some dynamics and not others and therefore, think treason is normal.

it was really good!

it did not seem over-the-top and exaggerated like a lot of Mafia stories. The narrator can get a bit mundane at first and it did start out a bit slow but overall it was a very good read. One of the better Mafia stories. I think the best is Mafia Prince then second is the Sinatra Club and this is third. I personally prefer first-hand Stories versus a mob historian or a reporter writing the story. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who's interested in this genre.

Nice!

I can't believe as Americans we have let these pieces of shit live. Kill them. I just watched another video on hero Green Berets giving their lives for freedom.

And yet we accept these pieces of shit to live.

Kill them all. Kill every fking one of them.
Italians nothing but criminals anyway.

No sympathy here.

So many heroes have died so that these pieces of shit can live it is incredible.

Amazing

Right up there with The Godfather and Wiseguy. I am amazed I had never heard of this book before seeing it in my recommendations. The story is fluid, detailed, and well told. The protagonist is relatable and admirable (if one can view a mobster as such) with redeeming qualities. For those from New York (especially Brooklyn), you'll find a bit of nostalgia within as various neighborhoods and their establishments, dating back to the mid-20th century, are referenced. The book brings to life a lost city as much as it does the former glory of the mob. A must read for anyone, but especially those who love a good Mafia story.

Great Story, TERRIBLE NARRATOR

This is a great story, but the narrator is truly awful. he does not pronounce a single name or Italian phrase correctly in the entirety of the book, and in a book based on cosa nostra, knowing names, and who did what, is incredibly dissapointing. if you can get over the unbelievably bad narration however, it's hard to imagine a more complete breakdown of cosa nostra.

Great book butttttt

Narrator sounds like a computer mixed with cone head lol he also narrated the iceman book

My old neighbor (Williamburg, Greenpoint,Clinton H

As, Retired New York City Detective and growing up in Williamsburg Greenpoint section of Brooklyn

My father worked at the Navy Yard for Military Sealift Command

As a young man my brother and I had an opportunity to hang out with my dad in the Navy Yard area and grow up around many of these individuals and family in our neighborhood.

I lived on Classon Avenue in Brooklyn New York and I recall many of the scenes and instances depicted in this l detailed story.
some of the restaurants are still there and enjoyed them at the time in the seventies lower Manhattan across from the Tombs
Excellent

Wow!

What’s there to dislike? Al’s firsthand account (personal and professional) is astonishing. One of the best mob books I’ve ever read

Research

the narrator mispronounced the Italian surnames of the various mafioso over and over again some of them are well-known how to pronounce so it was a little off-putting but great story

Goodfellas

I looked forward to finding time to listen to this after I started it. It was like listening to Goodfellas. In fact a lot of those characters are in this book.