100 Books Like The Origin of Organized Crime in America

This 2009 book combines thorough, professional historical research with a lively writing style to portray how a group of thugs evolved into America’s first Mafia “family.”

My book focuses on the Italian American detectives who battled this gang for more than 20 years; Mike Dash’s groundbreaking account looks at the flip side of this struggle, the feared Lupo-Morello gang. Dash is especially adept at working with archived documents, such as the daily reports of Secret Service agents from the National Archives. He uses the details well.

Like my two other favorite books on organized crime, this book broke the mold. It was written at a time when the public was zeroing in on the violent aspects of the mob, when in fact what drove the mob was its ability to take over legitimate businesses, sometimes entire industries.

I was fascinated with the intricate details described by Kwitny in this book. There is no better book describing how the Mafia, in its heyday, got its claws into legitimate business. Kwitny did fine work exposing how that was done, and it was well-written and fascinating.

This is another book that cuts through the hype, helping to define the often sensationalized connections between mafiosi in Italy and the United States.

Historian Salvatore Lupo, a Sicilian, brings a perspective often missing in American books on the Mafia. His meticulous research knocks down the idea that the American Mafia was ever some giant “alien conspiracy” with Sicilian overlords, but it does examine whatever interconnections and parallels exist in real life between the two Mafias.

Much like the Critchley book, this is for those who want the facts, facts, facts. And Italian experts have a lot to contribute to the story of the American Mafia.

I usually find the informants more interesting to read about than the diehard gangsters because they’re the people in the middle, squeezed from all sides. This fluid account, by two of New York’s best reporters, is a personal favorite. It’s a smoothly told narrative that avoids romanticizing the mob. 

This is a gritty, riveting look at the Irish Mob on New York’s West Side in the 1980s.

The author grabs you by the arm and propels you at breakneck speed through the blood-stained streets and barrooms of Hell’s Kitchen. Along the way, he introduces the reader to a crew of crazy characters that you definitely wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley.

The parts about the Irish mob’s connections to the Mafia were especially enlightening. It’s a very atmospheric look at a part of the city where I worked as a newspaperman in the decade the book came out (and downed pints in some of those bars.)

Like Friends of Eddie Coyle, this book was adapted into a popular movie, though it was heavily fictionalized. This book tells the true story of how a French-Mafia narcotics smuggling ring was broken up, and in this case the truth is far more fascinating than the fiction.

Moore was given access to the police involved in the case, and he provided amazing details on the work they did to crack the case. This book destroys the myth that the Mafia was not involved in narcotics when, in fact, that was a huge money-maker back in the early 1960s. 

Set in New York City, this novel follows the life of Morris Rabishevsky, a Jewish businessman who finds himself fighting the garment unions and organized crime, but mostly organized crime.

This has a slower pace than the aforementioned novels, but Gross weaves an interesting tale that includes actual historical figures, such as Thomas Dewey and mobster Louis Lepke.

I had frequently heard stories through the New York City history grapevine about the 19th-century Jewish crime boss Mrs. Mandelbaum, but only in a shallow way. That’s why I found it a real treat to read a detailed book about her life and the extraordinary ways in which she pilfered diamonds, silk, and other sought-after Gilded Age goodies.

I was most fascinated by the way Margalit Fox laid out her gang’s intricate methods of robbing banks, including the diagrams that brought these actions to life. Mandelbaum’s demise at the end of the book is surprisingly touching.

This is a novel about Italian immigrants struggling to survive in New York City’s Little Italy during the early years of the twentieth century amid the growth of the Black Hand, the precursor to the American mafia. The book is unique in that most of the characters are the author’s actual ancestors and people with whom they had come into contact during that era. Similarly, the grisly central events described in the story all occurred.

It is beautifully written and filled with fascinating historical details. The characters and the descriptions of places and events come alive on the page. Fabiano includes an extensive Glossary of Italian Terms used in the book, as well as a multi-generational family tree. Elizabeth Street makes for very good reading!

Love to know why this murderous mob masterpiece has yet to make it to film.

This must-have for any True Crime bookshelf is from the dynamic duo of Gene Mustain (author of John Gotti bio) and Jerry Capeci (“Gangland” journalist extraordinaire). It chronicles the blood-soaked rise and demise of the deadly Roy Demeo crew, a gaggle of Gambino grunts a couple of rungs under Captain Nino Gaggi.

It’s an underworld tour of the black-and-blue-collar South Brooklyn rackets, circa 70s and 80s, often through the bloodshot eyes of Dominick Montiglio, Gaggi’s nephew, and bolstered by an avalanche of investigative research. From the innards of a Mafia street crew, to the entrails of an auto-theft ring, to the autopsy of Demeo’s whack-tastic dismemberment routine (a.k,a. “The Gemini Method”), there’s so much to digest, if you can stomach the body count.

Locations of interest: The Gemini Lounge on Flatlands Avenue; Bath Beach (Multiple… show more.