Blood and honor by George Anastasia.

 

As a cop Ron Previte was corrupt. As a mobster he was brutal. And in his final role, as a secret informant to the FBI, Previte was deadly. "The Last Gangster is his article -- the article of the last days of the Philadelphia mob, and of the conflict of generations that conveyed it down one time and for all.

For thirty-five years Ron Previte roamed the underworld. A six foot-tall, 300-pound capo in the Philadelphia-South Jersey misdeed family, he ran every mob con and gambit from pharmaceutical trafficking and prostitution to the extortion of millions from Atlantic City. By the 1990s, Previte, an old-school workhorse, discovered himself responding to junior mob overseers like "Skinny Joey" Merlina. Spoiled, cocky, and heedless, the juvenile, up-and-coming gangsters were famished for the media's vigilance and the public's recognition. Gone were the days of commitment and discretion.

Convinced that the honor of the "business" was over, Previte became the FBI's mystery tool for fighting in a strong and highly personalized conflict on the Philadelphia mob. Operating with the identical guile, wit, and stone-cold bravado that had made him a force in the underworld, and equipped with only a wiretap, Previte noted it all: the killing, the mayhem, and the betrayal. In "The Last Gangster, George Anastasia -- the critically acclaimed scribe of "Blood and Honor and "The Goodfella Tapes -- notifies Previte's article for the first time. Unflinching and enthralling, "The Last Gangster is the factual article of how the one time monolithic, highly coordinated, mighty, and secretive Cosa Nostra was beaten by its own hand.

Seldom has a publication granted readers intimate get access to into the inhabits of the unsung victims of coordinated crime: the wives and young children of Mafia men. Mobfather is the alarming factual article of two such blameless bystanders - Maryanne DelGiorno and her juvenile child, Bobby. Caught up in the brutal world of the mob, they dwelled in unchanging worry for their lives...until Maryanne and Bobby determined to manage the impossible: shatter all binds to the Mafia. Here is the riveting account of a woman who wed a penny-ante hood and observed in repugnance as he increased through the ranks of the mob. Here is the tale of Bobby DelGiorno, whose hero-worship of his "glamorous" gangster father drew him like a magnet into a world of adorned apparel, costly vehicles, and horrific bloodshed. And here is the first-hand, never-before-told article of the misuses Bobby endured at the hands of his dad while dwelling under policeman protection. Based on comprehensive meetings and thousands of sheets of court testimony, award-winning reporter George Anastasia vividly explains the increase of Tommy DelGiorno into a ruthless fighter for the most brutal Mafia family in Philadelphia annals - an association Tommy would finally turn contrary to as a government witness. A convincing and poignant article of a mother and child who withstood the anger of the mob to save themselves, Mobfather is furthermore the article of a vicious and amoral ...