Mafia: The Government's Secret File on Organized Crime

Some time in the early 1960s, during the golden age of organized crime in America—the era that would inspire The Godfather; Goodfellas, and even The Sopranos—federal investigators pulled every known piece of information on more than 800 Mafia members worldwide into a thick, phone-book-sized directory. From old-school gangsters like Lucky Luciano and Mickey Cohen to young turks like Paul Castellano and Vinny "The Chin" Gigante, the guide offered at-a-glance profiles of small-time thugs and major dons alike... and was allegedly the book Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy used to investigate the mob.

Recently discovered, and published for the first time in this facsimile edition, Mafia is a treasure trove of info on the underworld in mid-century America—a revelatory artifact and an irresistible read.

Customer Reviews:

Gotta Have It!

By O.C. Reader "The devil is in the details." - November 1, 2007

Hands down, MAFIA is a must-have reference book for organized crime researchers.

This book is an exact copy of the old Federal Bureau of Narcotics reference on 800 organized crime figures (circa the early 1960s) that thankfully has been reproduced for our enjoyment. This is definitely the "Mafia Bible" of that time period -- filled with information on gangsters from coast to coast.

The setup of the book -- which, again, is an exact copy of the original one -- is separated state by state. There is a California state dossier of mobsters from San Francisco to San Diego. This continues across the U.S. from Missouri to Massachusetts. It is very well organized, including a thorough index of all those profiled and in which other profiles they are listed as criminal associates of another profiled entry.

Best of all are the pictures included in all the entries of that profiled organized crime figure. Many of them I am quite certain have never been seen... read more

Must-Have for the Mafia Historian

By Rick "Mad Dog" Mattix - January 12, 2008

This is apparently an exact facsimile of a huge Federal Bureau of Narcotics report of which fifty copies were circulated within the Bureau during the late 1950s and early '60s. It was seemingly made from copy #31. Listing mini-dossiers, with photos, addresses, relatives, and criminal records of over 800 suspected Mafia members and associates, this is a valuable research tool for crime historians. It provides many leads on both notorious (or soon to be notorious) and obscure mobsters as well as a bird's eye view of just what the Government knew, or didn't know, about organized crime prior to the Valachi testimony (and Valachi is among those listed). Members are listed state by state, rather than by their then-unknown family affiliations, and strangely a few names of guys who are undoubtably long dead are blacked out but there is a veritable goldmine of entertaining information. There's a handy index of both names and aliases listed at the front of the book, rather than the back... read more

You Won't Be Able To Put It Down

By Edward D. Terhune "Ed T." - January 14, 2008

Difficult to add much more of substance to what Mr. Mattix has already said so well. Since I've bought the book, I've been unable to stop myself from compulsively flipping through it, again and again. Glancing through the section on NJ, for instance, some of these men-- a few as sinister in appearance as any 1930's scarfaced movie gangster, others with disconcertingly ordinary physiognomies-- lived in locations where I and my family have lived, which is a startling and somewhat chilling realization (although I was friendly in grade school with the son of a Colombo-affiliated hood named Fatty Russo, who killed a bartender and his wife at a drunken New Year's Eve party in 1971...an event described detail in Paul Meskil's 1976 book "The Luparelli Tapes"). A note to the casual reader, though-- some of the information in the book is erroneous, evidently reflecting the incomplete information the authorities had access to at the time it was put together. For instance, "Richard Boiardo" was... read more