And Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires

I mean, I wanted to read exclusivly about the formative days of the mob, about Luciano and the guys that started it in New York. everything that happens after the 1950s bores me, just as everything that happens in any other place than Manhattan Island pretty much does. This book is two thirds devoted to 1980 and afterwards. Those modern-day guys bore me, they have no imagination, and they all wanted to be famous after the movie ' The Godfather'. I dont want to hear about who was influenced by "The Godfather"- I want to read about who "the Godfather" was influenced BY. I dont like reading about a bunch of snitches and loudmouth idiots who would kill their own mama if they could get a movie made about it

Though this is a particular interesting book it lack the consistency of a actuall history text. It does go into detail about certain aspects of La Cosa Nostra such as stories about different families and even mentions smalls tis bits of information regarding the American Mafias history. However it is more along the lines of a novel rather than a history book because most of the story is focused on individual characters and their life in the mob.

Very disappointed in the quality of the workmanship. The print is off center and askew. Yes, it’s still readable, but I wouldn’t buy anything printed by this publisher again Shame on Thomas Dunne Books for having poor Quality Control

I bought this book because I like to learn more about the Chicago mob especially when I live in Chicago and I have family members who were somehow involved with men in the mob. It's just interesting to me.

Would have been 4 or 5 stars but I needed a program or something to keep track of everyone. I do wish though, that I had a book like this in 1970-71 when I wrote a college paper on Organized Crime. Will definitely have to revisit this book a couple more times.

Took my boyfriend over a year to read (was a gift for him) but he has read almost every mafia related book out there (nonfiction) and said this was by far the most informative and best written he has read yet.

Absolutely mind-blowing! It will most definitely be a decade or two before someone else is able to write a good enough book, packed with so much factual information and so many compelling true stories about the mafia! Selwyn Raab is an amazing author!! Would most postivetly recommend!

A dissapointing book - lots of potential - a rich source of material but it didn't deliver - very boring - flat one dimensional character development - no analysis about these historical figures - what motivated them and why did this sociopathic behavior suddenly appear at about the same time in the Irish, Italian and Jewish immigrant communities? Hopefully in the future another author will do justice to this fascinating subject.

This book is simply bad exposé journalism, made all the worse because it's covering old news. There is no insight or analysis, no penetrating questions raised. The author takes for granted that the New York Bosses had mayors and City Councils in their pockets, but never delves into the deeper problems of how such a thing comes to be, or what are the full ramifications and lingering effects of such a state of affairs. There is nothing past the headline and bare-bones surface presentation of the corruption of this or that government official, with no attempt at any systemic or sociological analysis, or indeed, no attempt to get even an inch beneath the surface of things.

This book is essentially a compendium of names, places, events, anecdotes, old-hat mobster tropes, worn clichés, and assorted structureless, pointless reporting. It's a good buy if you're the sort of person who is uninterested in those small, nagging questions, such as "Why?" and "How?". Otherwise, it's a waste of time.

A dissapointing book - lots of potential - a rich source of material but it didn't deliver - very boring - flat one dimensional character development - no analysis about these historical figures - what motivated them and why did this sociopathic behavior suddenly appear at about the same time in the Irish, Italian and Jewish immigrant communities? Hopefully in the future another author will do justice to this fascinating subject.

This book is simply bad exposé journalism, made all the worse because it's covering old news. There is no insight or analysis, no penetrating questions raised. The author takes for granted that the New York Bosses had mayors and City Councils in their pockets, but never delves into the deeper problems of how such a thing comes to be, or what are the full ramifications and lingering effects of such a state of affairs. There is nothing past the headline and bare-bones surface presentation of the corruption of this or that government official, with no attempt at any systemic or sociological analysis, or indeed, no attempt to get even an inch beneath the surface of things.

This book is essentially a compendium of names, places, events, anecdotes, old-hat mobster tropes, worn clichés, and assorted structureless, pointless reporting. It's a good buy if you're the sort of person who is uninterested in those small, nagging questions, such as "Why?" and "How?". Otherwise, it's a waste of time.

I have never written a review before, but after reading this book, I felt compelled to do so. This book has so much potential and interesting information in it, but unfortunately it seems that no one bothered to edit it. You feel like you're reading hundreds of pages of author's notes printed as a book, in no particular order. It reads as if no one put any time and effort into making this an enjoyable read or putting the stories in an order so that the book would make any sense at all. The author jumbles around from one decade to the next and then back, sometimes repeating the same story over and over again. It is impossible to follow along and not get lost in the myriad of side stories and uninteresting side characters that meander and have no real significance. What the book really needs is some serious editing to make it readable. I would not recommend this book to anyone.

This is the only book you will ever need to learn about the mafia. It is the back story of all the headlines and all those shows about the American mob. I cannot recommend this book more highly.

I bought the audio cd version to listen to in my car and the person reading it is fantastic.

I grew up in NY during their heyday and cannot believe all this was going on. The NYPD and the FBI was totally incompetent. Especially the FBI. Then came Robert Blakey and his RICO statute. He understood their power structure and as such designed the law they feared most. It took the FBI ten years to use it for the first time! They didn't understand it!

This is a fantastic book!

I am an aspiring screenwriter and author and for the purposes of research and just for the pleasure of reading I have a personal library concerning the Italian mafia and organized crime consisting of close to 1000 books the last time I counted and I can tell you that The Five Families by Raab hands down should be considered "the bible of NY mafia history", not an exaggeration.

The book covers the history of the Five Families of NY up to the early millennium, basically up to around 2004 when the Bonanno family faced their biggest bust since Donnie Brasco. NY's only sitting boss not imprisoned and the most powerful boss (outside of imprisoned Vince the chin Gigante), Joe Massino and his decision to become the first and only sitting NY boss to turn government informant and mafia rat is basically where the book concludes. Raab has basically covered all the most important people, events and trials that concern the history of all the Five Families that make-up the NY mafia. He has basically taken the most revelent of his past work and the most important of the vast works completed over the years and created one generalised history of the NY mafia. There may be no new information concerning the Five Families, especially not for seasoned Italian and NY mafia historians and mob watchers, but Raab has certainly taken the most important information concerning NY mafia history, corrected various mistakes made in past works by other authors and pieced it together clearly and concisely and in a well structured timeline that allows the reader to follow the NY mafia as it dominated the NY underworld and American organized crime from basically the 1920s to the early to mid 1990s when all the families across America had reached the zenith of law enforcement's final crackdown in the American mafia that began in the 1960s, reached it's peak in the 1980s with the Commission and Pizza Connections cases, continued it's drive with the Gambino family/Gotti regime trial and Colombo family war trials of the early to mid 1990s and then maintained a diminished level of investigation and prosecutiin on the Five Families from the mid to late 1990s until the Bonanno family/Massino regime prosecution of the early millennium.

This is the one book that is a must have for all NY mafia enthusiasts, mafia historians and mob watchers just as The Outfit by Gus Russo is the one book to have concerning the Chicago mafia. The only thing that Raab (and since I mentioned Russo) could do to enhance his work is to update the book to the present day with a revised epilogue. That is all Raab needs to do to sell more books and keep his work as the most significant of all the books that have been written about the NY mafia.

This is 5 star worthy work, especially compared to some of the other works such as those done by authors like Phil Carlo, who penned one of the most ridiculous and fake true crime works in literary history with "The Iceman" and made several mistakes surrounding certain people and events that concerned American mafia history with both "Gaspipe" and "The Butcher", something you will not find in Raab's fact-based, well researched and well written work.

This tome (measuring over 700 pages, plus photos) takes the reader on a journey from the beginnings of the Mafia in New York through the convictions and current status of the 5 families (Genovese, Bonanno, Lucchese, Gambino and Columbo) conprising the NY Mafia. Blasting through 50 years of history in about 150 pages, reporter turned author Selwyn Raab then slows down the tale beginning with the 70's, and carefully retells the stories of the fall, resurgence and in many cases decline of the 5 families through the early parts of the 2000's.

Developing some of the personalities like Vincent Gigante, John Gotti, Carmine Persico, Joe Massino and Anthony Casso with a detail that provides insight into both the person as well as the underlying criminal activity, Raab does a fine job of both humanizing and demonizing some of the key players, as well as pointing out the numerous dichotomies in their behavior, family lives and temperments.

On the other side of the law, Raab also does a nice job of fleshing out some of the characters from law enforcement, and pays particular attention and givces significant page space to the development of the RICO Act, which proved to be the basis for the convictions in the 80's and 90's organized crime syndicates.

On the downside, the book tends to bog down is spots, and 750 pages is a lot of detail - expecially when trying to keep names, families, crimes, investigators and timelines straight.

If this is your interest, then this book is great source material - and full of plenty of stories, characters and history. Don't expect to get through it in one sitting, and take advantage of the appendices to keep the players straight.

Told through the eyes of a lowly Third grade dropout, Tony Accetturo, who would eventually rise from being a mafia foot solider to a rich and powerful "made man" -- that is before being caught and then turned into a government protected witness -- this is the story of how the Mafia got its start, managed to survive against the odds, and was eventually able to gain a criminal stranglehold on the nation before being overtaken by the FBI, treachery from within its own ranks, and sent into decline.

The main line of the story is well known to any red-blooded American mafia buff. But what is new and was unknown until this book is the historical context of how the Mafia got its foothold in America. As is true of almost everything in American history, some form of racism eventually figures prominently into the subtext of every national story. On that score, this story is no different.

At the turn of the 20th Century, Italians, Jews and Irishmen were not yet considered "to be white" and thus were relegated to the unlivable slums of major U.S. cities as sub-humans. There they were seen much as blacks are seen today: as a menace to good white Anglo-Saxon American values and society. And as a result, by one legal way or another, the "good white Anglo-Saxons" had intended to use the law to purge them from American society -- so that the nation would be cleansed of their social diseases.

One of the little known reasons for Prohibition introduced by the 18th Amendment (the Volstead Act) was to deny these ethnic sub-humans steady access to alcohol. Later, a similar rationale would be used against blacks to ban drugs such as cocaine, marijuana and opium, which for good Anglo-Saxons, were all used as medication, elixirs and additions to recreational beverages such as Coke Cola. But in the hands of sub-human blacks, they would be used to incite the rape of white women, still even today, the worse of imaginable crimes in the U.S.

Coupled with the 1924 National Origins Act, designed to stem the flow of Italians fleeing from Mussolini's crackdown on them in Sicily, U.S. racist reactions had exactly the opposite effects than what was intended. Due mostly to corrupt law enforcement, the targeted ethnic gangs, turned the laws devised against them to their own uses: such as to bribe the police and set up lucrative bootlegging businesses based on supplying illegal alcohol to American citizens. And as a result, the rest is history: they thrived into the present era.

The heads of the "Five Families" came in well under the existing immigration radar to effectively become a "surrogate state" in the New York metropolitan area, brazenly dominating vital businesses and imposing invisible taxes on almost every product and service used in New York City. The collective goal of the five families was to pillage the nation's richest cities and regions. Together, they came very close to doing just that. They became, effectively an "in-place" alternative government, violently corrupting our society and government at every level. This is the unvarnished story, told in an easy to read prose, without sentimentality and with great force. Easily five stars.

Of my background, I don't know anything about the mafia except for many gangster movies of different eras I've seen. So, I just walked along the shelves in a local library and saw the catchy title Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires.

Deciding to read it due to my previous pleasure with The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany, I just wanted to know all about the mafia in a single read and move on. It was meant to fill in my container of knowledge about the mafia and most specifically the five families of New York. And I got that out of Selwyn Raab's book. Obviously, I will never read another book on mafia for the rest of my life because it's all the same and very trivial to me.

The stories portrayed an endless cycle of replacements undergoing through the same trials and tribulations as others making a fortune and a name for themselves before facing a test of their loyalty. What I caught on were unnoticeable heroes such as Ralph Salerno, George Blakey, Rudolph Giuliani, Joseph Pistone, et al. (really, countless of them) One thing that kept surprising me the most was the lack of proactive measures by the federal government along with the FBI about the mafia problem until the late 70's/early 80's. They even denied the existence of the nefarious group when obviously so many movies were made about them.

Selwyn Raab penned an outstanding, fully comprehensive, and exhaustively researched book about the New York's Five Families. Actually, my patience was wearing thin in the last 200 pages due to the bogged down details of the deed committed by various members of several families. I was hoping for a simple summary of each just like how Raab created for the families per era from birth to late 70's.

I guess it's a small price for me to pay. Honestly, I just think a lot of the details could have been chopped out to allow the book to retain its main focus.

All in all, Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires told me all I liked to know about the mafia and will remain the only mafia book I will ever read.

I thoroughly enjoyed Selwyn Raab , "Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires."

Mr. Raab divides his mass of reportage into three sections: one on Mafia history to 1970; a second on the F.B.I.'s awakening and the use of new RICO laws that culminated in the so-called Commission trial of 1985; and a final section that charts the subsequent fates of each of the five families, or borgatas, as Raab properly terms them. His brisk history reminds us that the Italian-American Mafia's creation was Benito Mussolini's doing; it was Il Duce's crackdown on Sicilian Mafiosi that sent so many of them scrambling for American shores. In quick, deft strokes, Raab explains how the mob was created in 1931 -- by Charles Lucky Luciano -- as a treaty settling the street battles of two Italian outfits. What makes Raab so wonderful is that he eschews legend and suspect anecdotage in favor of a Joe Friday-style just-the-facts-ma'am approach. In this 800 page tome, one gangster is "linked" to anything more profound than a keychain. This is a book that tells the story of 200 men named Vincent. Everyone else seems to be Tony. By and large, Raab makes things easy to follow with the help of a priceless naming strategy. Rather than repeatedly referring to a mobster as Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno or simply Salerno -- there must be 15 Salernos in this book -- The book's finest moments are reserved for Gotti's lesser-known peers, scary third-rate mooks like Anthony Gaspipe Casso of the Luccheses, Carmine the Snake Persico of the Colombos and Joe the Ear Massino of the wheezing Bonannos. "Five Families" is the finest Mafia history to be written to- date.

This review is admittedly, written by someone who knows absolutely nothing of the mafia, it's origins nor impact upon our country. I have, I admit, lead a sheltered life. I have difficulty comprehending the life style in the part of the country (New York, East Coast) where most of this history takes place. It is as far removed from the Ozarks as the planet Mars. That being said, I did enjoy the book, perhaps in part due to my ignorance of the subject or pure naivete. I found the book to be very informative and interesting. It was well written, easy to follow. I do agree with a couple of reviewers in that much of it is probably yesterdays news, but for someone like myself who did not follow yesterdays news, then the story was new and enlightening. I did find following the time line difficult at times and there was indeed a bit of repetitiveness here and there. Overall though, it was not a difficult read and I learned much. I suspect that for those who want more, there are probably better books out there, but that is certainly not for me to judge as I have not read any of them and quite likely never will. I will say though, that if the story between these pages is true, and I have no reason to doubt the author's research, then this is one pretty scary read. Recommend.

This was an excellent historical overview of the La Cosa Nostra in America from its inception in the 1920s to the early 2000s. In gory detail, Mr. Raab told the horrific story of murder, mayhem and crime that was the hallmark "product" of the various criminal enterprises headed by these abhorrent families. The only criticism was that sometimes it drifted into boring detail. Otherwise a grand work that should be required reading.

Not just another chronicle of the rise and fall of the Mob or a John Gotti bio churned out during the "Dapper Don's" murderous heyday. This is a credible, factual, highly readable history of the five Cosa Nostra "families" in the New York area beginning with the Castellammarese War of the early Thirties to the downfall of the Bonanno Family with the conviction of its Boss, "Big Joey" Massino, in 2004. The author, Selwyn Raab, spent some twenty-five years as an investigative reporter for the New York Times probing criminal justice matters and organized crime, and his familiarity with the Mob and access to what really went on behind the headlines comes across in these pages. Luciano, Genovese, Costello, Profaci, Bonanno, Gambino, Gigante, and others too numerous to mention here are all profiled in great detail in what, I am convinced, will be recognized as the definitive work on the New York Mafia in the years to come.

I'd give "Five Families" six or seven stars, were it possible. Having read several Mob-related books, some great, some trashy, I can say with some authority that Selwyn Raab's book is the best historical volume ever on the Mafia, and brings us up to the present.

From its start during Prohibition, the founding of "The Commission" by Lucky Luciano and later events such as the whacking of Paul Castellano and the rise and fall of John Gotti, and the travails of sinister Mob figures like Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, probably the most vicious mobster ever, and Vincent "Chin" Gigante, to whom even Gotti was deferential, "Five Families" offers a comprehensive yet never tedious look into New York's five Mob families, or "borgatas" and their successes and failures.

While attention is paid to John Gotti, Raab wisely divvies up his time evenly among the families, avoiding the overkill of Gotti stories other books have fallen prey to. His work on more recent figures is especially interesting.

We have always had a fascination with charismatic criminals, from the old days of the West with Billy The Kid, Butch Cassidy, to Al Capone, Luciano and John Gotti. It's the stuff of legend, but we must remember not to become admirers of these outlaws, as Raab points out through his details of some of their meanest and sadistic acts. Nonetheless, it's compelling and a great view into the underworld, its way of life and its prime movers and shakers. Over 700 pages long, and worth every sentence.

I started reading this book a while back... Only reading two chapters as I have a tendency to read parts of a book then put it down for various time periods... I recently finished the book reading it within a 4 day time frame... I have to say this is one of the most complete up to date historical narratives I have read on Organized Crime... It starts with the early years dating back to the teens and roaring twenties then ends around the early 2000's... It talks in great detail about the families, key players, murders, scams, etc...

Being that I'm mostly interested in the early years of Organized Crime I was fascinated with what was said about mafiosi's such as Gaspipe Casso, and the turncoat mafia boss Massino, as well as others some info I already knew about but most was new to me... This book is interesting and will keep you on your feet and wanting the desire to read more... Be sure to check out the various charts and notes in the appendix...

The story is great, but the Audible version is surprisingly "lo-fi"... kind of like the snake in the original jungle book movie..

Audible Verion should be titled: Sshelwyn Rabb'sssssh tale of Five Familiesssh...

Its more than a little irritating

I borrowed this book from the local library after watching the cable TV show, "Mobsters". After reading the book, I found that most of the show "Mobsters" was lifted directly from this book. Also, I found that I knew most of this material as I have previously read lots of books about the Mafia and have watched numerous documentaries about the mob. The only new part I did not know was the history of Anthony Casso and the later mobster, Jim Massino. Nevertheless, the book is a good overall history of the NY mob. It's told well and the reading is good. My only disappointment was being already versed on what Raab had to say. (Not his fault!) However, I think this book is a good primer for anyone remotely interested in the mafia and the history of how the mafia began. In the end, Raab's book is strictly for beginners, not someone who has lots of knowledge about the current mob.

Five Families provides a fact-filled chronicle of the Mafia from prior to its becoming organized in the U.S. to the present. It is not a story that wraps itself around a few main characters, as perhaps some dissatisfied reviewers were expecting. Rather Five Families chronicles the Mafia from its inception to its "heyday" through its decline and supposedly to its resurgence(although Raab spends almost no time presenting this evidence). Overall, I enjoyed Five Families for the facts it presents and was surprised by all the very negative reviews it received on the store. True, it is not a fast read. Nor is it much more than a chronicle of the Mafia's influence and of its members. Having read many books over the years about organized crime in the U.S, a lot of what was presented was a review of what I had read previously; but much was also new information. I was not diappointed by this and it was basically what I expected. I'm not quite sure if my 4-star rating is inflated due to my considering it to be more deserving than the many 1-star ratings it received or if I would have still given it this rating if I hadn't read any of the earlier reviews. Regardless, if you're in the mood for a book that is loaded with facts and insights into the Mafia, Five Families is a book I think you'l enjoy.

Got roughly 1/2 the way through this book. Was really enjoying myself, and then stumbled upon National Geographic's History of the Civil War. But, up until this point, utterly fantastic writing. History of the Mob from Sicily, onward to the United States. Remarkable, how nearly every fabric of society had been invaded by La Cosa Nostra, in some way or another. From Prohibition, to the assassination of JFK…This book delivers again and again.

This book provides the definitive rendering of New York's five Mafia families. Although Selwyn Raab's account of the early years won't add much to what experienced Mob buffs already know, he is tops--absolute tops--on the last 30 years, when he covered the Mob for the New York Times. Raab provides a meticulously detailed account of their ups and (mostly) downs. I finally made sense of the revolving-door "leadership" (if you can call it that) of the Five Families. He also explains how the various scams--the garbage hauling rackets, the "Concrete Club," the Fulton Fish Market--worked, and how they generated billions for the Mob. He provides a superb explanation of the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act; and how, after a decade-long learning curve, law enforcement was able to use RICO to bring down the Mob. The Bible for any serious Mob buff.

It's been a while now since I've started out to educate myself on organized crime, and this particular reference has been, by far, the best I've found on the "American Mafia." As a criminal justice student, I'm particularly concerned with accuracy and completion, and while this book harbors much of the same information as others I've read, the similarity between this and the other trusted sources gives me a very high level of confidence in it's accuracy.

I would say that Five Families is a must-have desk reference for any seasoned criminologist, and the perfect starting point for any new-commer. My only misgiving about this book is that I didn't purchase it first -- don't let the size intimidate you! It's well worth the read!

Beginning with the Sicilian origins of the Mafia, Selwyn Raab explains how it spread from its New York origins to cities across America.

Raab, a newspaper and television reporter with more than 40 years experience covering organized crime paints a realistic portrait of the Mafia. Avoiding glamorization, the author, who spent more than 25 years as a reporter with The New York Times, exposes the Mafia as a serious threat to honest citizens.

"The collective goal of the five families of New York was the pillaging of the nation's richest city and region," he writes.

The five families--Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese--were responsible for corrupting labor unions to control waterfront commerce, garbage collection, the garment industry, and construction in New York. Later, they broadened their vistas to include the country, particularly Las Vegas, its most successful outside venture.

Since September 11, 2001, the author says, the F.B.I. has been focused mainly on external threats, the author notes. This gives it room to regain some lost turf by moving into new avenues of crime.

Exhaustive in its research and well-written, Five Families chronicles the tale of the rise and fall of New York's premier dons: Lucky Luciano, Paul Castellano and John Gotti. To carry his tale, Raab interviewed prosecutors, law enforcement officers, Mafia members, informants, and "Mob lawyers." The result: anecdotes and inside information that reveal the true story of the Mafia and its influence.

A masterpiece, this book will be considered a model of what great journalism should and can be.

This book gets to the point. Complex byzantine plots are broken down to their simplest form. No easy task considering that the subject being written about is all about byzantine scheming, back stabbing and murder. I highly recommend it to anyone needing to brush up on thier mob history or that wants to learn the history of the Mafia in New York City and the control it held for decades over that city's politics and economy.

This book provides such an overwhelming amount of information on the rise of the Mafia. Every chapter of this book builds on all the preceeding ones with such finesse that it is very easy to retain details of all the figures discussed. Furthermore, the author is such an excellent writer that he allows for the reader to feel as though he or she is personally acquainted with the people discussed in this book--not that anyone would like such an affiliation!

I really enjoyed this history of the five New York Mafia families. It is very well written. It is a very lengthy book but if you have any interest in the Mafia you will not care. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to get an overview of the Mafia's history and how their "rackets" work. Saab also does an excellent job of giving the good guys (the cops and prosecutors) the attention they deserve. Usually they are merely mentioned by other authors but Saab makes them as interesting as the mafioso.

Selwyn Raab, one of America's premier journalists, has produced the most fact-filled and complete work on the modern-day mob ever published. Rich in detail, it shows how the mob has grown, changed, and adapted itself throughout the years. Raab also shows that the mob in America, though staggered by a series of defections and successful investigations, is far from finished. Kudos to Mr. Raab for this well-researched, highly readable, definitive guidebook to the mob.

In his book Five Families, Selwyn Raab has created a comprehensive and authoritative one stop shop for information on the New York Italian Mafia and he weaves the information together in such a way that it is easy to read and easy to follow all the complex connections of the groups he's reporting on.

[...]

J.R. Locke Author of Possible Twenty, a Gangster Tale

This book is unreal for anyone who's starting out as a Mafia fan. It delivers all the history needed to the understanding of how the Mafia came to be, how it operates, and who the main players are and have been. It delves into characters not usually found in other Mafia related books, and discloses a great deal of information on the major players in Cosa Nostra who for the most part went unnoticed by the public at large. Finally, a book that has more to talk about than just John Gotti and the Gambino crime family. It addresses the less talked about Lucchese and Colombo families and the shadowy characters that comprise these colossal brigades. Like I said, a great read for beginners who wish to feed their curiosity of the underworld empires that are La Cosa Nostra.

I had to stop halfway through. I think this is an extremely well written book, but over audible/audio I found it impossible to follow. This would be a great kindle or paperback read, but they throw SO many names at you that you get lost in who is who. I will probably pick this up in its book form and pick up where I left off

While not a quick read, this book is beautifully written and extremely well researched. It pulls together the history of the five families of the LCN in delicious fashion. If you are a Mafia buff, this is a must have for your library. This is not The Sopranos - this is the real deal. The gritty, tragic realities of mob life and the toll their activities take on innocent people are laid bare. I hope Mr. Raab is busy penning part two!

As an avid mob book reader, I found this book to be an extremely good read. A lot of the things about the New York families pretty much has been documented in other books, but it helped me figure out the complex way New Jersey is divided among the families. If you're a vet like myself at reading up on the mob, this may not excite you as much. But if you're a novice then this book is for you.

If in depth historical writings are what you are into, this is the book for you. It's not written like a novel, it's written like a chronology of the history of the Mafia. I really enjoyed the book. I gleaned a lot of information I hadn't known previously.

This is a fantastic book on the New York mafia. If you want to read one book on cosa nostra that summarizes the whole bloody mess in exquisite and never boring detail, this is it. Mr. Raab's writing is clear, interesting, objective, and informative. This book is a great example of how (for me at least) nonfiction is always better than fiction. When you read about these selfish, violent people and realize they are (or were) real men who actually did this stuff, fictional characters fall flat.

I thought this was a very good book about the Mafia. I wanted something complete and concise and this is it. I think it is pretty accurate and is very detailed. It gave me all I really wanted to learn and know about Cosa Nostra. I learned a lot. Selwyn Raab did a very good job.

I've read this book and a few other Mafia books and I can say that after reading this one this is by far the best one. It is a very throughly researched and accurate account of the five main mafia families in the united states. It describes many different individuals in each family from the lowest soldier/associate to the heads of the family themselves.The book also describes about the power that the five mafia families executed throughout the whole New York City area from the beginning of the 1900's up until the 1980's when the were being sought after much more by the FBI and Rudy Gilliani, which eventually led to many of them being prosecuted and convicted.

I really enjoyed this book. It got good reviews not just in The New York Times, but in other papers too.

For example, the Detroit Free Press wrote:

"Happily, "Five Families" is worth every cent, and for those who haven't gotten into Mafia reading on either the fictional -- as in Mario Puzo-- level or other documentary accounts, this may well be the only book you need to read."

"So well written and encompassing is Raab's effort that even at 763 pages, many readers will pine for more."

And the Boston Globe described Five Families as an "engaging history of the New York mob. ... Raab, a former reporter for The New York Times whose beat was organized crime, exudes the authority of a writer who has lived and breathed his subject."

Buy this book--I assure you that you won't be disappointed!

Like I said, I don't do many reviews.

But when it comes to this book, how could you not?

This is the DEFINITIVE history of the Italian mob in the US.

It's massive, huge, indepth and surprisingly enough...the pages fly by.

Highly enjoyable and highly recommended.

This was the absolutely best book I have ever read of Mafia history. It was well written and even though it was 708 pages I read through it with interest and vigor. I got the book from the library but I definitely will buy it. If you are a mafia enthusiast this is the book to have in your library. Selwyn Raab did an EXCELLENT job!

Very detailed account of the Mafia families in New York. The writer included wire tapped conversations and court dialogue. My favorite chapters were on Gotti. The writer definitely did his homework and stuck to the facts and reliable sources.

This is, perhaps, the best history of the mafia I have read, because it is written almost story like instead of pages and pages of dry facts. I bought this book a few years ago, before I had my Kindle. It is a very large book and uncomfortable to read in bed or any other comfortable position. If you have a Kindle, that's the way to go.

Its the history of the five families,all combined into 1 book. It seems mr.raab just used every book ever written and combined them. If you dont want to spend on several books buy this one. It covers L.C.N. from its start until like 2009(?). Mr. Raab had several storys wrong,and provides some misinformation but basicly a good book

I throughly enjoyed reading "Five Families." As the New York Times Book Review said, this book "is the finest Mafia history we're likely to see for a good long while."

I couldn't agree more. If you think "The Sopranos" is what the Mob is all about--think again. This book is an engaging, meticulously researched, well-written account of the true-life Mafia. I've read a LOT of books on the Mob and this is the real deal.

From how Lucky Luciano created the American Costa Nostra in the 1930s, to how John Gotti almost brought it down in the 1990s, "Five Families" takes the reader along for a fantastic ride.

This book is the best MAFIA book written thatIve read yet. A very thorough, inclusive book where the authir is able to best describe the attributes of both the mafia lowlifes who prey on innocent people and the cops who chase them. In each description of each mafiosa, we see who they cower and betray any honorable code that they swore to.

This book is not supposed to be a novel, and therefore may be unsuitable for someone looking for the "action" of a book that is fiction based on fact. However, the sheer truth and volume of this book are pure entertainment enough for any reader interested in these crime families. Every book has mistakes, and this one, being so large in number of pages, is no exception. However, that does not take away from the overall accuracy and and fluidity of the book. For anyone looking for an in depth history of these criminal orginizations, this book is a definate and strong recommendation.

I am very interested in Italian Mafia history, and this is the perfect book to read if you want to understand every angle of the five most prominent Families in U.S. History. This book provides a great foundation of facts of the five Families as well as illustrates in great detail how each borgata came to power. I highly recommend this book to any Mafia guru as well as the occasional reader interested in the subject.

If you enjoy true crime, this book is for you. Selwyn Raab -- who covered the mob for The New York Times for over two decades -- is one of the foremost experts on organized crime in the United States. Nobody knows the Mob better than Raab.

This book reveals some really captivating tidbits about the Mafia. For example, when Martin Scorsese was making "The Godfather," the Colombo family made it clear to the studio that any negative portrayal of Italian-Americans would not be tolerated.

So, Paramount actually removed ALL references to "Mafia" and "Cosa Nostra" from the script, substituting "family" and "syndicate" instead. To further appease boss Joe Colombo, the producers even hired several of his friends as extras!

But what I really appreciated about this book is that Raab accurately points out that the mafia was -- and still is -- involved in much more than most people realize. He criticizes the popular glorification of mafiosos as endearing bad guys with an honor code, or as just capitalistic criminals who do not bother innocent people.

"Five Families" shows the actual mob lifestyle is bloody and vulgar, and describes how they imposed price increases and intimidation on law-abiding citizens.

"In real life," Raab writes, "no Mafiosi are 'good guys.'"

Truer words have never been written...

Selwyn Raab spent his career covering organized crime and the depth of his understanding of the five families is very clear in his writing. I bought this book because I love mob movies, crime history and the Soprano's. I was hoping that it would tell the story of the US mafia and it's development trough the last century. On a factual basis, it succeeds to a large degree, but it's structure gets in the way of my being able to enjoy it. I can't tell if this is an artifact of the topic, a forced translation of newspaper reporting into book form or uneven editing. The story of the American mob is in many ways the story of relationships and rivalries. With such a large cast of characters and so much time to cover, there is bound to be a certain amount of shifting between people and places. However the organization of the book makes it feel like your reading an assembly of anecdotes rather than a coherent narrative. The chapters shift focus from family to family, repeat certain details from one chapter to the next and lacks a narrative thread to hold it all together. This is not a trivial complaint for a book that's more than 700 pages long.

If you like details, good reporting and are willing to do a little fishing around, this is a great look at the New York mafia. If you get a little impatient with shifting emphasis and weak narrative structure, look for something else.

This is a great book on the history of the American Mafia with some new insights on its origins and how it came to the US, also how it functioned and bled New York for 70+ years. Raab has a done a masterful job of combing through the myriad newspaper, court dcuments and sources out there and assembled a chronological narrative of each of New York's Mafia Families. It is a rivetting read, entertaining and informative. It gives new insights into the semi-legit rackets and old history like Apalachin, JFK's assassination, Luciano's war-time aid to the US, and Jimmy Hoffa. Of particulr value is how the new focus on terrorism post 9/11 may give the Mafia a chance to regroup.

However, these strengths are also its weaknesses. It focuses exclusively on New York City. It says how New York made satellites of Mafia Families in other cities but never explains how things worked in other cities or how the New York Families subjugated other mafia groups around the country. It also would have been intersting to learn how New York mafia groups related to and cooperated with families in other cities, especially Chicago. It never explains how the New York Families could run crews in other cities with active Mafia Families, like Newark and California.

Raab also relies heavily on FBI and Court transcripts, and sometimes his explaining the investigations and pursuit of the gangsters is too long and pulls the book off track. We want to learn about the Mafia and how it functions, not read a police investigative-procedural drama.

The most glaring mis-step is Raab's over-simplification and neglect of other criminal organizations, especially Meyer Lansky, Moe Dalitz and other Jewish gagnsters. He falls into the unsophisticated, overly simple and even anti-Semitic line of how Meyer Lansky, Moe Dalitz and other Jewish mobsters were merely "junior partners" and "accountants" for the Mafia. Lansky, Shapiro and others were major bootleggers and labor racketeers in their own right. They worked in conjuction and on equal footing with Luciano and Mafia gangs. Jewish and Italian gangsters during Prohibition and after formed a symbiotic partnership. Lansky never would have been as successful as he was without his partnership with Luciano, and vice versa. Lansky and Dalitz took their bootlegging profits and began building Las Vegas, Luciano and Cstello and other Mafia magnates were equal partners to be sure. The hit on Siegel almost certainly came from Lansky. Lansky and Dalitz needed no financial backing or approval from the Five Famlies. The Mafia's later success in skimming the Vegas casinos would not have been possible without the pioneering efforts of the multi-ethnic and sophisticated syndicate that emerged from prohibition.

Raab also completely ignores major bootleg/gambling syndicates such as Lansky/Siegel, Legs Daimond or Waxy Gordon in New York, Boo Boo Hoff in Philadelphia, Longy Zwillman in Newark, Moe Dalitz in Cleveland or the Purple Gang in Detroit. These syndicates needed no backing or permission from any Mafia family to operate and run successful criminal enterprises. After Prohibition, Lansky, Dalitz and others continued to engage in lucrative financial rackets, money laundering, and major casino operations in Las Vegas, the Bahamas, Switzerland and Monte Carlo into the 1970's. These sophisticated white collar crimes dwarfed the more provincial operations of extortion, loan sharking and drug pushing engaged in by most street crews of New York's Five Families. By suggesting that these Jewish criminals could only at the most serve as trusted accountats to Mafia families not only falls into worn out offensive stereotypes but also gives an inccurate picture of the true nature of organized crime.

Raab also gives short shrift to Russian, Asian and multi-national organized crime syndicates operating in the nation today. In making the Mafia the center of organized crime activities he has given a myopic picture of organized crime, past and present. Law eforcement's high profile and much touted focus on the 5 Mafia gangs has probably given these newer criminal syndicates room to grow and expand from the 1980's through today.

Raab sets out to write a history of New York's 5 Mafia Families and he succeeds in spades. His only weakness is taking the mystique of the mafia at face value and portraying them as the end-all and be-all of organized crime in New York and throughout the country.

I bought this book over the weekend and literally could NOT put it down. (And this is a long book!) What a great read!!!!

Where do I start? Maybe where "Five Families" starts, expertly tracing the Mob's history from 19th-Century Sicily to modern-day America.

All the major players are covered in colorful detail. From to Lucky Luciano to John Gotti, this book brings them back to life and takes the reader on an engrossing and great ride!

I'm a huge mafia history buff, so imagine my excitement when I managed to get my hands on an advance copy of 'Five Families.

All I can say is BUY THIS BOOK! It's absolutely the most comprehensive and most gripping account of the American mafia ever written. Selwyn Raab is a brilliant journalist and without a doubt, one of the foremost experts on this topic.

This book will clearly go down in history as the definitive history of the Cosa Nostra.

Taking money for this book is a license to steal. I would give it zero stars but 1 was the lowest available. As noted in the other reviews, a rehash and one not worth reading. He mentions Frank Ragano who "...knew intimate details of the mob's hatred and death wish for JFK and his brother Robert". the mob was very disappointed when JFK got killed as they had hoped to cash in on his presidency in exchange for helping him win the election. also, Joe Kennedy sr. had close ties to the mob and because of their association with him would never have orchestrated the assassination of JFK. also, it was Joe Sr. that insisted that Robert be appointed attorney general in spite of JFK's reluctance to do so. Raab knows very little of what went on between the kennedy's and the mafia...all he know is what he has read in the papers and the works of other authors. One of the best books about the mob is

"The Outfit" by Gus Russo. Raab should have read it before writing his no-account version. He might have learned something. And if the NY Times gave this book a good review it probably was just out of kindness for a former employer.

I anticipated this book eagerly, as I read Raab's stuff years ago when he was in the Times, but this book just doesn't make the grade. It tries to cover the waterfront, if you'll pardon the expression, but comes away as less than the sum of its parts.

I think there are two reasons for this. One is that Raab has really nothing new or original to say about the mob, and the other is that what he has to say is derived mostly from public records.

The problem with that approach is that the public record has been microscopically examined time and again. So therefore it really doesn't provide much insight to review yet again the windows case, or again to review Gotti's rise and fall. There is a lack of inside insights that you get in the Capeci books, and also the book does not make you sit up and say "wow!" as many of us experienced when first reading Wise Guys or the Valachi Papers.

Other authors have done a much better job of surveying the interrelationships with non-Italian crooks and the latest scams. That gets short shrift in this book, and people looking to gain some insights into the future of the mob are going to be disappointed.

The sense I get is that Raab left the Times years ago, is a bit out of the loop, and thus tends to emphasize stuff he actually wrote about. That might explain why stock scams, which were the big money makers in recent years, get hardly mentioned at all, and that the three books that have been written about them are not even mentioned in the bibliography.

The general impression of "rehash" is not helped at all by Raab's colorless writing style.

I had to pile high a whole bunch of mob books for a project, and this one was at the very top. Now it is at the bottom and is going back tomorrow. Total "dreck."

When you compare this with all the classic mob books out there, from Wise Guys to the Valachi Papers to, more recently, Born to Steal, this one just doesn't come within a mile. It is nothing more than a padded compendium of second-hand mob lore.

What really struck me was that the author of this book was a reporter who covered the mob for many years. That being the case, where's the beef? The "automatic revolver" goof is just one aspect of a man who seems to have only limited information on what he is writing about.

He promises, assuming he meant the title seriously, to tell us about the mob rising again. But he doesn't actually write about that. As a matter of fact, if he had done his job and told the story of the rising ethnic crime groups, ranging from the Russians to Vietnamese, he would have given this book another title. The phony title is an example of the sloppiness of this book.

I'd suggest to people interested in the mob that they stick to the best books out there on the subject: Wise Guys by Nick Pileggi, as I said before, the best on mob lifestyle and an inside view of "blue collar" mob schemes. Born to Steal on securities fraud. Valachi Papers on the origins of the mob in the thirties. Little Man by Robert Lacey, on Meyer Lansky, is a good companion piece.

All the books I have cited have original research, which differentiate them from the clip job Raab has produced.

Dull, antiseptic, lacking any interesting perspective. At best, you could say this book is like a series of colorless newspaper articles strung together, at worst, a book written by someone so far removed from his subject that he might as well of been writing about extraterrestials.

I wonder if Raab has ever actually met or talked to a mafiosi face to face. This book seems to get all its information from law enforcement souces, prosecutorial types, or other books. Nowhere is there any kind of sociological context that might raise the subject matter above the level of journalism -- and flat, lifeless journailism at that.

For someone so accomplished and genearlly recongnized as an "expert" in his field, this book is a big snooze.

I guess maybe what turned me off is when I came to the line that Abe Reles was the "canary who could sing but couldn't fly." I mean, how many zillions of times have I read this before? The problem with this book is that it takes far too broad of an approach and is a bit more than the author could swallow, so he falls back on stuff like this.

The thing that steamed me a bit about this book was that it commits false advertising. It does not chronicle the resurgence of the Mafia. There has been no resurgence, and if there has been it isn't here.

Also, the general rule here is that if it hasn't been published already a million times, as in that Reles thing, you won't read it here. Take the Reles-window-toss thing. That happened over sixty years ago. You would think that Raab, in his forty years of reporting, could have thought up maybe one single solitary thing to say about it that was new?

There is nothing here at all new and surprising.

I think the problem was that Raab has been out of the game for some years, so what he has here is not fresh at all as a result. Also he doesn't write very well.

A severely disappointing compendium of many-told Mafia tales, all familiar to readers of books on organized crime.

Probably the best example of what I'm talking about is the "revelation" another reviewer mentioned -- the pressure on Albert Ruddy and Francis Ford Coppola (not "Martin Scorsese"--one heck of a goof) to not use the word "Mafia" in the movie "The Godfather." Just look on the Internet and you can see that is old stuff that has been repeated many time since the movie came out. Anyone familiar with mob lore would know that.

So don't believe all the hype by friends of the author and people unfamiliar with the genre. This book just isn't worth the money. If you are like me and buy every Mafia book that comes out -- don't.

So why doesn't the store fix this known problem? Got me but I'm billing for the time and when that bill is ignored I will file in Small Claims for the maximum. the store will either settle, send an attorney or ignore the action. If they ignore the action then i will take the judgement to the Marshall's who will make the collection.

Selwyn Raab is supposed to be an "expert" on the Mafia which, to my thinking, would also include an expertise on crime in general and its techniques and tools.

So why does Mr. Raab refer to an "automatic revolver" as a weapon? There is no such firearm. This is only one of dozens of such errors I noted through the middle of "Five Families" where I stopped counting. Raab is either a poor writer or had a poor editor or suffers from both. In another instance, Raab compares a female prosecutor to the actress-comedienne . . . without bothering to identify the object of his comparison. Sloppy editing? Poor writing? I don't know, but I suspect that no competent author, proud and sure of his product, would allow such mistakes go to print.

Raab's account of the Mafia adds nothing new to the already bulging public record. I am not a Mafia buff, though I have read a good deal about crime, the FBI and so on. Nothing Raab has to say in "Five Families" came as a new fact. I suspect Raab simply combed the archives pulling every bit together, attempted to polish it a bit by forcing it into a chronology, which often becomes confused, and called it a "history." Overall, "Five Families" strikes me as a cut-and-paste assemblage.

It is in a way, but Raab does noting to make this history exciting or even interesting. Raab us far from joining Amrose or McCullough as a writer of popular history.

The writing style is, frankly, boring, stilted and certainly not what I would expect from a journalist claiming so many years experience.

There's simply nothing new or of compelling interest in "Five Families." If, should you read it, everything looks familiar, that's because it is: you've read it all before somewhere else.

Jerry