The Washington Times published my review of Carmine the Snake: Carmine Persico and His Murderous Mafia Family.
"Carmine the Snake” Persico has been identified by the FBI and the Justice Department as the longtime head
of the New York Cosa Nostra Colombo crime family.
Although incarcerated in 1987 due to his conviction in the
1986 famous Mafia Commission federal RICO case, he reputedly still runs the
Colombo crime family from prison. He made his name in the Profaci crime family
as part of the hit team that shot and killed mob boss Albert Anastasia in a New
York barbershop in 1957.
Anastasia, known as “The Mad Hatter” and “The Executioner,”
was the co-creator of Murder Inc., the notorious enforcement arm of organized
crime in New York in the 1940s. A famous photo was taken of the slain
Anastasia, lying dead next to a barber’s chair as detectives look on.
In 1961, during a conflict between the Gallo crew and Joe
Profaci, the Profaci crime family boss, Persico switched sides and attempted to strangle and kill his friend and fellow hit man
Larry Gallo, which earned him the nickname “the Snake.” The attempted
strangulation in a darkened bar was fictionally re-created in “The Godfather,
Part II.”
Frank DiMatteo, who describes himself as a mafia survivor
and previously wrote “The President Street Boys: Growing Up Mafia,” offers a “street
level” view of the Colombo boss in “Carmine Carmine
the Snake: Carmine Persico and His Murderous Mafia Family.” Michael Benson, a true
crime author who wrote “Betrayal in Blood,” is the co-author of this book.
… “Using a combination of brashness, cunning, and an appetite
for extreme violence, Carmine Persico Carmine
Persico rocketed from gangbanger on a Park Slope, Brooklyn street
corner to boss of the Colombo crime family, where he reputedly became the
longest-reigning godfather in modern Mafia history — mostly from behind the
bars of a federal penitentiary,” the authors tell us.
The book covers in detail the internecine mob war between
the Gallos and the Profaci crime family, with each faction murdering and
attempting to murder each other. The Gallo crew put a bomb in Persico's car, but the detonation failed to kill him. The war ended with Profaci’s death
and the murder of Crazy Joe Gallo in a restaurant.
You can read the rest of the review via the below link:
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