Giovanni's Ring
My Life Inside the Real Sopranos
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- £10.99
Publisher Description
The story of a former FBI undercover task force officer who spent years penetrating New Jersey's DeCavalcante crime family, the criminal organization known to law enforcement as "the real Sopranos"
Giovanni's Ring is the story of "Giovanni Rocco," a New Jersey police officer, known undercover as "Giovanni Gatto," who was the mysterious agent at the epicenter of Operation Charlie Horse, a federal undercover operation that ultimately brought down ten members and associates of New Jersey's DeCavalcante Mafia family, the criminal organization known as "the real Sopranos."
Giovanni spent nearly three years working his way into the DeCavalcante hierarchy. That lethal assignment brought the undercover operation to an end in March 2015, and the resulting string of high-profile arrests eviscerated the criminal organization.
?Giovanni's Ring is not simply a chronicle of Giovanni Rocco's adventures in the murky and dangerous Mafia world he inhabited, but also a fascinating window into the psychological struggles that such a life inevitably entails.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rocco, the alias for a New Jersey cop who infiltrated the Mafia in the 2010s, vividly conveys the challenges and perils of undercover work in this gripping if inadequately sourced memoir. Rocco, the son of a policeman, grew up in Bayonne, N.J., playing with kids whose relatives were in the mob. After he barely graduated from high school, his father's reputation enabled him to land a spot with the police. He quickly began undercover work, and his talent at dealing with people and the unexpected led to him being assigned to work with the FBI. In 2012, he was tapped to make a drug buy off a dealer named Jimmy Smalls, who was supplied by an associate of the DeCavalcante family (supposedly the inspiration for TV's Sopranos). Rocco's relationship with Smalls led to his gathering evidence against the DeCavalcantes and the Gambinos, and in 2015 to major arrests. Rocco had numerous close calls with exposure, and the strain on his marriage and family, he writes, was significant. The absence of any explanation of sources raises questions about the accuracy of the verbatim dialogue Rocco presents, and the reader is left to guess how he could remember what was said in such detail. Fans of FBI agent Joseph Pistone's Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia will want to take a look.
