Top Hoodlum
Frank Costello, Prime Minister of the Mafia
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- USD 9.99
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- USD 9.99
Descripción editorial
BOTH FRANK COSTELLO AND VITO GENOVESE FEATURE AS MAIN CHARACTERS PLAYED BY ROBERT DE NIRO IN THE 2025 FILM THE ALTO KNIGHTS, WRITTEN BY NICHOLAS PILEGGI AND DIRECTED BY BARRY LEVINSON
From Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Anthony DeStefano, Top Hoodlum is the definitive book on the man who defined the Mafia as we know it: Frank "The Prime Minister" Costello. From a dirt poor childhood in southern Italy, Costello rose through the ranks of New York's Mafia and became its most public face, even becoming the inspiration for The Godfather's Don Corleone. Now with new FBI revelations, eyewitness accounts, family mementos, and never-before-published material, Top Hoodlum takes readers inside the life of the preeminent mob boss of the 20th Century.
The press nicknamed him "The Prime Minister of the Underworld." The U.S. Treasury's Bureau of Narcotics described him as "one of the most powerful and influential Mafia leaders in the U.S." But to friends and associates, he was simply "Uncle Frank." Who was Frank Costello really? That's the question Pulitzer Prizewinning reporter Anthony M. DeStefano sets out to answer--in his definitive portrait of one of the most fascinating figures in the annals of American crime . . .
Using newly released FBI files, eyewitness accounts, and family mementos, Top Hoodlum takes you inside the Mafia that
Frank Costello helped build from the ground up, from small time bootlegging and gambling to a nationwide racketeering empire.
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Pulitzer Prize winning journalist DeStefano (The Big Heist) draws from recently released FBI documents, family testimony, and court records to construct an engrossing chronicle of the life of notorious Mafia boss Frank Costello (1891 1973), a "reluctant prince of the Mafia" who, despite his criminal undertakings, was "on a quest to be seen as legitimate." Costello began building his empire as a bootlegger during Prohibition, importing booze from Canada, before expanding his operation to include gambling, and later building a web of political influence within New York City's famously corrupt Tammany Hall. Although he frequently butted heads with then mayor Fiorello La Guardia, who was on a mission to rid the city of organized crime, Costello managed to avoid serving major jail time. The book provides ample historical background, including a fascinating historical twist in which Costello's quest for legitimacy plays out during WWII when Costello and cohort Charles "Lucky" Luciano supplied the military with vital information on Sicilian geography just before the Allied invasion in 1943. DeStefano's canny insight into the don's mind and motivations set this biography apart from others on Costello.
