American Organized Crime

In the 1970s, Frank Lucas was the king of the Harlem drug trade, bringing in over a million dollars a day. He lived a glamorous life, hobnobbing with athletes, musicians, and politicians, but Lucas was a ruthless gangster. He was notorious for using the coffins of dead GIs to smuggle heroin into the United States, and, before being sentenced to 70 years in prison, he played a major role in the near death of New York City.

In Paddy Whacked, best-selling author and organized crime expert T. J. English brings to life nearly two centuries of Irish American gangsterism, which spawned such unforgettable characters as Mike "King Mike" McDonald, Chicago's subterranean godfather; Big Bill Dwyer, New York's most notorious rumrunner during Prohibition; Mickey Featherstone, troubled Vietnam vet turned Westies gang leader; and James "Whitey" Bulger, the ruthless and seemingly untouchable Southie legend.

In the early 1990s, Demetrius "Big Meech" Flenory and his brother, Terry "Southwest T", rose up from the slums of Detroit to build one of the largest cocaine empires in American history: the Black Mafia Family. They socialized with music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, did business with New York's king of bling Jacob "The Jeweler" Arabo, and built allegiances with rap superstars Young Jeezy and Fabolous. Yet even as BMF was attracting celebrity attention, its crew members struck fear in a city.

As a cop, Ron Previte was corrupt. As a mobster, he was brutal. And in his final role, as a confidential informant to the FBI, Previte was deadly. The Last Gangster is his story—the story of the last days of the Philadelphia Mob, and of the clash of generations that brought it down once and for all. Convinced that the honor of the "business" was gone, he became the FBI's secret weapon in an intense and highly personalized war on the Philadelphia mob, operating with the same guile, wit, and stone-cold bravado that had made him a force in the underworld.

The first serious external threat to the mafia's existence in America comes from U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who repeatedly expresses his desire to eradicate organized crime in America. Kennedy unleashes the full force of the U.S. Justice Department to the apparent dismay of long-time FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. The mafia's unforgiving response is executed by Louisiana don Carlos Marcello along with Florida don Santo Trafficante, who together take aim at the attorney general's brother, the president of the United States.

The city of Salinas, California, is the birthplace of John Steinbeck and the setting for his epic masterpiece East of Eden, but it is also the home of Nuestra Familia, one of the most violent gangs in the United States. Born in the prisons of California in the late 1960s, Nuestra Familia expanded to control drug trafficking and extortion operations throughout the northern half of the state and left a trail of bodies in its wake.

In the summer of 1987, Johnny Boone set out to grow and harvest one of the greatest outdoor marijuana crops in modern times. In doing so, he set into motion a series of events that defined him and his associatesas the largest homegrown marijuana syndicate in American history, also known as the Cornbread Mafia. Author James Higdon takes listeners back to the 1970s and ‘80s and the clash between federal and local law enforcement and a band of Kentucky farmers.

In a brief life that led to a violent end, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel (1906-1947) rose from desperate poverty to ill-gotten riches, from an early-20th-century family of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side to a kingdom of his own making in Las Vegas. In this captivating portrait, author Michael Shnayerson sets out not to absolve Bugsy Siegel but rather to understand him in all his complexity.

Frenemy: An enemy disguised as a friend. Dive into this mind-gripping, page-turner as a young man embarks upon a life of crime, while struggling to find his place in the world. They don't call him Truth for nothing. He is the Truth…literally. With the odds stacked against him, Truth is willing to do whatever it takes to make it to the top. He is faced with many trials throughout his young life, including the brutal death of his Mother, who taught him, "What don't kill ya, only make ya stronger". Jazzie is an alluring beauty with a bodacious body that always got her by in life. Jazzie’a ...

The notorious Gotti family is the stuff of mob legend. The "Dapper Don", John Gotti Sr., and his son John A. "Junior" Gotti ran New York's powerful Gambino crime family and were well known for their flamboyant style and brutal ways, an image perpetuated in popular Mafia mythology. John Alite, a mob hit man, associate, and close friend of the Gottis, has a very different story to tell.

In 1850, an impoverished twenty-five-year-old named Fredericka Mandelbaum came to New York in steerage and worked as a peddler on the streets of Lower Manhattan. By the 1870s she was a fixture of high society and an admired philanthropist. How was she able to ascend from tenement poverty to vast wealth? In the intervening years, “Marm” Mandelbaum had become the country’s most notorious “fence”—a receiver of stolen goods—and a criminal mastermind.

" La Mia Famiglia is more than the usual coming-of-age story. Anthony Scarpo's personal journey against struggles outside his control, is framed against the backdrop of growing up in his father's bar business, the insular world of 1960s and 70s Tampa, and the unnerving specter of the Mafia. An intriguing, and well-paced, story that belongs firmly in the Tampa history canon." Scott M. Deitche. Author Cigar City Mafia: A Complete History of the Tampa Underworld From modest beginnings in a Pennsylvania coal mine to the height of success in Tampa, Florida, there was one constant threat in the ...

THE FIRST SIX BOOKS OF THE QUEEN OF SPADES CRIME THRILLER SERIES. From award-winning journalist and USA TODAY Bestselling author Kristi Belcamino. What readers are saying: ★★★★★ “Another edge of your seat read by Kristi Belcamino.”
 ★★★★★“Queen of Spades is an action-driven book with a gripping storyline; I read it in one day as I simply could not put it down.” - MaryAnn Forbes
 ★★★★★WORTHY OF 10+ STARS” - Amazon ⚠️Warning! Be prepared to lose sleep and skip chores while reading this series! Book 1: Queen of Spades When Eva Santella’s father...

She spilled vodka on the wrong man. He saved her from a beating then made her kneel in front of the whole club to clean it up. Jada is a broke law student working in an underground Bratva fight club to save her sister’s life. She keeps her head down and mouth shut until a spilled tray of vodka puts her in the crosshairs of a dangerous captain. But it’s Ivan who steps in—Bratva enforcer, monster in the ring, and the man whose cold gray eyes see everything. He doesn’t hit her. He humiliates her. And then he keeps watching. Ivan is used to being obeyed. Feared. Alone. But the girl in ...

He’s a walking scandal. Lakelyn The NFL superstar Wyatt Oakley is injured. Sports medicine is my specialty. I can’t assist. I’ve only crushed on the man forever. He’s eyed me, and I’ve done the same over the years. He’s off limits and so am I. I’m his best friend’s sister. He’d never cross that line. Wyatt I’ve known Lakelyn, my best friend’s kid sister, all my life. There isn’t another woman who can crawl under my skin like her. I want to rule that sassy mouth with my tongue. There was a time I could’ve made her mine. Then I went pro. ...

In 2011, a 26-year-old libertarian programmer named Ross Ulbricht launched the ultimate free market: the Silk Road, a clandestine website hosted on the Dark Web where anyone could trade anything - drugs, hacking software, forged passports, counterfeit cash, poisons - free of the government's watchful eye. It wasn't long before the media got wind of the new website where anyone - not just teenagers and weed dealers but terrorists and black hat hackers - could buy and sell contraband detection-free.

There will be death.My name is Nicco Bregoli the don. Behind my back they call me Dominicco dead eyes. My late father was Dominicco Bregoli the head of the Bregoli Mafioso Family. I ascended to the throne and I’m now THE BOSS. Something is rotten in my organization. I can’t trust anybody not even my own family. Lordes Donovan is the only man I can trust. If you have the balls to go up against me you have the courage to catch a bullet. They say if you mess with the bull you get the horns. I say if you mess with a Bregoli, you get a dance with death. PLEASE READ: CORRECT COPY OF NICCO IS ...

In 1976, the body of Anna Mae Aquash, an American Indian luminary, was found frozen in the Badlands of South Dakota—or so the FBI said. After a suspicious autopsy and a rushed burial, friends had Aquash exhumed and found a .32-caliber bullet in her skull. Using this scandal as a point of departure, The Unquiet Grave opens a tunnel into the dark side of the FBI and its subversion of American Indian activists. But the book also discovers things the Indians would prefer to keep buried. What unfolds is a sinuous tale of conspiracy, murder, and cover-up.

John Carter, a Chicago Cartel King is on his way to Federal Prison. The Authorities couldn’t pin on anything on his enterprise, so they try to put him on ice so everything he built is destroyed by his enemies. Damian Jordan is John’s right hand man. It’s his job to keep things afloat until if and when John comes home. Elijah, is John’s son, the heir to the kingdom. However Elijah is not ready to run things yet and John knows he would be no match for his competitors. Regardless, Elijah is set on making his mark and showing his father he’s ready to lead. This causes friction between...

He was her salvation and her damnation. In the quiet sanctuary of a sun-drenched coastal village, Ebony dares to dream of a future shaped not by fear but by love. Until shadows from the past creep in and threaten to rip it all away. Dmitri, her reformed Bratva killer, would burn the world to protect her. But every step he takes toward their freedom draws blood. When a ghost from his violent past resurfaces and a treacherous ally forces his hand, they are pulled back into a world where loyalty is lethal and trust is currency. As secrets unravel and enemies close in, Ebony must decide if she ...