The Gambinos--they arrived in America from Sicily when the `20's roared with bootleg liquor. For thirty years they fought a bloody battle for control of New York's underworld to emerge as the nation's richest and most powerful crime family. Now Mafia expert John H. Davis tells their compelling inside story. Here are the chilling details and deceptions that created a vast criminal empire. Here are six decades of the uncontrolled greed and lust for power of such men as Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, Meyer Lansky, Vito Genovese, Albert Anastasia, Carlo Gambino, Paul Castellano, and John Gotti--men for whom murder and betrayal were business as usual. From the Gambinos' powerful stranglehold on New York's construction, garment, and waterfront industries to the government's onslaught against them in the `80s and `90s, Mafia Dynasty takes you into the mysterious world of blood oaths, shifting alliances, and deadly feuds that will hold you riveted from the first page to the last.

Readers learn how a colorful coterie of FBI agents, prosecutors, and police detectives overcame the early years of bureaucratic inertia, high-level political corruption, and interagency rivalry to destroy the last great Mafia dynasty--New York's Lucchese Family.

"Among the thousands of Italian immigrants to arrive in New York City in the 1920s were the young Carlo Gambino and John Joseph Gotti. One was a rising star in the Sicilian "Honored Society," the other was a poor laborer." "While John Joseph Gotti and thousands of poveracci like him plugged away at backbreaking, deadend jobs, slick Sicilian hotshots plunged into the illegal liquor business, setting up stills, warehouses, distribution lines, and trucking companies. They recruited battalions of bootleggers and opened up hundreds of speakeasies all over New York." "It was this frenzied competition, writes Davis, that established the foundations for the five Mafia families that to this day run the New York underworld. And the richest and biggest of them all is the Gambino crime family." "Davis depicts the deals that went into the creation of this vast enterprise, a mysterious world of blood oaths, shifting alliances, long-lasting feuds, and larger-than-life - or death - personalities: Salvatore Maranzano, the mafioso from the old school who read Caesar in the original Latin; Lucky Luciano, the ruthless young tough who reorganized the underworld in 1931 and gave it the structure it has had for the past sixty years; Albert Anastasia, the "Lord High Executioner," who, with Luciano, ran Murder Incorporated with a cadre of killers on retainer; Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, whose specialty was murder by ice pick; Frank Costello, the "Prime Minister of the Underworld."" "Mafia Dynasty shows the young John Gotti, raised in poverty, coming to admire the well-dressed, flashy gangsters in his East New York neighborhood, particularly the mighty Albert Anastasia, who was at the height of his power in 1956 when sixteen-year-old Gotti left school." "But while Anastasia swaggered through the streets, Carlo Gambino stealthily built an empire of crime and cemented his control of it by Anastasia's barbershop execution. Davis depicts the remarkable reign of "Don Carlo," during which Gambino tentacles reached into many legitimate businesses even as the Gambino family solidified its control over other mob families. Upon the death of Carlo Gambino, Paul Castellano's disputed succession divided the family into two camps, sowing the seeds for Gotti's rise and Castellano's dramatic sidewalk murder." "As the quieter branch of the family, led by Carlo's son, Thomas Gambino, raked in garment district trucking profits, media-conscious Gotti antagonized law enforcement officials with his courtroom success, as well as high-profile activities, such as his annual illegal fireworks display that made him a neighborhood hero. Davis shows Gotti's defiance goading government prosecutors, who finally "turned" Gotti's top lieutenant, Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, and convicted the "Teflon Don" in a thrilling 1992 trial. Davis covers this trial in detail and analyzes the ramifications of Gotti's life sentence for the Gambino family's future." "From the Gambinos' dramatic Prohibition-era beginnings to their slow strangulation by law enforcement in the nineties, Mafia Dynasty portrays sixty years of history that, until now, only lurked behind yellowed newspaper headlines. Combining street smarts with impeccable research, John H. Davis, who knew Lucky Luciano in Italy, has filled his canvas with unforgettable personalities and unspeakable crimes. Mafia Dynasty is not only an essential source on today's mob, it is also a compulsively readable expose of the Gambinos' unique and ruthless way of life."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

He was a little-known wiseguy out of Howard Beach, Queens, who blasted his way into the public eye with the assassination of Gambino Family boss Paul Castellano in December 1985, a rubout that’s the stuff of Mafia legend. Ruthless, cunning, and tougher than the streets that produced him, John Gotti seized control of the nation’s most powerful crime family, beat the law on rap after rap, and became an American legend. First published in 1988 and fully revised and updated for this edition, Mob Star traced John Gotti’s spectacular rise and eventual downfall after the betrayal of his closest ally, Salvatore “Sammy Bull” Gravano. At his death, ten years after he was jailed for life and four years after he began battling cancer, John Gotti was still the biggest name in today’s Mafia.

The Scarpas were a Mafia dynasty led by Greg Scarpa Sr., a man so addicted to killing that he was nicknamed “The Grim Reaper.” His son, Gregory Jr., was slowly drawn into his father’s dark world. What only father and son knew was that for thirty years, starting in the 1960s, Scarpa Sr. was an informant for the FBI. Then, faced with arrest two decades later, Greg dropped the time on his own son. Gregory Jr. was imprisoned alongside terrorist Ramzi Yousef. He offered to trade information on Yousef with the government in exchange for leniency, providing detailed intelligence on what would eventually result in the September 11attacks. His warnings were ignored, and he was sentenced to forty years to life in prison, where he remains. A story that gained national notoriety, this is an “enthralling look at ties between the Mafia and the FBI” (Booklist).

Crime boss Guy Simmons continues his recovery from a gunshot wound and tries to maintain control over the family drug empire while his two sons and their mothers battle each other for dominance.

The Scarpas were a Mafia dynasty led by Greg Scarpa Sr, so notorious for his addiction to violence and murder that he was nicknamed 'The Grim Reaper.' His son, Gregory Jr., a promising young athlete, worshipped his ruthless and manipulative father, and slowly he was drawn into his father's dark world. What no one but father and son knew was that for thirty years, starting in the 1960s, Scarpa Sr. was an informant, working intimately with FBI handlers. For decades, his connection to the FBI - including the much-publicized agent Lin DeVecchio - protected him, granting him a virtual license to kill. However, when faced with arrest in the late 1980s, Scarpa asked his son to leave his wife and children, and take the fall for his father. In 1995, after years in prison, Gregory Jr. was transferred to Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan and re-indicted on superseding charges. There he was imprisoned alongside Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and made a deal with the government to get information from Yousef in exchange for leniency. A year later, he furnished the feds with detailed intelligence on what would eventually result in the September 11 attacks. But, incredibly, Gregor's desperate warnings were unheeded, and he was sentenced to forty-years-to-life in isolation at the notorious ADMAX, the most secure federal prison in the country, in Florence, Colorado. There, he would supply the FBI with intelligence on Oklahoma City bomber and fellow prisoner Terry Nichols. Again, his contribution was ignored, and Gregory remains at ADMAX, where he believes he will one day be murdered. This is an unforgettable story of growing up in a Mafia world of random violence, wealth, glamour, and sex. A world where a man's word is both everything - and nothing.