Presents a comprehensive examination of how the federal government failed to successfully prosecute the Lucchese crime family.

The New Jersey Butterflies, officially the Third New Jersey Cavalry, was formed for the last year of the Civil War. They were also known as the First American Hussars; their creation by an alcoholic ex-officer of the Union Army was supposed to entice men to join a galloping, dashing, romantic cavalry unit. Clothed in orange gilt trimmed hats and capes, they were supposed to charge armed only with a saber, in most traditional European Cavalry fashion, into battle and subdue an enemy armed with rifles. This book is not about battlefield configurations, but rather about the men themselves. Individual stories from original accounts will examine how this glorious, historically victorious, difficult and often tragic year affected their return to the daily world of doctors, teachers, lawyers, clerks and workmen.

FINALLY, THE TRUE STORY of the Mafia’s execution of Jersey City legend Frankie DePaula can be told: -Was his world title bout with Bob Foster fixed by the Mob? -Did the Mob kill Pat Amato, his first manager, in order to pave the way for him to sign with their front man Gary Garafola? -How did he come to be involved in a notorious heist of $80,000 worth of electrolytic copper? -Was his dalliance with the step-daughter of a high-ranking mobster the reason for his shooting? -Or did the Mob kill him for giving up information on their involvement in the copper theft? Although Frankie appeared to some to be a true life exemplar of a character from Dead End; a wild and unreconstructed deviant headed for disaster, his life is set against the backdrop of the oftentimes dysfunctional environs of Jersey City, for long the seat of power of an administration dominated for decades by Mayoral potentate Frank Hague and maligned by the corruption of local politicians and the increasing influence of organized crime. PRAISE FOR JERSEY BOY “The author tells it like it was...Anyone who was around boxing in those days or has any knowledge of what the sport was like in the 1960s and early 1970s should read this book. It’s worth every penny.” ---J. Russell Peltz, IBHOF inductee and noted Boxing Historian & Archivist "A brilliant biography...Makinde brings it all to life through meticulous research, painstaking chapter notes and a smooth, lyrical writing style." ---Murray Greig, The Edmonton Sun "It's a cracking read" ---Steve Bunce, BBC Radio London Boxing Hour Show "Makinde writes in elegant yet precise prose" ---eastsideboxing.com "A book worthy of a Hollywood encore" ---maxboxing.com

Susan joins her cousin Andy in New Jersey to celebrate Christmas and writes home to tell her parents about what she's seeing and doing in the Garden State, in this fun picture book based on the classic Christmas song. Full color.

Finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize With Last Pawn Shop in New Jersey, James Hoch gives readers a heart-lugged romp and a work of resistance, conversing with the interstices of public and personal histories and identities in the context of ecological deterioration. Drawing on emotional experiences prompted by his brother’s going to war in Afghanistan, the death of his mother from ovarian cancer, and the raising of his sons, Hoch investigates the difficulty of loving and of making beauty in times of crisis when faced with knowledge of its limitations and necessity. Lyrical and meditative, intense and intimate, his poems evoke landscapes with views of the New York water supply system, industrialization along the Hudson River, and the geology of the Palouse in the Pacific Northwest. A bare-knuckled argument for the sublime in the context of war and environmental degradation, Last Pawn Shop in New Jersey asserts the redemptive power of art as survival.

North End Boy is a fast-paced memoir about seven young friends coming of age in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The action takes place over two days in the summer of 1978 - a time before computers, before globalization, before the end of the Cold War - when most people still worked with their hands.At the beginning of the story, the friends are enjoying the late stages of an advanced adolescence with few ambitions and fewer responsibilities. Twenty-four hours later, they endure the loss of one of their own, a loss that forces adulthood upon them. Decisions have to be made - about families and careers, ultimately about their destiny. One embraces the family business. One moves out to California. One finds redemption in the Catholic Church. Another one doesn't. The author, Kevin Brady, was born and raised in the North End of Elizabeth, where his Irish immigrant parents settled after the war. An intensely local book, North End Boy is also a larger meditation on post-war America, as seen through the eyes of a young man with immigrant sensibilities and working-class roots.

Throughout the 1960s, there's was one band that ruled the charts and defined the sound of a generation: The Four Seasons. On stage, they were clean cut kids from New Jersey—off stage there was an entirely different story. You’ve heard the music, now find out the stories behind the music. This book takes you inside the life of Frankie Valli and the history of The Four Season. While the contents of this biography have been researched, this book is not endorsed or affiliated in anyway with Frankie Valli or The Four Seasons.