The Mob was the biggest, richest business in America until it was destroyed from within by drugs, greed and the decline of traditional crime-family values. And by guys like Sal Polisi.
Born into one of the New York Mobs feared Five Families, Polisi ran an illegal after-hours gambling den, The Sinatra Club, that was a hangout for up-and-coming mobsters like John Gotti and the three wiseguys immortalised inGoodfellas: Henry Hill, Jimmy Burke and Tommy DeSimone. Yet for Polisi, the glory days spent robbing banks and pulling heists were fleeting. When he was busted, and already sickened by the bloodbath that had engulfed the Mob as it teetered towards extinction, he flipped and became one of a breed he had loathed all his life: a rat.
In this riveting first-person chronicle of his brazen crimes, wild sexual escapades and personal tragedies, Polisi tells his story of life inside the New York Mob. With shocking candour, he draws on a hard-won knowledge of Mob history to paint a revelatory picture of the inner workings of the Mafia and its larger-than-life characters.
Sal Polisi spent much of his life inside the Mafia before he flipped and provided testimony against key Family members. No longer under federal witness protection, he has been featured in theNew York Times,Vanity Fair,New YorkandPlayboyand has been interviewed by Larry King, Connie Chung and Matt Lauer, among others. He works as a screenwriter and also speaks in schools and at law-enforcement gatherings as an organised-crime expert.
Steve Dougherty is a freelance writer and journalist who lives in New York City.
