In this blistering street-level account, “Mafia survivor” Frank DiMatteo teams up with true-crime master Michael Benson to take down one of the most notorious figures in the American La Cosa Nostra. This is the real inside story of Carmine “the Snake” Persico, from his crime-filled childhood on the streets of Brooklyn to the long-term jail sentences that didn’t stop him from controlling his criminal empire, with the help of his brother—the equally kill-crazy Alphonse “Allie Boy” Persico.
This is the story of his deadly teen years as leader of the fearsome Garfield Boys; his recruitment into the Profaci—later the Colombo—crime family; his bloody betrayal of the Gallo brothers; his role in the hair-raising ambush and slaying of Albert Anastasia—the Lord High Executioner of Murder, Inc.—as he sat in a barbershop chair getting a shave; the terror he struck into the hearts of the New York Mafia’s other families, and even his own crews; and the many courtroom trials where Persico walked after witnesses came down with sudden cases of “amnesia.”
Today, Persico schmoozes with Ponzi king Bernard Madoff behind bars. There, at age eighty-four, his legend—packed as it is with coldblooded brutality—continues to inspire goodfellas everywhere.
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Frank Dimatteo is a lifelong Brooklynite, Mafia “survivor,” and publisher of Mob Candy magazine. He is the author of the acclaimed memoir, The President Street Boys: Growing Up Mafia, as well as Mob Candy’s Brooklyn Gangsters and Manhattan Gangsters.
Michael Benson is the author of more than sixty books, including the true crime books Betrayal in Blood, Killer Twins, and Mommy Deadliest. He also wrote Who’s Who in the JFK Assassination, Inside Secret Societies, and most recently, The Devil at Genesee Junction.
Johnny Heller, winner of numerous Earphones and Audie Awards, was named a “Golden Voice” by AudioFile magazine in 2019. He has been a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award winner from 2008 through 2013 and he has been named a top voice of 2008 and 2009 and selected as one of the Top 50 Narrators of the Twentieth Century by AudioFile magazine.