Publisher Description
The Calabrese family of Chicago is a close-knit, middle-class, multi-generational Italian-Irish-American clan. They operate family businesses. They work day and night striving for the American Dream. All three sons forge a bond with their controlling father, Frank Sr., and their soft-spoken favorite uncle, Nick. As a boy, the oldest son, Frank Jr., realizes that his father and uncle are also "made" members of another close-knit family: the oufit. In Operation Family Secrets, Frank Calabrese, Jr., tells the turbulent tale of a family dominated by a violent patriarch who breaks a long-standing unwritten outfit code and "brings the street into his home" by enlisting two of his sons into the outfit's 26th Street/Chinatown crew. Calabrese reveals for the first time the outfit's "made" ceremony and describes being put to work alongside his father and uncle in loan sharking, gambling, labor racketeering, and extortion, and plotting the slaying of a fellow gangster, while they commit the bombing murder of a trucking executive, the gangland execution of two mobsters whose burial in an Indiana cornfield was reenacted in Martin Scorsese's blockbuster film Casino, and numerous other hits. The Calabrese crew's colossal earnings and extreme ruthlessness made them both a dreaded criminal gang and the object of an intense FBI inquiry. Eventually Frank Jr., his father, and Uncle Nick are convicted on racketeering violations, and "Junior" and "Senior" are sent to the same federal penitentiary in Michigan. Upon arrival, Frank Jr. makes a life-changing decision: to go straight rather than agree to his father's plans to resume crew activities afer serving his sentence. But he needs to keep his father behind bars in order to regain control of his life and save his family. Frank Jr. makes a secret deal with prosecutors, and for six months—unmonitored and unprotected—he wears a wire as his father recounts decades of hideous crimes. Frank Jr.'s cooperation with the FBI for virtually no monetary gain or special privileges helps create the government's "Operation Family Secrets" campaign against the Chicago outfit. The case reopens eighteen unsolved murders and also implicates twelve La Cosa Nostra soldiers and two outfit bosses. It becomes one of the largest organized crime cases in U.S. history. Operation Family Secrets intimately portrays how organized crime rots a family from the inside out while detailing Frank Jr.'s deadly prison-yard mission, the FBI's landmark investigation, and the U.S. Attorney's Office's daring prosecution of America's most dangerous criminal organization.
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An undeniably engaging tale, capturing the nitty-gritty of daily life in the 'crews' of the Outfit. A useful and readable addition to Mob Lit.
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Kirkus
About the Authors
Frank Calabrese Jr. lived in his native Chicago for thirty-nine years. Mentored by his father and brought into the Chicago outfit at age eighteen, he now resides in Arizona with his family.
Paul Pompian has produced more than fifty motion pictures and television productions, including Velocity, The Watcher, Swimming Upstream, and Resurrection. Born and raised on the south side of Chicago, he came by his interest in the outfit naturally.
Keith Zimmerman started his writing career in the music industry, spending two years as a senior editor of the national music trade magazine formerly known as Gavin, along with his twin brother Kent. The two have since teamed up to write books, calling themselves “the Zimmermen.” They have written more than a dozen books together. In addition to their writing careers, the brothers teach a weekly creative writing class in H-Unit at San Quentin State Prison.
Kent Zimmerman started his writing career in the music industry, spending two years as a senior editor of the national music trade magazine formerly known as Gavin, along with his twin brother Keith. The two have since teamed up to write books, calling themselves “the Zimmermen.” They have written more than a dozen books together. Their first literary project was Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, which they collaborated on to create John Lydon’s memoirs of the Sex Pistols and the London punk scene. Both brothers were named 2005 Writer Laureates by the San Francisco Friends of the Library. In addition, the brothers teach a weekly creative writing class at San Quentin State Prison.
About Todd McLaren
Todd McLaren, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, was involved in radio for more than twenty years in cities on both coasts, including Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. He left broadcasting for a full-time career in voice acting, where he has been heard on more than five thousand television and radio commercials, as well as television promos; narrations for documentaries on such networks as A&E, Discovery, and the History Channel; and films, including Who Framed Roger Rabbit?