By C. Alexander Hortis
One out of Five StarsI really
hate to do this, but after reading more than two-thirds of author C. Alexander Hortis’s book on the rise of the New York Mafia, I just had to give it up; there really was no point in continuing on. If you’re new to the history of the Mafia during the 20th Century, you may enjoy it, but I’d still encourage you to seek out other books on the subject in order to wet your feet.

The promise of The Mob and The City was a new perspective or outlook on a history that is tired and well mined by other historians. The promise was made, but Hortis didn’t pull it off. For a good part of the book, to prove the history has been warped, he uses Bonanno crime family boss, Josephy Bonanno’s 1983 autobiography, A Man of Honor as an example. Bonanno wrote this book after being dissatisfied with Gay Talese’s 1971 book on the Bonanno Family, Honor Thy Father for which Bonanno participated by giving the author interviews. It is generally known by those of us who have read extensively on Mob history that Bonanno’s book is a bit of a whitewash; Bonanno painting the biased picture he wanted to paint – in essence furiously putting make-up on a pig, hoping we won’t notice it’s still a pig. So, referring to this book throughout The Mob and The City to make a point doesn’t get the job done.
I’ll admit I’m biased. This is an area of interest, but at the same time, I’m also somewhat opened minded. I enjoyed Jonathan Eig’s Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America’s Most Wanted Gangster, in which Eig posits that The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre had absolutely nothing to do with Al Capone, but was the result of something else. Here he makes a good argument; however I’m still inclined to give ole Scarface the credit there. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was the first criminal case that fully embraced, at that time, the new science of ballistics, and because of that, the guns used in the commission of that crime have been tied back to too many Capone associates.
But I digress. I went into The Mob and The City with a great deal of excitement, but found it lacking, both in information, as well as style and presentation. Many times I felt like I was reading a textbook, but not one with sufficient information and insight to correctly educate me. I value the effort by the author, but as far as I’m concerned, it was a swing and a miss.
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