Five Families

The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires

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Five Families

By: Selwyn Raab

Narrated by: Paul Costanzo

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About this listen

Genovese, Gambino, Bonnano, Colombo, and Lucchese. For decades these Five Families ruled New York and built the American Mafia (or Cosa Nostra) into an underworld empire. Today, the Mafia is an endangered species, battered and beleaguered by aggressive investigators, incompetent leadership, betrayals, and generational changes that produced violent, unreliable leaders and recruits. A 20-year assault against the five families in particular blossomed into the most successful law enforcement campaign of the last century.

Selwyn Raab's Five Families is the vivid story of the rise and fall of New York's premier dons, from Lucky Luciano to Paul Castellano to John Gotti and more. The book also brings the listener right up to the possible resurgence of the Mafia as the FBI and local law enforcement agencies turn their attention to homeland security and away from organized crime.

Organized Crime

True Crime

Inspiring

Thought-Provoking

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Critic reviews

"This masterpiece stands an excellent chance of becoming a bestseller with crossover appeal beyond devoted watchers of The Sopranos." ( Publishers Weekly)

Most relevant

What did you like most about Five Families?

Really interesting story - fascinating insight into the Mafia and the way it began and was run through the decades. Not always easy to keep track of all the names, but a lot of that is down to the narrator, alas.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Unfortunately the narrator was dreadful. He paused in all the wrong places so quite often you lost track of the sentence. He also had a few vocal tics which became very annoying in such a long book. A real shame. Somebody like Richard Ferrone would have done a much better job.

Five Families