Five Families cover art

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.

©2005 Selwyn Raab (P)2015 Tantor
Organized Crime 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)

What listeners say about Five Families

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excellent

Massively detailed breakdown of the mafia. interesting and full of fact. learnt loads from this but I can't talk about it.😉

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13 people found this helpful

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Very thorough telling of the Mafia story.

Well read by the narrator which made following all the details so much easier as there was a lot to take in

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5 stars

5 stars great audiobook well put together will listen again in the future over and out

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Full of facts and well narrated

So much detail in this, but you don’t feel overwhelmed with the rate it’s coming at you. The fact it’s a long book means it’s not a barrage coming all at once and comes in a steady and even way. The narration is really good, it would have been a harder listen without such an engaging narrator. Overall, very much worth getting if you have an interest in the Mafia and it’s history.

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love the level of detail and now much it covered

awesome book, covers so much of the history and a really good insight. at times it feels like your there in the moment with them

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Five Families

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.

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Definitive

Looking for the history of the US mafia? Five Families is it, look no further.

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Great epic history of the Mafia in NY

surely a must read for any Mafia boss on where everyone went wrong before them

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The Mob

Excellent. Highly recommended. Well narrated. Very concise. Hence the length. It's a very big commitment.

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Fabulous audio book

Absolute joy to listen to. A great insight into the mafia and its history a compelling audio book.

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1 person found this helpful