The Good Rat: A True Story
by Ecco

	The Good Rat: A True Story
	Customer Rating: Sales Rank: 28898 Available from Amazon
	$16.47

Book Description

<p> Of course Pulitzer Prize winner Jimmy Breslin recognized Burton Kaplan right away as the Mafia witness of the ages. Breslin comes from the same Queens streets as mob bosses John Gotti and Vito Genovese. But even they couldn't match Kaplan in crime—and neither could anybody else. </p> <p> In his inimitable New York voice, Breslin, "the city's steadiest and most accurate chronicler" (Tom Robbins, <i>Village Voice</i>), gives us a look through the keyhole at the people and places that define the mafia—characters like Sammy "The Bull" Gravano, Gaspipe Casso (named for his weapon of choice), Thomas "Three-Finger Brown" Lucchese, and Jimmy "The Clam" Eppolito, interwoven with the good rat himself, Burt Kaplan of Bensonhurst, the star witness in the recent trial of two New York City detectives indicted for acting as hit men in eight gangland executions. </p> <p> Breslin takes us to the old-time hangouts like Pep McGuire's, the legendary watering hole where reporters and gangsters (all hailing from the same working-class neighborhoods) rubbed elbows and traded stories; the dog-fight circles and body dumps at Ozone Park; and the back room at Midnight Rose's candy store, where Murder, Inc., hired and fired. </p> <p> Most compelling of all, Breslin captures the moments in which the Mafia was made and broken—Breslin was there the night John Gotti celebrated his acquittal at his Ravenite Social Club on Mulberry, having bribed his way to inno­cence only to incite the wrath of the FBI, who would later crush Gotti and others with the full force of the RICO laws. </p> <p> As in his unforgettable novel <i>The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight</i>, Breslin brings together these real-life and long-forgotten Mafia stories to brilliantly create a sharp-eyed portrait of the mob as it lived and breathed, as it sounded and survived. </p>

Reader Reviews

On a strictly personal level, I was never much of a fan of Jimmy Breslin's, but I must give him his due in the writing department. In "The Good Thief," the trial of the so-called "Mafia cops" Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa is recounted through the sworn testimony of a 72-year-old mob associate named Burton Kaplan, who "flipped" when a contract was put on his life by his former pals. Excerpts from the transcript alone make for good reading, but Breslin puts his own inimitable spin throughout these pages on other mob stories as well, some amusing and some less so. In touching upon the assassination of Paul Castellano, Breslin writes: "To save his brother's life, and also to make a little room at the top, John Gotti got the idea to move Castellano into a new home. A funeral parlor." There are several anecdotes about the psychopathic Anthony "Gas Pipe" Casso, Jimmy "the Clam" Eppolito (the murdered uncle of one of the defendants), and many others too numerous to mention here. One final example of Breslin's wit: in the heading beneath "The Incarcerated," in which the author names several of the mob figures who were behind bars at the time the book was released, he notes, "They are proof that the Mafia is law abiding. They always go to prison." All in all, a very enjoyable book, highly readable and strongly recommended - even if you're not a Breslin fan, like me. (P.S. I was curious as to the identity of the figure on the cover. After some investigation, I learned it was one Sam Harris, alias "Chowderhead Cohen," in a New York Daily News photo dated April 9, 1931).