Family Secrets: The Case That Crippled the Chicago Mob

Even in Chicago, a city steeped in mob history and legend, the Family Secrets case was a true spectacle when it made it to court in 2007. A top mob boss, a reputed consigliere, and other high-profile members of the Chicago Outfit were accused in a total of eighteen gangland killings, revealing organized crimeΓÇÖs ruthless grip on the city throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
Painting a vivid picture of murder, courtroom drama, family loyalties and disloyalties, journalist Jeff Coen accurately portrays the Chicago OutfitΓÇÖs cold-blooded--and sometimes incompetent--killers and their crimes in the case that brought them down. In 1998 Frank Calabrese Jr. volunteered to wear a wire to gather evidence against his father, a vicious loan shark who strangled most of his victims with a rope before slitting their throats to ensure they were dead. Frank Jr. went after his uncle Nick as well, a calculating but sometimes bumbling hit man who would become one of the highest-ranking turncoats in mob history, admitting he helped strangle, stab, shoot, and bomb victims who got in the mobΓÇÖs way, and turning evidence against his brother Frank.
The Chicago courtroom took on the look and feel of a movie set as ChicagoΓÇÖs most colorful mobsters and their equally flamboyant attorneys paraded through and performed: James ΓÇ£Jimmy LightΓÇ¥ Marcello, the acting head of the Chicago mob; Joey ΓÇ£the ClownΓÇ¥ Lombardo, one of ChicagoΓÇÖs most eccentric mobsters; Paul ΓÇ£the IndianΓÇ¥ Schiro; and a former Chicago police officer, Anthony ΓÇ£TwanΓÇ¥ Doyle, among others.
Re-creating events from court transcripts, police records, interviews, and notes taken day after day as the story unfolded in court, Coen provides a riveting wide-angle view and one of the best accounts on record of the inner workings of the Chicago syndicate and its control over the cityΓÇÖs streets.


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