Product Description

In preproduction for a motion picture! (Emmet-Furla Films & Dundee Entertainment. Director James Foley. Co-starring Paul Sorvino as mob boss Jack Licavoli and Tara Reid as Danny Greene's love interest.)

Chapter 1.
He was fearless and cunning - loved by his neighbors and hated by his business competitors - the members of the Mafia. Fiercely proud of his Irish heritage, he was a Celtic warrior at heart, obsessed with the color green - green car, green jackets, green ink pens. For a decade the ruggedly handsome Danny Greene (that's right, Danny Greene), had been boldly encroaching on mob territory. Their threats didn't worry him.

"Since I'm Irish Catholic, I've got the best guardian angel there is. Besides, it's the man upstairs who pulls the strings." Danny was a proud Catholic. He was also a killer.

Danny got his start in racketeering as president of the local International Association of Longshoremen. He could have been a highly successful businessman, but it wasn't the life for him. After a shocking newspaper expose¢, he was ousted from the docks and fined $10,000 for embezzling union funds. Danny had been forcing longshoremen to unload filthy grain boats and "donate" their paychecks to a union hall "renovation fund." The hall had already been renovated - painted green when Danny took office.

Later Danny worked for as an enforcer for local mobsters including Alex "Shondor" Birns, well-known Jewish racketeer. After a dispute over a $60,000 Greene refused to repay, Birns had a bomb planted in his car. It was the first in a series of botched attempts on the brash Irishman's life. Danny found the bomb.

"Luck of the Irish," he would often say. "I'll return this to the old bastard who sent it to me," Greene promised.

Sure enough, a few weeks later Birns was blown out the roof of his car, in two pieces. It was an excellent hit and Danny was proud.

Danny's big mistake was the 1976 attempted murder of Eugene "the Animal" Ciasullo, Cleveland's most-capable Mafia enforcer. A bomb detonated on Ciasullo's front porch almost cost him his life. After "the Animal" went to Florida to recuperate, Greene struck again, killing Leo "Lips" Moceri, the respected and feared new Mafia underboss. The murder was a national embarrassment for the Cleveland outfit. Aging mob boss James Licavoli ordered his henchman to "get rid of the Irishman," but the inexperienced soldiers had no luck. The attempts by the self-proclaimed tough guys were almost comical. Then west coast wise guy Jimmy 'the Weasel" Fratianno recommended a hired killer from Erie, Pennsylvania.

In the end, Danny went out the way he predicted. "When you live by the bomb, you die by the bomb." The Irishman was dead.

But the Mafia's celebration was cut short. There was much sloppy work, a few observant witnesses (one of whom was a sketch artist!) and extraordinary investigations by federal, state and local officials. The aftermath of Greene's assassination brought chaos to the Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Youngstown La Cosa Nostra families, a mob murder plot against Cleveland Mayor Dennis Kucinich and charges against Mahoning County Sheriff James Traficant for accepting Mafia bribe money. Traficant was acquitted and is now a United States Congressman.

As a direct result of Danny's murder, Jimmy "Weasel" Fratianno defected and co-authored The Last Mafioso and Vengeance is Mine. His courtroom testimony and that of Angelo Lonardo, called "the highest ranking mobster ever to testify for the government" help fell mob families in Milwaukee, Los Angeles, Kansas City and Cleveland, and put away mob bosses Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno of New York's Genovese Mafia family, Anthony "Tony Ducks" Corallo of the Luchesse clan and Carmine Persico of the Colombo family. Federal investigators trace these major mob convictions right back to the murder of Greene. Danny would have been proud.

254 pages. 69 photos including crime scenes.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1092789 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 254 pages

Review
Must reading for anyone interested in ... organized crime ... more dramatic than anything to ever come out of Hollywood. -- Midwest Book Reviews, 1998

From the Inside Flap
For decades, Americans have had a fascination with the Mafia. We have paid the box offices generously to be entertained by films like The Godfather, Goodfellas, Casino and Donnie Brasco. Likewise, millions have been spent in bookstores on titles like Boss of Bosses, Doublecross, The Last Mafioso, Underboss and the numerous John Gotti stories.

It started in the fifties, when mob soldier Joseph Valachi broke the blood oath of omerta which swears Mafia members to secrecy, violations being punishable by death. The term Mafia became a household word. Higher ranking mob turncoats like Jimmy "Weasel" Fratianno, Angelo "Big Ange" Lonardo and Sammy "the Bull" Gravano would follow.

In years to come we would learn of the Mafia's influence in labor unions, gambling, political corruption, narcotics, major airports, big city docks, legitimate business and industry and even the entertainment mecca of Las Vegas. With hard-to-ignore evidence, there would be shocking allegations that the Mafia had collaborated with the Central Intelligence Agency in "Operation Mongoose," the plot to assassinate Cuban Communist leader Fidel Castro. It is even believed by many that the Mafia helped engineer the rise of John F. Kennedy to President of the United States, then was responsible for the assassination of he and his brother Senator Robert Kennedy, and actress Marilyn Monroe.

In the seventies and eighties, the government began winning more of their battles with the Mafia. New anti-racketeering legislation and technology, coupled with tougher drug laws, undercover operations, unprecedented inter-agency cooperation and WITSEC, the federal witness protection program were effective weapons. Attrition of old-school Mafioso made the timing good. The young replacements were not the jail-stint-hardened men that their fathers, uncles and neighborhood heroes were. As a result of all this, whole Mafia hierarchies were dismantled in cities like Milwaukee, Cleveland, Kansas City and Los Angeles. Top New York mob dons, like Tony Salerno and John Gotti were, convicted and imprisoned for life.

About the Author
Rick Porrello is a veteran police officer with Mafia roots. He is author of The Rise and Fall of the Cleveland Mafia. Porrello began writing his first book during research into the murders of his grandfather and three uncles who were mob leaders killed in Prohibition-era, bootleg violence. The book, published in 1995 by Barricade Books of New York, quickly became a regional favorite.

Porrello's second book, To Kill The Irishman: The War that Crippled the Mafia, was optioned for a motion picture before it even hit the shelves. It has now (2001) moved into pre-production by producers by Emmett-Furla Films and Dundee Entertainment, director James Foley, co-starring Paul Sorvino as mob boss James Licavoli and Tara Reid as Danny Greene's love interest.

Porrello is an accomplished jazz musician and soloist, and spent three years traveling worldwide as the drummer for the late Sammy Davis Jr. He continues to perform in the Ohio area. Rick has a degree in criminal justice and is a member of the Italian-American Police Officers Association, the National Writers Association, and the American Federation of Musicians.

Rick is also host of AmericanMafia.com, the web's largest and most comprehensive Mafia site.

Customer Reviews

Luck of the Irish
This is a great book. Danny Greene's story is almost like a fairy tale. It would make a great movie and it redefines the one man irish gang that TJ English speaks about in "Paddy Whacked". This book is filled with excitement. Only problem with this read is that you must know a thing or two about this story before reading it. Porello doesn't bore you by going into detail and re-explain the breakdown of Cosa Nostra and Union corruption. The book is very short and you must have a sense of what is happening before reading it or you will be lost. I strongly recommend that you read "Paddy Whacked" first and then move on to this. great book!

Chapters Chapters Chapters
In this book of 250 pages there's more chapters than information on Danny Greene. There's 50 plus chapters and if this book had a chapter length of regular size there'd be only one chapter on Danny Greene, The reason I bought the book. My advise to readers is spend their money elsewere like on: T.J. English's Paddy Wacked. Irish Mob done right.

Missing link
This is a fine book. I grew up in Cleveland and remember the death of Danny Greene. There were a lot of bombings and attempted bombings in the middle 70's. Little did I know that Danny Greene's death was the linchpin to the Mafia nationwide. Rick Porrello's book is a well-researched and well-writen account of how a union local president's death loosened the keystone of the Mafia arch. This would be a great film!