Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3507561 in Books
• Published on: 1999-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

Customer Reviews

Mad Dog Coll
As someone who has always been somewhat fascinated by this particular individual, you can imagine how thrilled I was when I was able to obtain a copy of this book. I must admit, however, that aside from the psychological records and other public data, I came away a bit disappointed. Perhaps I was expecting too much, but I felt as though most of the book was a rehash of old newspaper articles covering Coll's criminal career. One example of misinformation is that Mr. Delap singles out one Enrico Battaglia as having possibly been the treacherous bodyguard who betrayed Coll to his enemies. The fact is that this same Battaglia had been killed more than three months earlier, on October 19, 1931, during a shoot-out with New York City police in a rooming house on Manhattan's upper West Side. Mr. Delap also wrote that Coll had met with other hoodlums in New Jersey in the hours preceding his death. There is absolutely nothing to substantiate this assertion. Coll, according to his widow, was alone when he left her in their Bronx apartment around noon on Sunday, February 7, 1932, and there are no records of what he did or who he was with until he appeared at the London Chemists pharmacy twelve hours later, shortly after midnight on Monday, February 8th, when he met his doom. In summation, I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the life and death of Vincent Coll, but without much enthusiasm.

Very Interesting Read
As an Irishman I'm very surprised that I have never come across this gangster before. His life is intrinsically linked to the history of my country and the author deserves a lot of credit for the lengths he went in researching this story. It's lively, well told, sad, humane and above all very interesting. Brendan Delapp has managed to transform this gruelling human tragedy into a real page turner. It's a magnificent achievement and a canditate for book of the year (- though I'm not too sure when it was published!!!) One thing is sure Mad Dog Coll brings a whole new meaning to the term 'the Donegal mafia.'

A Cracking Read
This biography is a breath of fresh air. The research is meticulous. Little nuggets of information are casually thrown into the text - like psychological reports, census information etc - as if they were in the public domain. Of all the gangster books I've read this is by far the most sensitive handling of a potentially thorny subject matter. There is a tendency in gangster literature to glamourise the subject but the man that emerges from these pages is a tortured soul who got very few chances in life. There is great sadness in the book and a very impressive analysis on what the American dream meant to poor emigrant families. Added to this, there is the author's lively style that keeps you hooked from page to page. Very impressive and highly recommended. But it is the research that makes this biography special. No stone left unturned clearly. It is a shame the book appears to be out of print. I picked it up in a second hand shop in New York and couldn't believe my luck. What a gem! Time for a reprint or maybe an offer from a more mainstream American publishing house.