• Gaspipe

  • Confessions of a Mafia Boss
  • By: Philip Carlo
  • Narrated by: Alan Sklar
  • Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (628 ratings)

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Gaspipe  By  cover art

Gaspipe

By: Philip Carlo
Narrated by: Alan Sklar
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Publisher's summary

Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso, the boss of New York's Lucchese crime family, was a Mafia superstar, responsible for more than 50 murders. Currently serving 13 life sentences at a federal prison in Colorado, Casso has given journalist and New York Times best-selling author Philip Carlo the most intimate, personal look into the world of La Cosa Nostra ever seen. By pure happenstance, Casso had lived next door to the family of young Philip Carlo, who was able to get into the mind, heart, and soul of one of the most cunning, ruthless mob bosses in the annals of crime history. In Gaspipe, Casso reveals the shocking details behind headline-making crimes and crime figures, such as:

  • The mob's decision that John Gotti had to be taken out after whacking Big Paul Castellano without approval - and how Casso got the order to hit Gotti
  • A fly-on-the-wall view of the Mafia commission sit-down at which John Gotti was made capo di tutti capi, the boss of all bosses
  • The insidious relationship between La Cosa Nostra and the Russian Mafia, and how the Lucchese family murdered the most-feared assassin in the Russian mob
  • Details of secret sit-downs with mob bosses Vincent "The Chin" Gigante and John Gotti, and the notorious Sammy "The Bull" Gravano
  • How Gravano made fools of the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI
  • The real story of the Mafia Cops and the revelations of other law enforcement personnel on Casso's payroll
  • How the Mafia managed to get a tight stranglehold on most unions in America
  • The truth behind the Mafia's real role in bringing huge amounts of narcotics into the United States
  • How federal prison officials were bought and sold by the Mafia
  • The intimate details of the women behind the Mafiosi
  • The truth behind the assassinations of JFK and RFK
  • Who killed Jimmy Hoffa, and where his body is
  • ©2008 Philip Carlo (P)2008 Tantor

    What listeners say about Gaspipe

    Average customer ratings
    Overall
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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      362
    • 4 Stars
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    • 3 Stars
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    Story
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    • Overall
      3 out of 5 stars

    The author fails the objectivity test

    Gaspipe uses the author to tell his cherished view of his life. This is more like an autobiography. In this story Gaspipe is a criminal's criminal. He's loyal to his loving family, always keeps his word, protector of the downtrodden, and devoted to the rules of omerta. The author seems oblivious that this gold plated presentation runs contrary to the very facts he presents. Gaspipe is a vicious narcissistic murderer who in the end screws everybody he comes in contact with. He unfaithful to his personal family, his crime family, and his closest friends. Like Sammy Gravono's book, he presents himself as a victim of those that ratted him out. So he rats them out too, Omerta be damned. But you ignore the self-serving fluff the book is quite listenable to. In its favor is it names names & dates and does show the inner machination of the mafia world. If you are an aficionado of the NY families it doesn't break much new ground.

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    16 people found this helpful

    • Overall
      2 out of 5 stars

    Not very good or thought provoking

    I was looking for some insight into mob history in the United States. This book has some of that, but it was so biased towards Anthony Casso it was ridiculous. It got to the point where I thought the author had some sort man-crush on this guy. The narrator was fine, but I would not recommend this book.

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    15 people found this helpful

    • Overall
      4 out of 5 stars

    A good read with a grain of salt...

    Entertaining and informative. Author writes the book more like an auto-biography vs that of an objective biography. However, it still provides interesting story lines about organized crime syndicates, mob life, and the government's treatment of the subject after his capture. Personally, I could not bring myself to empathize with Casso's reported 'unfair' treatment at the hands of the government given his life of crime. Ultimately, Casso's chickens come home to roost in a way you do not wish upon anyone. The book was worth the credit!

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    14 people found this helpful

    • Overall
      4 out of 5 stars
    • Performance
      5 out of 5 stars
    • Story
      4 out of 5 stars

    Very good

    This is an engaging tale with fascinating characters - and nicknames to boot - and a superb narration.I only found it lacking when explaining why Gaspipe converted into a rat.

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    11 people found this helpful

    • Overall
      2 out of 5 stars
    • Performance
      2 out of 5 stars
    • Story
      3 out of 5 stars

    Bad Writing. Lazy And Unimaginative

    The writing in this book is superlatively bad. Was there an editor who read this? I don't think so. An English teacher would have rejected this by the first chapter. Words like trite, and every synonym you can use for trite will dance through your head as you read this thing: cliche' commonplace, hack, tired, stale, stereotyped, boilerplate. In the end just plain lazy and unimaginative descriptions. Several characters are described as shy but well dressed. When I read, "He shot him to death several times." I wondered how bad can this thing get?
    Turns out pretty bad.
    The narration is just ok. I lost faith in the narrator. He should have stopped at several points and said "Are you kidding me?" and then continued. But he plodded through it with a deadpan resolve. I plodded through all it the way to the end too. I suppose the story is interesting, it's just done very awkwardly. Bring your mental highlighter so you can remember the low points - amazing.

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    6 people found this helpful

    • Overall
      5 out of 5 stars

    If you like Mafia books this one is great

    The book takes you into the inner sanctum of the mafia. From the start of Gaspipe's career to the very end when he turns on the LCN.

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    5 people found this helpful

    • Overall
      3 out of 5 stars
    • Performance
      3 out of 5 stars
    • Story
      3 out of 5 stars

    Interesting, but self-serving and poorly-written

    This book did provide some colorful insight into the people and processes of the New York Mafia, so it was worth reading. However, the content was so self-serving and self-glorifying that it almost became a joke at certain points. This is what happens when narcissistic psychopaths authorize their own biography. Then came the writing. So many weak and silly metaphors. This book really deserves a C grade. It's not great, it's barely good, it's almost bad, but it's not horrible.

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    4 people found this helpful

    • Overall
      3 out of 5 stars
    • Performance
      2 out of 5 stars
    • Story
      3 out of 5 stars

    Not a very good book

    Like another reviewer stated I had first read Iceman which is by the same author and it was a great and entertaining book -- in retrospect I'm not sure how true it was but it was still interesting.

    This book is not up to those standards -- it's not even close. The book is written like the author is afraid that a contract will be put on him if he is even remotely objective on any point. Additionally the author uses every cliche you can recall.

    The story starts off extremely slow, the first quarter or more of this book is very boring. The reason I'll give this book 3-stars is the middle part of the book. During this part the story flows at a good pace, its interesting and it even for the most part seems well written. But then the author returns to the dull, non-objective filler for the final 3-4 hours. In this part you can hear about how unfair the government is not to give him a 6 1/2 sentence, I mean he plead guilty to killing many people, dealing drugs, corruption, etc -- but 6 1/2 years seems fair to me. You'll hear about how the government tricked him into a confession, how they gave him his lawyer, how they took advantage of poor Anthony. It's one of the most dull, boring diatribes I've ever heard and why the author didn't make this part of the book about 12 long is beyond me.

    As for the read I'm convinced he's only reading the book in an effort to test the bass of your speakers. His reading style is annoying at best, dangerous to your health at worst. He's not the worst reader I've heard but he is not very good. He could become an acceptable reader if he stopped purposefully trying to make his voice so bassy, it's very annoying.

    Overall this book is quite disappointing and worst it makes me think the entire Iceman book, which I did enjoy, is complete fiction.

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    4 people found this helpful

    • Overall
      3 out of 5 stars
    • Ed
    • 02-25-11

    Disjointed, standard Mafia fare

    I, like many others, am fascinated by the inner workings of La Cosa Nostra. Although the late author gives us some revealing, behind-the-scenes views, his writing style leaves much to be desired. He would tell us something and then, a few minutes or pages later, he would tell us the same thing. Did he forget that he already mentioned what had transpired? He also made some assumptions (such as what someone was thinking moments before his death) that he had no way of knowing. Most readers will likely be conflicted at the end wondering whether to feel sorry for Casso or thinking that he got exactly what he deserved. I believe he got what he deserved, but that doesn't excuse the methods applied by law enforcement if, in fact, they acted in the manner described by Carlo. If you like stories about the Mafia you will probably enjoy this book.

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    4 people found this helpful

    • Overall
      1 out of 5 stars
    • Performance
      2 out of 5 stars
    • Story
      2 out of 5 stars

    Lack of Enthusiasm

    After reading The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer, a few years ago, I was looking forward for more Philip Carlo's writing, but it seems like he is one hit wonder with The Ice Man. The author doesn't really go in depth with Gaspipe and his other book, The Butcher. Unlike his first debut best seller (Richard Kuklinski's story), it seems like he wrote the two latter books just because to fulfill his contract with the publisher . Unlike The Ice Man, there is no compelling reason to read Gaspipe and his other titles.

    I will probably be giving up on this author because the lack of enthusiasm shows in his writing.

    After reading my review on Gaspipe, you should know which book you should be reading from this author and which books to avoid.

    I won't be reading anything else from Carlo in the future, but Kuklinski's story is a must read.

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    3 people found this helpful