Gaspipe: Confessions of a Mafia Boss

The author, childhood friend of the subject, spends most of the book idolizing Gaspipe. Instead of a portrait of a low-life criminal and murderer (Gaspipe was both) we get a glossy picture of a "man of honor". The author glosses over the facts and insists that gaspipe is some sort of hero simply because he stayed married, refrained from killing too many people directly in his own neighborhood and managed to bribe his way out of legal trouble for a while. Aside from this, the writing is terrible. The author reuses certain phrases to the point of distraction.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

An amazing story about a man's journey through the innerworkings of the NY Mafia with names most people will remember from the headlines. I thought this was an excellent account of what it really takes to become a made man. In the end, I thought Gaspipe ended up sounding a little sympathetic but then I remembered all of the people he admitted to "taking care of" and I got over it.

If you loved the Henry Hill story, mob or Mafia movies or tales of secret societies, you'll enjoy this enthralling story of life in the mob.

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.

This is a story about a group / culture that got the idea they would live happily every after, running all over dead bodies, stealing, lying, killing, torturing and setting others up for loss pain and misery. Then they all turned on one another and gobbled each other up. That includes the U.S. Government.