Carmine and the 13th Avenue Boys

Surviving Brooklyn's Colombo Mob

By: Craig McGuire, Carmine Imbriale - contributor

Narrated by: Johnny Heller

This is the true story of Carmine Imbriale—a gambler, a brawler, a bandit, a bookie, an enforcer. For two decades, Imbriale was a street-level operative in one of the most violent crews in the Colombo Family.

Now in hiding, Imbriale teams up with true-crime veteran writer Craig McGuire to take you inside the Thirteenth Avenue rackets at the height of their violence. This is the jarring account of his lawless lifestyle culminating in a gang war in South Brooklyn, from which he emerges a survivor.

From his first arrest at fifteen for robbing a Coney Island pimp to surviving multiple assassination attempts, Imbriale offers up dozens of too-good-to-be-true tales featuring some of the most notorious gangsters, as well as other lions and lackeys of La Cosa Nostra, and details a beef with none other than Greg "The Grim Reaper" Scarpa Sr.

A young streetwise hustler, Imbriale thought he found loyalty, a brotherhood. Instead, he descended into a world of treachery and deceit, where your best friend is your executioner, and no one gets out alive. But no one expected him to become the domino that helped bring it all down.

Contains mature themes.

©2022 Craig McGuire (P)2022 Tantor

Great book

I love that it flows easily. It's not pretentious, it's real stories from a real guy told the way things happened.

Entertaining

What you would expect. Scheming, robbing, gambling, hustling, and murder, street life in 70’s and 80’s Brooklyn. Johnny Heller is fantastic as alway.

Very good

Lived in Brooklyn 60s and 70s saw a lot of stuff made me stronger as I got older

engaging, well read

The story flowed well and was well read. I would get more like this

Not Persico

The book makes you think it’s about Carmine Persico flexing the 13th Ave name in the title it is not. Would not of wasted time if I knew it were about an informant. They cleverly mention Persico a lot in the beginning you don’t start hear the other name until towards the end.