Five Families

The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires

By: Selwyn Raab

Narrated by: Paul Costanzo

Length: 33 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's Summary

Genovese, Gambino, Bonnano, Colombo, and Lucchese. For decades these Five Families ruled New York and built the American Mafia (or Cosa Nostra) into an underworld empire. Today, the Mafia is an endangered species, battered and beleaguered by aggressive investigators, incompetent leadership, betrayals, and generational changes that produced violent, unreliable leaders and recruits. A 20-year assault against the five families in particular blossomed into the most successful law enforcement campaign of the last century.

Selwyn Raab's Five Families is the vivid story of the rise and fall of New York's premier dons, from Lucky Luciano to Paul Castellano to John Gotti and more. The book also brings the listener right up to the possible resurgence of the Mafia as the FBI and local law enforcement agencies turn their attention to homeland security and away from organized crime.

©2005 Selwyn Raab (P)2015 Tantor

Critic Reviews

"This masterpiece stands an excellent chance of becoming a bestseller with crossover appeal beyond devoted watchers of The Sopranos." ( Publishers Weekly)

Encyclopedic, but no story

How can a story that includes intrigue, murder, back-stabbing, and a culture of rich traditions be boring? "Five Families" manages to make the most interesting real-life plot lines a snooze. The book is an enormous collection of unsorted facts, the history is listed instead of told, and Raab makes no attempt to gather all of those facts to make a journalistic point or tell an epic story. It's got all the excitement of a tax form, with tons of weird non-sequiturs dropped in occasionally distracting from the story. Who cares what pictures were on the bathroom door in the restaurant? The men he describes were obviously all strong and compelling characters, but but you couldn't tell that from this flat, forgettable and confusing telling. Raab makes very little effort to develop the characters or build tension between the different players, or make you care about what happens to them and the robotic narrator is probably no help. The whole thing reads more like a wiki of mafia history than a book. Would not recommend it.

Great!

Love me some mob stuff! I've been fascinated with La Cosa Nostra since I was a teen in the 80's. I've read many books and have watched everything I know of concerning it. I'm not as expert level as Selwyn Raab, though I'm well informed. This is a great and fairly deep history of the American mob. Starting with it's roots in Sicily on through to the 00's. I learned of many "characters" and tidbits about the dysfunctional mob family that I didn't know of before, which thrilled me. I put it on at a random spot at night and listen to stories until I fall asleep. For me it's well worth the price of admission.

7326451

To be perfectly honest, one of the reasons I chose this book was that I’m getting towards the end of my credits for this year, and so I was looking for a long book. I’m quite interested and curious about the mafia, and so, at 33 hours, I thought this would be a good listen.

It has many merits: It’s a pretty comprehensive account of organised crime in America in centuries 20-21, and it can't have been an easy story to unearth. The Cosa Nostra has been a phenomenally secretive and devious organisation throughout its lifespan. All members of the fraternity are bound by their most sacred rule ‘Omerta’- meaning, literally, ‘being a man’, but in practical terms ‘Omerta’ refers to secrecy rather than manliness; a strict code of silence, under pain of death, to which all Mafiosi are sworn.

There’s a certain amount of romanticism surrounding the Mafia. I’m as much a sucker for this as the next person. I realise it’s probably the result of gangster movies from the thirties with stars like Edward G Robinson and Jimmy Cagney, and, more recently, the brilliant 'Godfather trilogy'. In the early years the mafia gained a foothold by providing some popular services deemed illegal by a prudish establishment. They provided alcohol during prohibition and facilitated gambling – banned by the government but craved by the populace.

The public was happy to turn a blind eye to this criminal activity and often saw the mafia as the good guys and the authorities as the bad guys - But in reality the mafia have always been a very nasty bunch of people, heaping misery on the everyday American, a parasite on the backs of honest, hardworking citizens.

This book tells that story. The authors overcame the secrecy barrier by researching the evidence from rare cases where 'Omerta' was compromised – most of it coming from the few Mafiosi persuaded to testify against their fellow mobsters - and from wire taps. All credit to the authors for finding and collating this information.

But it takes more than this to make a really good listening experience. It isn’t enough for all the information to be there in the book, it also needs to be in a coherent order.

I’m sorry to say that, here, it isn’t. So many times I lost track and thought ‘who are we talking about now?’ and ‘where does this bit fit into the big narrative?’

It felt like ‘7326451’ instead of ‘1234567’.

Verdict: Definitely worth a listen – I did learn a lot about the mafia – but the story was out of order.

A Multitude of Fascinating Mob Stories

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would absolutely recommend this. Would make a great gift.

What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?

This is well-told, entertaining, very informative set of interconnected and factual short stories about the Mafia, centered on NYC, but tales take the listener to Tampa, Nevada, LA, Chhicago, Upstate NY, New Orleans...so many connections, so many GREAT stories.You'll get to know about the early mobsters, at the turn of the century - the actual beginnings of the 5 big families of NYC...through the depression, into WWII (did you know Lucky Luciano had been deported to Italy in the '30s, and lived there through the war...and made a ton of $ because of it?), the political machine in NYC...multiple Congressional Queries, the Kennedy Assassination, so much more....Can't recommend the book highly enough. Truly a 5-Star experience.

What does Paul Costanzo bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Paul did a great job. So many different characters he played - excellent. Would definitely be interested in checking out other audio performances by Mr. Costanzo.That said, on the recording itself, there were some hiss and volume issues (in Volume 1, I think), hence only 4 stars on the Performance.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

All the stories about Hoover willfully ignoring (and/or not believing in the existence of) the 'Commission' was interesting and very entertaining. I literally laughed out loud at times...Hoover was a real 'piece of work'...ha!

Any additional comments?

So many names and so many great stories, sometimes a little hard to keep track...lol.The next time I listen, I'm going to setup a cork-board (just like in the movies), with cutout photos with dates, push-pins and strings connecting everything. Ha! That's the only issue I have with Audible - if there are maps, illustrations, diagrams, charts...etc... in a book, you'll not be getting these. You've gotta do the work to find similar information in these formats. :-(

My first audiobook

This was my first audiobook and I loved it. I'm a big fan of Selwyn Raab and he did an amazing job.

My biggest issue and the reason for 4 stars is because I had problems keeping up sometimes, it was hard to follow. I wish the narrator lived more into it.

I highly recommend watching the mini series "The Making of the Mob: New York". Selwyn Raab is featured a lot in the series and he also helped writing it. So it's kinda like having parts of the book in a TV Show.

Enlightening

After listening to this I feel like I've just taken Mafia 101. Included is a history of Cosa Nostra in New York, including a biography of main players, reactions and tactics of law enforcement, a basic introduction to he rackets or the ways the mob makes money, it's structures, and hours of entertainment. I personally found it riveting and finished it very quickly. If you've been at all interested in the Mafia at some point in your life and want to delve into the whole, fascinating story, than I highly recommend this.

Narrator pacing makes this a difficult listen

I'm only 8 hours into this mammoth book, so can't comment on its entirety, but I have to take a break for a few days. The narrator has a clear and pleasant voice, but he puts very tiny pauses in the wrong places, especially with dependent clauses. That makes the phrase seem like it belongs to either the previous or following sentence. It becomes very irritating.

Also, this is just too long. There is a lot of interesting material, but I think it would be one book I'd prefer to have in an abridged version.

100 years of mafia headlines

The book tries to cover the entire history of the mafia in New York since 1900. Even though the book is very long, it only has time to skim the surface. It also makes the book seem repititious, as mobster after mobster engages in the same loan sharking or union tampering, and vies for promotion. There is very little new in this book that has not already appeared in the press. The writing is clear and the narrator is good, but this was a disappointment.

Good background information

Overall
1. Featured 2 crime families in detail, others in less detail.
2. Redundant in parts and an ending centered around platitudes.
3. Wouldn't want to listen to it again.

Performance
1. Not easy to narrate a book of this type and make it lively throughout, so as expected.
2. Good pronunciation and easy to understand.

Story
1. Descriptions of crimes were rudimentary.
2. Book serves as very good overview of NYC crime families.

Exhaustive and exhausting

It’s thorough and detailed with a lot of interesting information, in the first half in particular. But the closer it gets to the modern day, the more it bogs down into what feels like info-dumps of case files rather than an interesting narrative. As a result the book manages to be about 5 hours or more too long. The author jumps around in time telling parallel stories of crime family prosecutions without tying them together. By the time the last family rolls around it feels like more of the same and a grind to get through. The author would have done better to tell the overall story as one narrative, end with Gotti and summarize the rest. That felt like the end of the story, with the rest as an extended footnote. Also, the author really doesn’t like Rudy Giuliani and wants you to know that. Yes, it feels as out of place as that last sentence felt.

The narrator did not help one bit. The tone was plain-vanilla neutral with minimal inflection. Like listening to a filmstrip in science class in the 70s. Murder and betrayal could barely hold my attention at times.

Worth it for those who want every last detail, probably a slog for everyone else.

Interesting and well-written history

Any additional comments?

This is the first book I've listened to (or read) on the subject. Fascinating, well-written, and well-narrated.

A serious listen!

This is a seriously indepth and long book on the New York Mafia families. I certainly enjoyed this listen but it takes a lot of concentration to keep up with all the many stories and characters mentioned throughout the book. I marked the story down to 3 as the content and length of this book was too long for me.

"Superb"

If you could sum up Five Families in three words, what would they be?

Well narrated, Interesting, informative,

What other book might you compare Five Families to, and why?

Mob Boss: The Life of Little Al D'arco, the Man Who Brought Down the Mafia, Along similar lines but different story and a different perspective of the life.

If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

"The Five Families: The money the lies and the killing’s from Bensonhurst to Broadway"

Any additional comments?

Superb book couldn’t recommend it highly enough.

Exceptional

The best book I've never read. Absolutely fascinating insight into the underworld. I highly recommend this audiobook.

Interesting but 10 hours too long

After recently listening to Puzo's Godfather I thought it would be interesting to research the truth behind the stories.

This book is incredibly informative and detailed almost to a fault. The result is a very well written and narrated book that seems to go on forever. from about 20 hours in it became a bit of a slog to finish it.

excellent

Massively detailed breakdown of the mafia. interesting and full of fact. learnt loads from this but I can't talk about it.😉

Excellent

Would you listen to Five Families again? Why?

I'd listen to this again Because, not only is it the best book I've ever read about the Cosa Nostra in the United States, engagingly written and well-researched, but the narration is superb.

What did you like best about this story?

The subject has always fascinated me, and in The Five Families the author, Selwyn Raab, has literally created a 'one-stop-shop' for the history of the Mafia in America.

Have you listened to any of Paul Costanzo’s other performances? How does this one compare?

I've not listened to any other of the narrator's performances, but I will. He is excellent. He doesn't try to do accents and dialects - he reads the book in a lively and thoughtful way.

If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

This is the one...

Any additional comments?

This is destined to be one of my favourites.

Fantastic

It has every single year from the mafias formation to "the end" in one book

Great audio

It was narrated really well, the in depth knowledge was amazing and overall one of the best audio books I have listened to, if you are interested in Mafia history then this is for you

Great mafia odyssey

Even though this book was 33 hours long, I really enjoyed it and will probably read it again sometime. it really did a deep dive on the bosses of each of the five families and their personalities and personal journeys through life as a mafiosa. I thought it may be a bit long but I loved it and it's only taken a couple of weeks to finish. I was familiar with a few of the characters already such as Gotti and 'the chin' so had a good base knowledge to start with. I'm gonna look for another mafia book right now! Kudos Selwyn! Kudos indeed!