Synopses & Reviews
In March of 1992, the highest-ranking member of the Mafia in America ever to defect broke his blood oath of silence and testified against his boss, John Gotti. He is Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano, second-in-command of the Gambino organized-crime family, the most powerful in the nation. Today, Gotti is serving life in prison without parole. And as a direct consequence of Gravano's testimony, Cosa Nostra the Mafia's true name is in shambles. In Underboss, based on dozens of hours of interviews with Gravano, much of it written in Sammy the Bull's own voice, we are ushered as never before into the uppermost secret inner sanctums of Cosa Nostra an underworld of power, lust, greed, betrayal, deception, sometimes even honor, with the specter of violent death always poised in the wings. Gravano's is a story about starting out on the street, about killing and being killed, revealing the truth behind a quarter-century of shocking headlines. It is also a tragic story of a wasted life, of unalterable choices and the web of lies, weakness, and treachery that underlie the so-called Honored Society.
Review
"Brilliantly constructed and grimly fascinating...The result is a terrific and important book...It's important because it is a morality play on the subject of loyalty. To whom are you loyal, and from who should you be able to expect loyalty?" The New York Times Book Review
Review
"Like Nicholas Pileggi's Wiseguy, Underboss is fascinating for its anthropologically detailed portrait of a subculture some of us can't get enough of....Both Gravano and Maas (author previously of The Valachi Papers) claim Gravano will get no money from this de facto memoir. But why a man who recently left the federal witness-protection program would want to draw such attention to himself is a mystery. Maybe, given his gift for aphorism, he's thinking about going out on the corporate lecture circuit. 'There's enough people to shoot in the head without looking for it all the time,' he tells Maas words any manager could live by. Amen, I guess." Bruce Handy, Time
Review
"Through extensive interviews with 'Sammy the Bull,' Maas chronicles Sammy's entry, as a teenager, into the world of the Mafia and traces his rise to 'underboss' in the Gambino crime family. Davidson's performance is a mixed bag; as Sammy he's superb at depicting the tough Italian gangster, but in the intervening narrative he continues to read in the same voice so that it isn't immediately clear whether Maas or Sammy is talking. The narration lacks variety in the delivery, as well as the voices, and in a 12-hour book filled with dozens of names, keeping track of all the characters becomes difficult without some differentiation. Occasional mispronounciations of French words, such as 'sobriquet' and 'sangfroid,' are minor irritations." Susan R. Rosenzweig
Review
"Gravano Sammy the Bull to his Cosa Nostra cohorts is the highest ranking member of the Mob ever to defect. By turning state's witness against his friend and head of the Gambino family, John Gotti, Gravano was allowed to serve only five years in prison for 19 murders and won the dubious distinction of having to watch his back for the rest of his life. He also hooked up with Maas, author of The Valachi Papers, spent hours talking to him, and revealed a world that readers will be both fascinated and repelled by. As a child, Gravano lived across the street from a saloon, a Mafia hangout in Bensonhurst. Labeled a 'slow learner,' he found the mobsters to be the one group that didn't put him down, and before long, he was in the gangster life. Gravano speaks matter-of-factly of his escalating Mafia career, which eventually involved becoming a hit man, but oddly, what emotion does come across is that of love, love for the Cosa Nostra and its traditions. Coming after all the murders and mayhem, Gravano's decision to rat on Gotti, mostly for his flamboyance of all things, is almost anticlimactic. Maas writes this page-turner in Gravano's voice, and it's a voice that readers will hear in their heads for a long while." Ilene Cooper, Booklist
Synopsis
Sammy the Bull Gravano is the highest-ranking member of the Mafia in America ever to defeat. In telling Gravano's story, Peter Maas brings us as never before into the innermost sanctums of the Cosa Nostra as if we were there ourselves--a secret underworld of power, lust, greed, betrayal, and deception, with the specter of violent death always waiting in the wings.
About the Author
Peter Maas's is the author of the number one New York Times bestseller Underboss. His other notable bestsellers include The Valachi Papers, Serpico, Manhunt, and In a Child's Name. He lives in New York City.