Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and author Anthony M.
DeStefano presents the definitive book on Vito Genovese, the namesake of
a crime family which is still considered one of the most viable and
dangerous in the U.S. today. From enforcer to Godfather, Vito Genovese
rose through the ranks of La Cosa Nostra to head of one of the
wealthiest and most dangerous crime families in American history.
THE BOSS OF BOSSES
The first comprehensive biography of the legendary Mafioso Vito Genovese
--from his childhood in Naples, Italy, and the beginnings of his
bullet-ridden criminal career on lower Manhattan's mean streets, through
his self-exile in the mid-1930s back to his homeland where he ran a
black market operation under the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, and
his return to New York where Genovese made a fortune as the head of an
illegal narcotics empire.
As a member of Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria's gang in New York City,
Genovese ran rackets before joining forces with Lucky Luciano, Frank
Costello, Meyer Lansky, and Bugsy Siegel as bootleggers during
Prohibition. He helped orchestrate Masseria's slaughter on behalf of
Brooklyn crime lord Salvatore Maranzano, consolidating his position and
power before ensuring Maranzano, too, was knocked off. For the next
three decades, Vito Genovese--shrewd, merciless, and utterly
savage--killed countless gangsters in his bid to become the *capo di
tutti i capi--*boss of bosses--in the American Mafia. Don Vito would
betray some of the mafia's most notorious bosses, including Albert
Anastasia and Frank Costello, to eventually seize control of the Luciano
crime family, one that still bears the Genovese name today.
