The Silent Don: The Criminal Underworld of Santo Trafficante Jr.
Although this sprawling, well-referenced Mob bio is nominally about Santo Trafficante Jr., Deitche necessarily starts with Santo Sr., who flew under law enforcement's radar and took advantage of his early rivals' bloody squabbling to create the organized crime empire he eventually handed over to his namesake. Both Trafficantes so adeptly dodged publicity that Deitche was hard-pressed to find significant documentation of Sr.'s activities before his 1930s emergence as the Tampa, Florida, Mafia boss. At the time when Luciano, Lansky, and Capone moved away from ethnic divisions within gangs, the Trafficante crew remained Sicilian-dominated. Maintaining close ties to New York's Five Families and Chicago's Outfit, Santo Jr.'s organization participated in most major Mob high jinks of the latter twentieth century, including leadership roles in such alleged CIA-Mob partnerships as the Bay of Pigs invasion and assassination plots involving Castro and JFK. Deitche presents the sprawling Trafficante story in luscious detail and appends a bulging bibliography of related material. This excellent gangster study handily fills a big gap in Mob literature.Mike TribbyCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved