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Gangster Hunters due out in November

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Gangster Hunters How Hoover’s G-Men Vanquished America’s Deadliest Public Enemies by John Oller John Oller’s meticulously researched account of the FBI’s early days is due to be released by Dutton (imprint of Penguin Publishing Group) on November 26, 2024. John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd – these infamous Depression-era criminals have been immortalized as some of the most vicious felons in our history, but they share another commonality: every single one was brought down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation during a chaotic war on crime, which started in 1933 and thrust the FBI into the national spotlight for the first time.  Surprisingly little has been written about field-level agents responsible for hunting down the most dangerous criminals and bringing them to justice... until now. In this new book, Gangster Hunters , critically acclaimed author John Oller (also author of the 2021 release Rogues Gallery )
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Valachi's treacherous world

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Informer's November 2024 issue, The Treacherous World of Joseph Valachi , has been released and is now widely available in magazine, book and electronic formats. The issue focuses on Mafia informant Valachi, his time and place, and many of the individuals who played roles in his life. A rare primary source into American Mafia history of the Castellammarese War-era, Joseph Valachi also described early gangland of East Harlem and the Bronx, and provided a unique soldier-level view of New York-area organized crime from the days of Prohibition up to Apalachin. An early FBI informant, Valachi became the focus of a best-selling book and a popular movie, as well as televised Senate testimony and a lengthy autobiography. Despite this coverage, a great deal of the true Valachi story has remained untold. Now, 60 years after Valachi put pen to paper in an effort to bring his story to the attention of the public, a team of historians from around the globe is revealing long hidden asp
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William Flynn bio, 'Bulldog Detective'

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The Bulldog Detective: William J. Flynn and America's First War Against the Mafia, Spies, and Terrorists by Jeffrey D. Simon was released today (January 16, 2024). It is available in hardcover and ebook formats through popular booksellers Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com , as well as through academic nonfiction publisher, Rowman & Littlefield . Publisher's description :  America in the early twentieth century was rife with threats. Organized crime groups like the Mafia, German spies embedded behind enemy lines ahead of World War I, package bombs sent throughout the country, and the 1920 Wall Street bombing dominated headlines. Yet the story of the one man tasked with combating these threats has yet to be told.  The Bulldog Detective: William J. Flynn and America’s First War Against the Mafia, Spies, and Terrorists  is the first book to tell the story of Flynn, the first government official to bring down the powerful Mafia, uncover a sophisticated German spy ring in the
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New book explores Mafia kinship ties

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Friend and colleague Justin Cascio has penned a book-length discussion of transatlantic family connections of Corleone, Sicily, mafiosi. In Our Blood: The Mafia Families of Corleone , now available through Amazon in hardcover, paperback and ebook editions, is Cascio's first book. The Mafia criminal society is traditionally viewed as a hierarchical organization, but Cascio argues that Mafia networks are largely based on kinship ties.  He has poured years of his research into this project. The publisher of the Mafia Genealogy website and a frequent contributor to Informer journal, Cascio is highly regarded as an underworld historian and genealogist. He notes that pivotal figures in Mafia history, including present-day mafiosi, have direct ties to one another and to the earliest recorded gangs in Corleone, Sicily. In addition to bloodline and marriage connections, some mafiosi also linked through the significant religious/family role of godparent.  Cascio discusses dozens of gan
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October 2023 issue of Informer

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Informer's October 2023 issue, Gangsters of New York's Lower East Side , is now available in seven formats (print and electronic magazine, hardcover and paperback book, Kindle and EPUB ebook, and audiobook). Contributors to the issue include historians Justin Cascio, Patrick Downey, Michael O'Haire, Steve Turner, Matt Ghiglieri. Visit Informer's website for more information. A dozen articles focus on aspects of Lower East Side gangland history:  End of the Whyos gang. Historic Photo: Bandits' Roost. John H. McGurk and Bowery's "Suicide Hall." The death and life of hoodlum/hero Monk Eastman. NYC's first Mafia boss? Italian gang chief with an Irish name: Paul Kelly. Sai Wing Mock and the New York "Tong Wars." Frank Lanza's New York firms may have been Mafia fronts. In search of "Johnny Spanish." Racketeering future was molded in young Meyer Lansky's neighborhood. "Death Avenue": Second Avenue, 1910-1924. 1964 n
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Happy Ass Day (to those who celebrate)

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Be especially kind to your ass today. (Sebastian - one of our two donkeys)  Since the middle ages, this date - January 14 - has been the "Feast of the Ass" on Christian calendars.  Not kidding. See: "Feast of the Ass." Note that donkeys, long the target of human abuse and ridicule, played significant roles in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. (They are also nearly always present in the nativity scenes used in Christmas celebrations.) In Christian legend, the humble, thoughtful donkey not only carried Mary and newborn Jesus out of harm's way (the Flight into Egypt), it also carried adult Jesus into Jerusalem (the Palm Sunday tradition). Donkeys also were used extensively by Abraham and Moses. This was a deliberate choice, as there were horses, oxen and camels available. They were the ONLY form of animal exempted from sacrifice instructions in the Book of Exodus. The sacrifice of the first-born male domestic animal was mandated in Exodus, but it was sugges
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Spectacular sunrise on Dec. 29

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We were treated to a special show about 7 a.m. on December 29, 2022. Rippled clouds near the Green Mountains horizon showed up as tightly packed layers of magenta and orange light, while pink cotton candy puffs filled the rest of the sky. A 14-second video, scanning the sky from northeast to southeast. Apparently, the spectacle wasn't limited to the Whiting area. TV news in Burlington shared dawn photographs taken around the state of Vermont.
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