The Mafia is Dead/Long Live the Mafia

This book tells a very good story, but can be hard to follow, as Breslin uses a technique better applied to films and video footage; he intercuts true-life reporting of the court appearances in which the fates of two mob-connected cops are decided with the background story, biographical information, and circumstances that got each of the characters mentioned in this book where they are. Perhaps he was thinking that this book had a future as a movie like one of his other works, The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight.

I have been able to verify certain details concerning the lives of a couple of the public figures mentioned in this book by having had the opportunity to talk with individuals who had seen Vincent the Chin and were acquainted with Judge Weinstein. Beyond that, some of the details concerning the lives and motivations of lesser-known mobsters and other individuals mentioned in this work are subject to Breslin's brand of interpretation and speculation. (I stand by that unless I meet people connected to tertiary figures in this book who can verify details of their lives and way of thinking.)

As with Breslin's other works, what you are getting is a heavy dose of Breslin's opinion and speculation here. I'm not saying this is entirely a bad thing, but it is what it is. You must read with caution. When I was in high school, I read one of Breslin's works of fiction, He Got Hungry and Forgot His Manners. He used a lot of realistic detail concerning locations and socioeconomic types in the New York area and Ireland to make it seem to be more than fiction. It had a very negative portryal of the Catholic Church and those who serve in it. While the idea that the Church could sometimes circumvent laws and have a detrimental effect on individuals' lives was part of the plot in that particular novel, it was clear that the novel was simply a delivery system for this and other opinions held by Breslin. When he more recently expressed similar opinions in his purported work of non-fiction, The Church that Forgot Christ, some reviews held that his position was so extreme that his mental fitness was to be considered questionable. While I am not about to speculate upon Breslin's sanity, it is clear to me that there is a lot of "fact" mixed into his fictional work, and it is only reasonable to wonder how much fiction may be potentially woven into his factual works, and to be aware that he has an axe (or two) to grind.

One of the messages Breslin tries to deliver in this book is that the Mafia does not have the power it once commanded.

Changes in society and technology have effectively squeezed the Mafia out of some their previous opportunities for ill-gotten gain:

"Extortionist loans, as the federal indictments call them, have almost disappeared in the rush of people taking brand-new credit cards to automatic tellers that give cash to the touch. When you see people punching numbers into a wall and getting money inside bodegas in the poorest of neighborhoods, then you are the observer of terrible financial misdeeds. There's your shy[lock]. ...Once the mob could have a hand in politics. It was possible back then for Mafia bosses and government officials to scheme together. A man with a gun and a politician in his pocket is rather formidable. Today mobsters are so unsavory that even elected officials are expected to shun them". (p. 58.)
In fact, this book contains a number of anecdotes concerning Mafia figures who got busted for minor infractions who might have gotten away with larger crimes had they not done something stupid. This sort of thing was, in fact, the inspiration for his earlier work, The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight.

"The Mafia no longer sends great chords crashing down from the heavens. As it dissolves, you inspect it for what it actually was, grammar-school drop-outs who kill each other and purport to live by codes from the hills of Sicily that are actually either unintelligible or ignored". (p. 61)

By the end of the book, though, Breslin changes his tune: he contends that there will always be a Mafia as long as there are opportunities for money to be made from performing services no one else wants to do and a black market for goods of dubious provenance. Burton Kaplan, the "Good Rat" of the title of the book who testifies in court had engaged in various illegal enterprises without the Mafia's help for years, and then got into a legitimate clothing wholesaling business indirectly through connections to the stolen-goods activities of the Mafia by selling clothing that _hadn't_ been stolen for lower prices than for clothing that _had_ been stolen! The Mafia's continued existance and future persistance are dependant on their entry into semi-legitimate spheres and even fully legit enterprises with an eye to profit, refinements of white-collar crime, rather than their previously well-known activities of loan-sharking and leg-breaking.