There’s an odd duality alluded to in the book - the communities and neighborhoods that the wiseguys inhabit are often clean from petty crimes, order is well maintained, and undisturbed by outsiders or troublemakers, however the wiseguys often bleed their earnings from blue-collar workers and middle-class families in the area via gambling, cons, or robberies and use their influence to run up tabs that will inevitably go delinquent or shutter honest businesses that encroach on their own enterprises. Organized crime has always been so interesting to me, in that it represents this shadow government and community with its own set of rules and regulations that exists to skirt the rules of the hierarchical and highly-organized society we live in. I haven’t been engrossed in a story like this for awhile. I often don’t read fiction, but this book felt like a fabricated story in the way that truth is stranger than fiction. But actually this was an entertaining read, and after having read it Goodfellas is even a better movie in that it’s based in truth.
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