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Sonny, April 2022
Hardcover / e-Book
The Last of the Old Time Mafia Bosses, John "Sonny" Franzese
Citadel
April 2022
On Sale: March 29, 2022
Featuring: John βSonnyβ Franzese
288 pages
ISBN: 0806541601
EAN: 9780806541600
Kindle: B098PM5CVB
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction Biography | Non-Fiction Memoir
John “Sonny” Franzese reportedly committed his first murder at the age of fourteen. As a “made man” for the Colombo crime family, he operated out of his Long Island home specializing in racketeering, fraud, loansharking, and other illicit deeds he would deny to his dying day. His career in organized crime spanned over eight decades—and he was sentenced to fifty years in prison for robbery charges. But even behind bars, Sonny Franzese never stopped doing business . . .
This is the true story of an old-school mafioso as it’s never been told before. Newsday reporter S. J. Peddie interviewed Franzese in prison—and uncovered a lifetime of shocking secrets from the legend himself:
* Why FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had a very personal interest in Sonny.
* How Sonny managed to juggle numerous affairs with women, including a famous model.
* How Sonny spent a third of his life in prison—and still managed to earn untold millions for the mob.
* How Sonny accidentally revealed some of his worst crimes—to a “friend” wearing a wire.
Through it all, Franzese refused to break the Mafia’s code of silence. Authorities believe he may have murdered, or ordered the murders of, forty to fifty people. Yet he earned a grudging respect from law enforcement and an absolute reverence from his fellow gangsters. Eventually he managed to outlive them all—until his death in 2020 of natural causes, a rare event in the Mafia. Thanks to a series of exclusive firsthand interviews, the astonishing life story of John “Sonny” Franzese can be told in all its bold, brutal, and blood-spattered glory. This is a must-read for anyone fascinated with Mafia history—and a rare look inside a criminal mind that has become the stuff of legend
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