Shots In The Dark: The Saga Of Rocco Balliro. This item is unavailable.Shots In The Dark: The Saga Of Rocco Balliro

On a frigid winter night in early 1963, Rocco Anthony Balliro and a pair of associates stormed a darkened apartment on the outskirts of Boston and were immediately embroiled in a deadly shootout with several unseen assailants. Unbeknownst to Rocco at the time, the men who returned his fire were several Boston police officers, waiting in ambush for him. It was, as Rocco later described it, a hastily planned rescue mission that went downhill in a hurry. In the aftermath, his beloved girlfriend and her toddler son lay dead.

Over the past eighteen years, first-time author Daniel Zimmerman has written nearly six hundred columns as a stringer for GateHouse Media, a United States publisher of daily and weekly newspapers. While only a toddler during the events in 1963, Zimmerman grew up with knowledge of the shooting: the victims, Toby and Mark Wagner, were his aunt and cousin. Years ago, he was granted exclusive access to Rocco Anthony Balliro and met with him in prison over a two-year span to hear his story and conduct in-depth interviews. Zimmerman became so close with the Balliro family that when Rocco passed away, he was asked to present a eulogy at the service. Zimmerman lives with his wife of thirty-three years on the North Shore of Boston, and has one daughter who added a pair of grandchildren to their family.