Goombata: The Improbable Rise and Fall of John Gotti and His Gang [VINTAGE 1990] [FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING]

Cummings, John; Volkman, Ernest

Published by Little, Brown and Company, Boston, Massachusetts, 1990

About this Item

Fine unread condition red boards with a black spine and gold spine lettering contained in a fine condition non price-clipped color photographic dust jacket. Includes Authors Dedications; Acknowledgments; Dramatis Personae and Index. Illustrated with a section of black-and-white photographic plates. "Sicilian slang for "old friends" or "buddies," carries a more sinister connotation. Goombata also are "the people of respect," members of the Mafia. Goombata is the story of John Gotti, the man who currently heads the largest and most powerful criminal organization in the world, the Gambino branch of the American Mafia. With 250 "made" (formally indicted) members, 550 "associate" members, and several thousand auxilliaries, the Gambino Family -- which retains the name of its deceased progenitor, Carlo Gambino -- runs operations that earn around $5 billion a year. How Gotti, a low-level hood, and a small group of his goombata managed to take control of the entire Gambino empire is a wildly improbable tale, by turns horrifying and comic. Although Gotti is among the most publicized gangsters in U.S. history, much about him has remained unknown until now. The revelations in Goombata include: The fact that Gotti is one of the biggest narcotics dealers in the U.S.; that while Gotti is free of most of the conventional vices endemic to Mafia leaders -- he doesn't drink excessively, take drugs, or chase after women - he has been a hopelessly addicted (and very inept) gambler; that despite the fact that Gotti has been publicly accused of arranging the murder of godfather Paul Castellano in 1985, the killing remains officially unsolved. Goombata details Gotti's involvement in the killing, and reveals who actually pulled the trigger; Gotti's criminal career was aided in part by some astonishing incompetence and corruption by law enforcement in his home New York City borough of Queens. Going behind the sensational press reports about John Gotti, Goombata probes the real world of the Mafia: its unique lifestyle, its intricate rituals, the rigid but unwritten code of behaviour, the rules of apprenticeship, the world of Mafia wives and mistresses, how "organized" crime is organized, and the curious sybiosis between the goombata and the police detectives and FBI agents out to destroy them. Goombata also examines the dramatic courtroom battles that have swirled around Gotti, particularly the shocking story behind the bungling of a crucial case against him. Drawing on wiretap records and sources on both sides of the law, Goombata is the fullest portrait we are likely to have of John Gotti and his gang." - from the inner front and rear jacket flaps.

Seller Inventory # 006144

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Goombata: The Improbable Rise and Fall of John Gotti and His Gang [VINTAGE 1990] [FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING]
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company, Boston, Massachusetts
• Publication Date: 1990
• Language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Printing: 1st Printing
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine