Where the Bodies Were Buried: Whitey Bulger and the World That Made Him - Hardcover

English, T. J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062290983 ISBN 13: 9780062290984

Publisher: William Morrow, 2015

Synopsis

The New York Times bestselling author of The Westies and Paddy Whacked offers a front-row seat at the trial of Whitey Bulger, and an intimate view of the world of organized crime—and law enforcement—that made him the defining Irish American gangster.

For sixteen years, Whitey Bulger eluded the long reach of the law. For decades one of the most dangerous men in America, Bulger—the brother of influential Massachusetts senator Billy Bulger—was often romanticized as a Robin Hood-like thief and protector. While he was functioning as the de facto mob boss of New England, Bulger was also serving as a Top Echelon informant for the FBI, covertly feeding local prosecutors information about other mob figures—while using their cover to cleverly eliminate his rivals, reinforce his own power, and protect himself from prosecution. Then, in 2011, he was arrested in southern California and returned to Boston, where he was tried and convicted of racketeering and murder.

Our greatest chronicler of the Irish mob in America, T. J. English covered the trial at close range—by day in the courtroom, but also, on nights and weekends, interviewing Bulger’s associates as well as lawyers, former federal agents, and even members of the jury in the backyards and barrooms of Whitey’s world. In Where the Bodies Were Buried, he offers a startlingly revisionist account of Bulger’s story—and of the decades-long culture of collusion between the Feds and the Irish and Italian mob factions that have ruled New England since the 1970s, when a fateful deal left the FBI fatally compromised. English offers an authoritative look at Bulger’s own understanding of his relationship with the FBI and his alleged immunity deal, and illuminates how gangsterism, politics, and law enforcement have continued to be intertwined in Boston.

As complex, harrowing, and human as a Scorsese film, Where the Bodies Were Buried is the last word on a reign of terror that many feared would never end.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

New York Times bestselling author T. J. English, the acclaimed master chronicler of the Irish Mob in America, offers a front-row seat at the trial of one of the most notorious gangsters of all—Whitey Bulger—and pulls back the veil to expose a breathtaking history of corruption and malfeasance

Whitey Bulger was, following the death of Osama bin Laden, the number-one fugitive on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list; he remained at large for sixteen years. One of the most prominent mobsters in Boston's criminal underworld from the 1970s until his disappearance in 1995, Bulger was sometimes romanticized as a Robin Hood–esque thief and protector who looked out for his South Boston neighborhood.

But the truth was much more complicated—and infinitely more sordid—as his trial on racketeering charges revealed in alarming detail. Throughout the era in which Bulger was a crime boss, he was also a Top Echelon Informant (TE) for the FBI, supposedly helping prosecutors make organized-crime cases against the Mafia by feeding them information that could win them convictions in court. His relationship with the criminal justice system—an arrangement he inherited from a previous generation of gangsters and corrupt lawmen—represents the hidden horror of the Bulger story and the battleground on which prosecutors and defense lawyers clashed at his trial.

There have been other books on Bulger, but none like this. T. J. English—author of Paddy Whacked, the definitive history of the Irish Mob—was present every day of the proceedings, and in Where the Bodies Were Buried gives us not just an account of the trial but also a deeply sourced, disturbing portrait of the decades-long culture of collusion between the Feds and the Irish and Italian Mob factions that ruled Boston and much of New England from the 1970s forward. English provides the first look at Bulger's own understanding of his relationship with the FBI—including the immunity deal he claimed with the U.S. Attorney's Office—and an in-depth assessment of the degree to which gangsterism, politics, and law enforcement have long been intertwined in Boston.

Rich in first-person interviews with criminal associates, retired FBI agents, victims, and their families, Where the Bodies Were Buried completes the informal trilogy English began with The Westies and Paddy Whacked and promises to be the last word on a reign of terror that many feared would never end.

About the Author:

T. J. English is a noted journalist, a screenwriter, and the author of the New York Times bestsellers Havana Nocturne, Paddy Whacked, and The Savage City, as well as of The Westies, a national bestseller, and Born to Kill, which was nominated for an Edgar Award. He has written for Vanity Fair, Playboy, and Esquire, among other publications. His screenwriting credits include episodes of the television crime dramas NYPD Blue and Homicide, for which he was awarded the Humanitas Prize. He lives in New York City.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0062290983
• ISBN 13: 9780062290984
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 448