Encyclopedic, but no story

How can a story that includes intrigue, murder, back-stabbing, and a culture of rich traditions be boring? "Five Families" manages to make the most interesting real-life plot lines a snooze. The book is an enormous collection of unsorted facts, the history is listed instead of told, and Raab makes no attempt to gather all of those facts to make a journalistic point or tell an epic story. It's got all the excitement of a tax form, with tons of weird non-sequiturs dropped in occasionally distracting from the story. Who cares what pictures were on the bathroom door in the restaurant? The men he describes were obviously all strong and compelling characters, but but you couldn't tell that from this flat, forgettable and confusing telling. Raab makes very little effort to develop the characters or build tension between the different players, or make you care about what happens to them and the robotic narrator is probably no help. The whole thing reads more like a wiki of mafia history than a book. Would not recommend it.

34 people found this helpful

Great!

Love me some mob stuff! I've been fascinated with La Cosa Nostra since I was a teen in the 80's. I've read many books and have watched everything I know of concerning it. I'm not as expert level as Selwyn Raab, though I'm well informed. This is a great and fairly deep history of the American mob. Starting with it's roots in Sicily on through to the 00's. I learned of many "characters" and tidbits about the dysfunctional mob family that I didn't know of before, which thrilled me. I put it on at a random spot at night and listen to stories until I fall asleep. For me it's well worth the price of admission.

64 people found this helpful

7326451

To be perfectly honest, one of the reasons I chose this book was that I’m getting towards the end of my credits for this year, and so I was looking for a long book. I’m quite interested and curious about the mafia, and so, at 33 hours, I thought this would be a good listen.

It has many merits: It’s a pretty comprehensive account of organised crime in America in centuries 20-21, and it can't have been an easy story to unearth. The Cosa Nostra has been a phenomenally secretive and devious organisation throughout its lifespan. All members of the fraternity are bound by their most sacred rule ‘Omerta’- meaning, literally, ‘being a man’, but in practical terms ‘Omerta’ refers to secrecy rather than manliness; a strict code of silence, under pain of death, to which all Mafiosi are sworn.

There’s a certain amount of romanticism surrounding the Mafia. I’m as much a sucker for this as the next person. I realise it’s probably the result of gangster movies from the thirties with stars like Edward G Robinson and Jimmy Cagney, and, more recently, the brilliant 'Godfather trilogy'. In the early years the mafia gained a foothold by providing some popular services deemed illegal by a prudish establishment. They provided alcohol during prohibition and facilitated gambling – banned by the government but craved by the populace.

The public was happy to turn a blind eye to this criminal activity and often saw the mafia as the good guys and the authorities as the bad guys - But in reality the mafia have always been a very nasty bunch of people, heaping misery on the everyday American, a parasite on the backs of honest, hardworking citizens.

This book tells that story. The authors overcame the secrecy barrier by researching the evidence from rare cases where 'Omerta' was compromised – most of it coming from the few Mafiosi persuaded to testify against their fellow mobsters - and from wire taps. All credit to the authors for finding and collating this information.

But it takes more than this to make a really good listening experience. It isn’t enough for all the information to be there in the book, it also needs to be in a coherent order.

I’m sorry to say that, here, it isn’t. So many times I lost track and thought ‘who are we talking about now?’ and ‘where does this bit fit into the big narrative?’

It felt like ‘7326451’ instead of ‘1234567’.

Verdict: Definitely worth a listen – I did learn a lot about the mafia – but the story was out of order.

133 people found this helpful

A Multitude of Fascinating Mob Stories

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would absolutely recommend this. Would make a great gift.

What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?

This is well-told, entertaining, very informative set of interconnected and factual short stories about the Mafia, centered on NYC, but tales take the listener to Tampa, Nevada, LA, Chhicago, Upstate NY, New Orleans...so many connections, so many GREAT stories.You'll get to know about the early mobsters, at the turn of the century - the actual beginnings of the 5 big families of NYC...through the depression, into WWII (did you know Lucky Luciano had been deported to Italy in the '30s, and lived there through the war...and made a ton of $ because of it?), the political machine in NYC...multiple Congressional Queries, the Kennedy Assassination, so much more....Can't recommend the book highly enough. Truly a 5-Star experience.

What does Paul Costanzo bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Paul did a great job. So many different characters he played - excellent. Would definitely be interested in checking out other audio performances by Mr. Costanzo.That said, on the recording itself, there were some hiss and volume issues (in Volume 1, I think), hence only 4 stars on the Performance.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

All the stories about Hoover willfully ignoring (and/or not believing in the existence of) the 'Commission' was interesting and very entertaining. I literally laughed out loud at times...Hoover was a real 'piece of work'...ha!

Any additional comments?

So many names and so many great stories, sometimes a little hard to keep track...lol.The next time I listen, I'm going to setup a cork-board (just like in the movies), with cutout photos with dates, push-pins and strings connecting everything. Ha! That's the only issue I have with Audible - if there are maps, illustrations, diagrams, charts...etc... in a book, you'll not be getting these. You've gotta do the work to find similar information in these formats. :-(

15 people found this helpful

My first audiobook

This was my first audiobook and I loved it. I'm a big fan of Selwyn Raab and he did an amazing job.

My biggest issue and the reason for 4 stars is because I had problems keeping up sometimes, it was hard to follow. I wish the narrator lived more into it.

I highly recommend watching the mini series "The Making of the Mob: New York". Selwyn Raab is featured a lot in the series and he also helped writing it. So it's kinda like having parts of the book in a TV Show.

12 people found this helpful

Enlightening

After listening to this I feel like I've just taken Mafia 101. Included is a history of Cosa Nostra in New York, including a biography of main players, reactions and tactics of law enforcement, a basic introduction to he rackets or the ways the mob makes money, it's structures, and hours of entertainment. I personally found it riveting and finished it very quickly. If you've been at all interested in the Mafia at some point in your life and want to delve into the whole, fascinating story, than I highly recommend this.

10 people found this helpful

Narrator pacing makes this a difficult listen

I'm only 8 hours into this mammoth book, so can't comment on its entirety, but I have to take a break for a few days. The narrator has a clear and pleasant voice, but he puts very tiny pauses in the wrong places, especially with dependent clauses. That makes the phrase seem like it belongs to either the previous or following sentence. It becomes very irritating.

Also, this is just too long. There is a lot of interesting material, but I think it would be one book I'd prefer to have in an abridged version.

29 people found this helpful

100 years of mafia headlines

The book tries to cover the entire history of the mafia in New York since 1900. Even though the book is very long, it only has time to skim the surface. It also makes the book seem repititious, as mobster after mobster engages in the same loan sharking or union tampering, and vies for promotion. There is very little new in this book that has not already appeared in the press. The writing is clear and the narrator is good, but this was a disappointment.

16 people found this helpful

Good background information

Overall
1. Featured 2 crime families in detail, others in less detail.
2. Redundant in parts and an ending centered around platitudes.
3. Wouldn't want to listen to it again.

Performance
1. Not easy to narrate a book of this type and make it lively throughout, so as expected.
2. Good pronunciation and easy to understand.

Story
1. Descriptions of crimes were rudimentary.
2. Book serves as very good overview of NYC crime families.

2 people found this helpful

Exhaustive and exhausting

It’s thorough and detailed with a lot of interesting information, in the first half in particular. But the closer it gets to the modern day, the more it bogs down into what feels like info-dumps of case files rather than an interesting narrative. As a result the book manages to be about 5 hours or more too long. The author jumps around in time telling parallel stories of crime family prosecutions without tying them together. By the time the last family rolls around it feels like more of the same and a grind to get through. The author would have done better to tell the overall story as one narrative, end with Gotti and summarize the rest. That felt like the end of the story, with the rest as an extended footnote. Also, the author really doesn’t like Rudy Giuliani and wants you to know that. Yes, it feels as out of place as that last sentence felt.

The narrator did not help one bit. The tone was plain-vanilla neutral with minimal inflection. Like listening to a filmstrip in science class in the 70s. Murder and betrayal could barely hold my attention at times.

Worth it for those who want every last detail, probably a slog for everyone else.

2 people found this helpful