Books in Brief: Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family

Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family, by Nicholas Pileggi (Simon & Schuster, 256 pp., $17.95)

Not all the crooks in New York City are politicians. In fact, some of them are not even registered Democrats. A lot of them belong to the Mafia, which does indeed exist, despite Mario Cuomo’s protestations to the contrary, and which operates most of the rackets not already controlled by the Democratic machine. “Wiseguy” Henry Hill is the best-connected hood to sing since Joe Valachi blew the lid off the mob in the early Sixties. Hill was involved in, among other capers, the Boston College basketball pointshaving scandal and the $6-million Lufthansa heist, the largest successful cash robbery in U.S. history. Unlike Valachi, Hill was not a “made” Mafia soldier, probably because of his Irish ancestry, and so never took the oath of honor, but he was involved in organized crime ever since he started skipping school at the age of 12 to hang out at Paulie Vario’s cab stand in the Brownsville-East New York section of Brooklyn. After testifying under the Federal Witness Protection program in several successful prosecutions against his former colleagues, Hill told his story to veteran journalist Nicholas Pileggi. Hill’s narrative takes over the book. He is shocking in his candor and matter-of-factness in describing murder, assault, extortion, and arson as “business.” Although it does not cast as much light on the organizational structure of the “New Mob” as Valachi’s story did on the structure of the old, the book gives a clearer idea of what life as a hood is really like. Hill now lives somewhere in the United States and often comes back to New York to testify in mob cases. Now if there were only a Witness Protection Program for Democratic politicians.

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Stephen Weeks

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Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family, by Nicholas Pileggi (Simon & Schuster, 256 pp., $17.95)

Not all the crooks in New York City are politicians. In fact, some of them are not even registered Democrats. A lot of them belong to the Mafia, which does indeed exist, despite Mario Cuomo’s protestations to the contrary, and which operates most of the rackets not already controlled by the Democratic machine. “Wiseguy” Henry Hill is the best-connected hood to sing since Joe Valachi blew the lid off the mob in the early Sixties. Hill was involved in, among other capers, the Boston College basketball pointshaving scandal and the $6-million Lufthansa heist, the largest successful cash robbery in U.S. history. Unlike Valachi, Hill was not a “made” Mafia soldier, probably because of his Irish ancestry, and so never took the oath of honor, but he was involved in organized crime ever since he started skipping school at the age of 12 to hang out at Paulie Vario’s cab stand in the Brownsville-East New York section of Brooklyn. After testifying under the Federal Witness Protection program in several successful prosecutions against his former colleagues, Hill told his story to veteran journalist Nicholas Pileggi. Hill’s narrative takes over the book. He is shocking in his candor and matter-of-factness in describing murder, assault, extortion, and arson as “business.” Although it does not cast as much light on the organizational structure of the “New Mob” as Valachi’s story did on the structure of the old, the book gives a clearer idea of what life as a hood is really like. Hill now lives somewhere in the United States and often comes back to New York to testify in mob cases. Now if there were only a Witness Protection Program for Democratic politicians.