motorfab wrote: ↑Sun Mar 08, 2020 4:15 am
Yes the book has its faults, but it remains a good basis. I think that the authors exaggerate a little the power of the clan, but after it is up to us to make the share of the things. I haven't read the Peter Edwards books but he seems to be in a little more dubious theories compared to the murder of Sciascia or LoPresti (not to mention the fact that he claims that Vito would not have died as a result of his cancer). Anyway, to choose I stay on the books I mentioned above
But like I said, it's a great book! They had no informants and had to forensically recreate the narrative (one never covered previously) and had to put a series of events together and explain them. What they accomplished would have taken me ten years. So I really hope I didn't sound dismissive of the book. And given that the Rizzutos had a great run and seemed at the height of their power, the authors reflected that. Without adding some personal narrative about what these guys were maybe thinking, it would be a very dry read of actions and events. I don't think LoMothe and Humphreys tried to push it beyond what it appeared to be.
There's Two The Last Don's books about Massino, one by a DeStefano and the other that's one not, I like the one that's not. However, in one passage it went into how Massino liked to spend time cooking while plotting his visions for the crime family. Unless he directly came out and admitted either to Sal to the FBI something along the lines of "I plotted my rise from the safety of my kitchen" that's a speculative assertion unless the author has mind-reading abilities. Not a big deal, but it further provides an image to a man that we don't even know. Nor do the authors who claimed that's what he was thinking about while cooking.
As TLDs related to the 6F book, the takeaway had people questioning whether Montreal "surpassed" New York, even speculating that perhaps "the next boss" could potentially come from Canada "if" Montreal "decided" to remain with the Bonannos. The authors cannot be held accountable for the various interpretations that people took from it. However that is the takeaway drawn from the creative narrative which was proven to be inaccurate in the coming years. They had the Rizzutos so hyped up and powerful, that if someone said the stars were aligning against them it wouldn't matter because Nick Rizzuto's home windows likely had bulletproof glass, Nick Jr's car is probably souped up batmobile that their 3000 members in and around the world were still bringing in enormous profits. That would have been the consensus had Sal arrived in Canada and voice his intentions rather than us finding out years later.