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Title details for The Good Rat by Jimmy Breslin - Available

The Good Rat

A True Story

by Jimmy Breslin
Richard M. Davidson
Audiobook
4 of 5 copies available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
4 of 5 copies available

Jimmy Breslin can sniff out a story like he can sniff out a rat. Here, he tells a lifetime of anecdotes in his inimitable New York voice, giving us a view through the keyhole of the people and places that define the Mafia—characters like Sammy the Bull, the original snitch, and Gaspipe Casso, named for his weapon of choice; and hangouts like Pep McGuire's, the legendary watering hole where reporters and gangsters (all hailing from the same working class neighborhoods) rubbed elbows and traded stories. But best of all, Breslin captures the moments in which the Mafia was made and broken—Breslin was there the night John Gotti celebrated his acquittal, having bribed his way to innocence. In The Good Rat, Breslin brings together the most recent, most memorable, and the long forgotten stories to create a sharp-eyed portrait of the mob as it lived and breathed; as it sounded and survived.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    February 5, 2008

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780792753636
      • File size: 198419 KB
      • Duration: 06:53:22

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Richard Davidson has just the gravelly tough-guy voice to bring Breslin's Mafia story to life. But THE GOOD RAT is an unnecessarily complicated story about a good fella named Burt Kaplan who testifies against two NYPD detectives who murdered for the Mob. For authenticity's sake, Breslin has included actual testimony from the trial--which, unfortunately, slows down the pace of the story. The plot also suffers from too much jumping around. Breslin is at his best when he tells a story strictly in his own words and delivers the flamboyant language and colorful characters he's known for--like Tommy "Three-Finger" Brown and Sammy "The Bull" Gravano. M.S. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      November 12, 2007
      Breslin, renowned journalist and author of The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight
      , revisits a familiar wise-guy milieu in this collection of stories and anecdotes about the mob. His writing, like the Mafia itself, breezily transitions from humorous to horrifying as he regales the reader with loosely connected tales of mistaken identity, crooked cops, snitches and murder. Unlike the Sopranos
      and the many other touchstones of the American love affair with organized crime, for Breslin, there’s good and there’s evil, with little in between. As always, however, nicknames are half the fun, as Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, Tony Café and Gaspipe Casso take the stage in the Mafia hotspots of the five boroughs, including Greenpoint, in Brooklyn, and Ozone Park, in Queens, as Breslin delights with stories from the Mafia’s heyday. Breslin’s storytelling is set to the sweet background music of one of the mob’s biggest canaries, Burton Kaplan, as he sings to a grand jury. The author’s vernacular precision contrasts sharply with the plodding sterility of Kaplan’s grand jury testimony, and as we find out, good guys can often tell ugly stories more authentically than the bad guys. The effect is tragicomic as Kaplan’s testimony sounds the death knell for his associates. These stories unveil the strict code of conduct, often broken, of a dying breed. According to Kaplan, however, while illegal gambling and extortion may be waning industries, the myth of the American Mafia will never die.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from March 31, 2008
      Throaty New York dialogue is wonderfully realized by Richard M. Davidson, who leads the way for a small cast of narrators who assume various roles in this powerful Mafia tale. Davidson is so firm and solid in his delivery, he actually becomes the hard-nosed characters in question: Sammy “The Bull” Gravano and Gaspipe Casso. Kaipo Schwab offers a fantastic supporting performance as U.S. Attorney Robert Henoch, while Richard Mover takes on the role of turncoat mob associate Burton Kaplan. Each character is so well developed and believable that listeners will suspect they're listening to actual recordings rather than outstanding performances. Breslin's words are perfectly suited to these fine readers, who make them their own in three stunning performances. Simultaneous release with the Ecco hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 12, 2007).

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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