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Article: cosa nostra The mafia family business may have shrunk, says christopher tayler, but it remains a going concern
- Article from:
- The Sunday Telegraph London
- Article date:
- April 16, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2006 The Sunday Telegraph London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most
Powerful Mafia Empires
BY SELWYN RAAB
ROBSON, pounds 20, 765 pp T pounds 18 ( pounds 1.25 p&p) 0870
428 4115
Since the early 1980s, Selwyn Raab shows in his massive history of
New York's Mafia families, being a mob boss has not been a rewarding
job. If the cops don't get you, your lieutenants or rivals almost
certainly will. You can't spend too much money without making
yourself vulnerable to the authorities' forensic accountants, and
your neighbourhood hangouts will probably be bugged. Handing power to
your children, as Don Corleone does in The Godfather, is rarely a
possibility. And 'no top-tier mobster would last long if ...