Title: Essential Reading For Crime Buffs
Review: This book is an exhaustive account of the first successful RICO prosecution of New York racketeers headed by the then up-and coming Rudy Guiliani and Louis Freeh. It precedes the mafia cleanup in Italy, that resulted in horrific murders of investigating judges, and yet features many of the same names, "families", and same tentacles. The case went on forever, each mafioso from high to low represented by a scrum of lawyers, all battling for their moment in the spotlight. The title comes from the heroin traffic fronted by pizza restaurants, good for money laundering as well as handy pickup points. Alexander seems to have spent every day in court, finding something interesting to say even when the case bogged down in legal flummery. She covers both sides and the infighting that went on behind the scenes. What I most liked were the portraits of the gangsters, she was hip to their efforts to look like sick underdogs when in reality they were multimillionaires!
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