When FBI Special Agent Joe Pistone began a "six-month" operation infiltrating New York's Bonanno crime family in 1975, he had no idea what was about to happen. Posing as jewel thief "Donnie Brasco," Pistone spent the next six years undercover in the Family, witnessing-and sometimes participating in-the Mafia's gruesome activities while gathering enough evidence to send over 200 gangsters to jail. Pistone told his story in the 1988 book Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia-a New York Times bestseller and later a feature film starring Johnny Depp and Al Pacino. But...

* Chain-smoking Mickey Fists isn't sure if he's an "addict" or an "attic." * The Freemont Avenue Social Club is on Elizabeth Street in Little Italy. So are the best wiretaps FBI money can buy. * Skinny Al weighed 320 pounds and lived life to the fullest...until someone burned out his eardrums and shot his body full of holes. Hundreds of writers have tried to capture life inside the mob, but no one has ever had the inside access to write a book like this one. Drawing on the firsthand experience of former undercover FBI agent Joe Pistone-aka Donnie Brasco-as well as former Mafia prince Bill...

The gangster movie is one of the most popular genres in film. From the Italian, Irish, and Russian "families" in America to similarly sinister groups in Europe, Japan, and beyond, the cinema has never shied away from portraying the evil exploits of these brutal outfits. In this highly entertaining and informative book, two accomplished and apropos authors put the genre in perspective like no other author or documentarian has done before.

The Ultimate Book of Gangster Movies provides extensive reviews of the Top 100 gangster films of all time, including sidebars like "Reality Check,"...