Family Secrets, Jeff Coen
Family Secrets, Jeff Coen
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List: $21.99 | Sale: $15.39
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Family Secrets
The Case That Crippled the Chicago Mob

Author: Jeff Coen

Narrator: Matthew Boston

Unabridged: 14 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 11/28/2017


Synopsis

Even in Chicago, a city steeped in mob history and legend, the Family Secrets case was a true spectacle when it made it to court in 2007. A top mob boss, a reputed consigliere, and other high-profile members of the Chicago Outfit were accused in a total of eighteen gangland killings, revealing organized crime's ruthless grip on the city throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

Painting a vivid picture of murder, courtroom drama, family loyalties and disloyalties, journalist Jeff Coen accurately portrays the Chicago Outfit's cold-blooded—and sometimes incompetent—killers and their crimes in the case that brought them down. In 1998 Frank Calabrese Jr. volunteered to wear a wire to gather evidence against his father, a vicious loan shark who strangled most of his victims with a rope before slitting their throats to ensure they were dead. Frank Jr. went after his uncle Nick as well, a calculating but sometimes bumbling hit man who would become one of the highest-ranking turncoats in mob history, admitting he helped strangle, stab, shoot, and bomb victims who got in the mob's way, and turning evidence against his brother Frank.

About Jeff Coen

Jeff Coen has been a reporter on the Chicago Tribune's political enterprise team since 2010, covering a variety of issues and campaigns and the political activity of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. He was present in the courtroom throughout the Family Secrets trial, and his pieces on the case were featured in a popular series in the Chicago Tribune. He is the author of Family Secrets: The Case that Crippled the Chicago Mob, and coauthor of Golden: How Rod Blagojevitch Talked Himself out of the Governor's Office and into Prison.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Robyn

Very interesting walk through how this crime family was taken down. But I'll say this, you might be tempted to try to remember every new mobster by name. You might even look back when new ones are introduced to try to decipher who is who. There are too many. Don't bother. Let all those names just wa......more

Goodreads review by Kate

Just like you can't take a bad picture of the Himalayas, you just can't write a bad book about the Family Secrets trial that took place in Chicago back in 2007. The subject was just too fascinating. Let me begin by saying everything I know about the mob comes from the old Matthew Broderick movie, Th......more

Goodreads review by Alex

Don't believe any of the poor reviews! Coen's book is an incredibly in-depth look at the Chicago Outfit's operations in the latter half of the 20th century and the sweeping Family Secrets trial that ensued. A bit dry and lengthy at times, the book notes many historical mob waypoints around the Chica......more