Gangster Squad, Paul Lieberman
Gangster Squad, Paul Lieberman
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Gangster Squad
Covert Cops, the Mob, and the Battle for Los Angeles

Author: Paul Lieberman

Narrator: Robert Petkoff

Unabridged: 13 hr 55 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/07/2012


Synopsis

"Read this man's book." --James Ellroy

Gangster Squad presents a harrowing, edge-of-your-seat narrative of murder and secrets, revenge and heroism in the City of Angels—the real events behind the blockbuster Warner Brothers film starring Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.

GANGSTER SQUAD chronicles the true story of the secretive police unit that waged an anything-goes war to drive Mickey Cohen and other hoodlums from Los Angeles after WWII. In 1946, the LAPD launched the Gangster Squad with eight men who met covertly on street corners and slept with Tommy guns under their beds. But for two cops, all that mattered was nailing the strutting gangster Mickey Cohen. Sgt. Jack O'Mara was a square-jawed church usher, Sgt. Jerry Wooters a cynical maverick. About all they had in common was their obsession. So O'Mara set a trap to prove Mickey was a killer. And Wooters formed an alliance with Mickey's budding rival, Jack "The Enforcer" Whalen. Two cops -- two hoodlums.

Their fates collided in the closing days of the 1950s, when late one night "The Enforcer" confronted Mickey and his crew. The aftermath would shake both LA's mob and police department, and signal the end of a defining era in the city's history.

Warner Brothers developed the film Gangster Squad based on the research award-winning journalist Paul Lieberman conducted for this book, which reveals the unbelievable true stories behind the film. He spent more than a decade tracking down and interviewing surviving members of the real police unit as well as families and associates of the mobsters they pursued. Gangster Squad is a tour-de-force narrative reminiscent of LA Confidential.

About Paul Lieberman

PAUL LIEBERMAN is a journalist with more than twenty-four years of experience at the Los Angeles Times and Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  He has won dozens of journalism honors, most for investigative projects, including: the Robert F. Kennedy Awards Grand Prize, George Polk Award, Gerald Loeb Award, American Society of Newspaper Editors Award, and Scripps Howard Foundation Award. He also shared in two Pulitzer Prizes at the Los Angeles Times.  A native New Yorker, Lieberman is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Williams College and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, where he studied law and social history. He is the author of Gangster Squad. He lives in Westchester County with his wife.

About Robert Petkoff

Robert Petkoff has won multiple AudioFile Earphones awards for his acclaimed narrations. He was named Best Voice of Fiction & Classics for his reading of The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore by Benjamin Hale. His other narration credits include Oath of Office by Michael Palmer, Gangster Squad by Paul Lieberman, and books by David Foster Wallace.Petkoff has appeared on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and in theaters across America and Europe.  He has worked in television and film. His theater credits include Lord Evelyn Oakleigh in the Broadway production of Anything Goes, Perchik as part of the Tony-nomianted cast of Fiddler on the Roof, and Hubert Humphrey in the Tony award-winning play All the Way. He has also had numerous roles in television on shows such as Law and Order and Married with Children.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Amanda

Warner Brothers developed the film Gangster Squad based on the research journalist Paul Lieberman conducted for this book. The blurb promises Gangster Squad is a tour-de-force narrative reminiscent of LA Confidential. It isn’t. Lieberman writes about the lives of the members of the Gangster Squad –......more

Goodreads review by Michael

Gangster Squad chronicles the true story of the secret police unit that was assembled to wage war against Mickey Cohen and any other hoodlums in Los Angeles. In 1946 the LAPD created this squad to take down Cohen and clean up the streets by any means necessary. Lasting about four years this war lead......more

Goodreads review by Suzie

Well, this was entertaining. I guess. Shady cops and shady thugs in shady LA. Nothing new.......more

Goodreads review by Ruth

4.5 Stars. I adore film noir -- the shadow-drenched films of the 40s and 50s that brought to life a world inhabited by gangsters, femme fatales, and hard-boiled private eyes, double-crosses and shoot-outs, a murky cinematic world where the line between good and evil was more often than not blurred b......more

Goodreads review by Josh

Lieberman’s looks at the special unit formulated to stop the wave of mobsters heading to LA promised to be a bare knuckle, bruising and bloody affair. It had it all; colourful mobsters (Cohan at least started out that way while Jack Whalen’s history was slowly building via his criminal genes), ruthl......more


Quotes

“Robert Petkoff's young, assertive tone propels these real-life stories, and he has a knack for characterizing the blunt-talking cops as well as the streetwise gangsters” —AudioFile Magazine