New York City remains the cultural capital of America not solely because of the strong media presence there but because this city simply seems to take everything to the nth degree -- especially its crime. The latest soon-to-be-a-bestseller about Big Apple-style murders would read like fiction anywhere else, but this is New York we're talking about.
Tomorrow will see the release of a true crime/memoir entitled 
The Brotherhoods, billed as "the last great mafia book of our time." It tells the astonishing true story of Det. William Oldham, who brought down two corrupt cops in the New York City police department who'd become integral members of the Luchese crime family and committed at least eight murders for the Mafia.
The pair of rogue cops -- Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito -- were convicted a few months ago in what the New York Times dubbed "one of the most spectacular police corruption scandals in the city's history," which does not overstate it. Only recently the verdict was overturned on statute of limitations grounds. But The Brotherhoods: The True Story of Two Cops Who Murdered for the Mafia leaves no room for reasonable doubt. It is a stunning true story of a pair of men who had blood not on their hands but splashed all over themselves.
Oldham's story, fashioned with the help of award-winning journalist Guy Lawson, is a meaty book that begins with Oldham's arrest of Stephen "mobbed up dandy" Caracappa and Louis "hugely overweight" Eppolito, who shared the remarkable ability and willingness to make people die or disappear forever. The writing is excellent -- anything less wouldn't have done justice to the story.
Like any well-told story of a complex investigation, it's the details in this book that leave the reader breathless. One corrupt cop, Caracappa, was once considered a model of discretion and excellence; he was a Mafia specialist and highly regarded in the world of organized crime investigation. He kept an encyclopedia of Mob hits. But from the beginning, Oldham relays, Oldham noticed Caracappa's curious detatchment from "the human component" -- as in not reacting while listening to the recorded sobs of a 12-year-old boy who'd been kidnapped, mutilated, and later murdered.
Also incredible is the amount of time the rogues went unchecked. Indeed they reached retirement and a gated community in (of all places) Las Vegas, where Oldham snatched them from luxury into the arms of justice. The recent decision to vacate their convictions may mean justice may have to satisfy herself with the story of their arrests, a sadly temporary downfall.
A sneak peek (the prologue) of the book is available at the publisher's website. As one might imagine, this book is already rattling some cages within certain families in New York, with the New York Post especially taken with the methods used to flip a gangster. It has already been forecast a bestseller, and there's no doubt of that. Oldham's story has to be one of the most amazing Mafia stories in a city that boasts many of them.
I read it as well, and could not agree more. It was a complex, well-written book.
Posted by: Stephen McCaskill | November 28, 2006 at 01:11 PM