Book description
Charles 'Lucky' Luciano was a vicious mobster who rose to become the
multimillionaire king of the New York underworld. He was a legend -
but also a fake master criminal without real power, his reputation
manipulated and maintained by the government agents who had put him
behind bars.
Drawing on secret government documents from archives in America and
Europe, this myth-busting biography tells Luciano's real story, from
his early days as a top hit man for the mob to his exploits running
sex and narcotics empires and revelations about his trip to Nazi
Germany to set up a drugs importing racket. His career abruptly halted
by imprisonment, Luciano's reputation was enhanced by rumours that he
was helping to win the Second World War for the Allies in Sicily and
the Mediterranean. Through painstaking research, Newark exposes the
truth about what Luciano really did during the war.
Expelled from the US in 1946, Luciano returned to Italy, where he
was reputed to head a massive transatlantic narcotics network. In a
complex conspiracy, he became a victim of the far greater powers
around him, and Newark provides evidence that, at one time, he was
even working as a Cold War agent, helping the US government fight
Communism in Sicily. Lucky Luciano: Mafia Murderer and Secret
Agent turns accepted Mafia history on its head with an extraordinary
story that has never been told before.
Tim Newark is the author of the critically acclaimed
Mafia Allies
and the forthcoming
Empire of Crime
. He contributes book reviews to the
Financial Times
,
Time Out
and the
Daily Telegraph
, and has also worked as a TV scriptwriter and historical consultant.
