The Sixth Family

by Adrian Humphreys, Lee Lamothe

The definitive book about the explosive Rizzuto crime familyOn May 5, 1981, three rebellious members of New York’s Bonanno crime family were gunned down in a Brooklyn social club. One of the gunmen was Vito Rizzuto, a man who would rise to the top of the underworld in Canada and then expand his reign across continents to become a global superboss.The Sixth Family , now revised and updated, reveals the hidden history of the rise of the Rizzuto clan, the alliances it forged around the world and the bloody events that led to charges against Vito Rizzuto in the United States and Italy for racketeering and corruption. As police in the United States, Italy and Canada meticulously pieced together the puzzle that is Vito Rizzuto, established notions about the nature of authority within the Mafia were called into question. Who was this so-called “John Gotti of Canada”? How did he become one of the biggest names in global crime? And how did he survive the deadly assault from gangland rivals that almost destroyed his family?

Genres: Nonfiction, Crime

512 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2014

About the author

author, journalist, underworld observer

Reviews

[Iain]

In the world of the mafia, the five families are the ones that you know. The Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese are the ones entrenched in the popular imagination. Another is the Chicago Outfit led by Al Capone in the 1920s. "The Sixth Family" is a term used to described particularly powerful crime families that rose to prominence. One more than any other was the Rizzuto crime family under its most powerful godfather Vitto Rizzuto. 'The Sixth Family' (2014) by Adrian Humphreys and investigative journalist is your standard history of the formation, rise, tribulations, and diminishment of powerful criminal organization. At times, Humphreys does come across as rather enamoured by the mafia figures he writes about but delivers a good historically accurate depiction of organized crime in Canada, and its epicentre Montreal with its long list of gangster characters. An informative read if you are interested in the underworld and the men who make their reputations there.

[Russell Miller]

5 stars

Great book better the second read ten years later Canada is wild in terms of organized crime once he was gone so was any chance at peace and stability great book