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The Silent Don: The Criminal Underworld of Santo Trafficante Jr.
The Silent Don exposes the life and ruthless times of one of America's most powerful and feared mob bosses. With a criminal empire that stretched from the Gulf Coast throughout the Caribbean, Trafficante was linked to drug trafficking, plots to kill Fidel Castro, and the assassination of JFK. Scott M. Deitche scoured court records, law-enforcement reports, newspaper accounts, and conducted dozens of interviews to find the compelling story of this enigmatic Mafioso don.
308 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 5, 2024
Super cool and interesting book about Santo Trafficante! The book starts out a little slow but definitely picks up as it goes on. His life wasn't that of the typical mob boss. He didn't end up in prison for the rest of his life, didn't become a rat to avoid prison, and didn't end up getting murdered. Pretty impressive when you think about it for anyone who was involved in "the life." Also impressive how he was able to earn the respect of all the major mafia families from New York, Chicago, New Orleans, the Midwest, etc. I was intrigued while reading about all the JFK assassination stuff that was connected to Trafficante. I feel like I learned so much while reading this! The author did an amazing job of gathering and compiling the endless amounts of information it must've taken to write this book! I'm very glad I got to read this one and of course it fed my mafia/gangsters/organized crime addiction quite nicely!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 13, 2011
I was predisposed to enjoy this book and looked forward to reading it, and greatly dislike writing a bad review, but it is very poorly written and likewise badly edited. I couldn't even make it past two chapters. I even spot read some other chapters to see if it was just a rough start, but alas, no. Although it appears that Deitche understands and is enthusiatic about his material, he really needs to take some writing classes. Or hire a professional editor to trim out the repetitiveness, poor sentence structure, and other stylistic problems. I am now not interested in reading Cigar City Mafia, which is too bad because the topic is quite compelling, especially for individuals wanting to learn about Tampa history. Not an encouraging start for the reading year.
January 3, 2020
This book does a really good job chronicling the life of Santo Trafficante Jr. My only issue with the book are the numerous grammar errors throughout the pages. Other than that I found the book to be really interesting.
February 10, 2024
This was one of the books I was more excited to read because of the nature of Santo Trafficante’s importance in both the Kennedy assassination as well as the American mafia in general. But the typos, terrible sentence structure, and repetitive nature of this book made it nearly impossible to finish and unfufilling.
March 15, 2014
I was expecting a biography of Santo Trafficante Jr. Consequently, I was a little disappointed when Deitche kept straying off to discuss Cuban gangsters, the Bay of Pigs, and JFK. However, the subtitle is The Criminal Underworld of SF Jr. In such a light, the book is more interesting. It builds on Cigar City Mafia and expands the loose connections that are otherwise to include in a basic biography.
There is a tendency to build up Trafficante. It is an understandable bias, Trafficante is the hero, or anti-hero, if the book. However, even with the hundreds of references, this reader is not convinced of the fundamental claims that Trafficante nurtured and molded the Cuban casino scene, international narcotics traffic, and Cuban organized crime in America. He may have been involved; but I feel Deitche overplayed his importance.
I would have preferred reading more about each of these aspects, and some other topics Deitche introduces, such as the Anti-Castro Cuban organizations that morphed into criminal gangs and syndicates. His explorations into the JFK Assassination were interesting; but assumed his readers were already familiar with other works implicating organized crime. A true examination of the criminal underworld at that time is truly the focus of the book; and yet Deitche seems to stop short of that goal, only teasing his audience on each topic and magnifying Trafficante's role. At some points, even Deitche distances himself and says 'maybe Trafficante did not...'
This may be due more to the editors at Barricade who seem to prefer tantalizing and more yellow journalism than rigorous analysis. The style of the book is very close to those of Patrick Downey and Paul Kavieff. All of these books are very readable, especially for casual interest readers. They constitute some of the only research on these topics. And this is one of the few books exploring the Cuban underworld, especially the Cuban-American underworld. It is worth reading.
There is a tendency to build up Trafficante. It is an understandable bias, Trafficante is the hero, or anti-hero, if the book. However, even with the hundreds of references, this reader is not convinced of the fundamental claims that Trafficante nurtured and molded the Cuban casino scene, international narcotics traffic, and Cuban organized crime in America. He may have been involved; but I feel Deitche overplayed his importance.
I would have preferred reading more about each of these aspects, and some other topics Deitche introduces, such as the Anti-Castro Cuban organizations that morphed into criminal gangs and syndicates. His explorations into the JFK Assassination were interesting; but assumed his readers were already familiar with other works implicating organized crime. A true examination of the criminal underworld at that time is truly the focus of the book; and yet Deitche seems to stop short of that goal, only teasing his audience on each topic and magnifying Trafficante's role. At some points, even Deitche distances himself and says 'maybe Trafficante did not...'
This may be due more to the editors at Barricade who seem to prefer tantalizing and more yellow journalism than rigorous analysis. The style of the book is very close to those of Patrick Downey and Paul Kavieff. All of these books are very readable, especially for casual interest readers. They constitute some of the only research on these topics. And this is one of the few books exploring the Cuban underworld, especially the Cuban-American underworld. It is worth reading.
January 26, 2014
Absorbing account of a large scale menacing personality, his criminal family and world. I was drawn to it because of Trafficante's connection to attempts to overthrow Castro, Jack Ruby and, arguably, the John F. Kennedy assassination, which [Ruby and JFK] consistently hooks me since it's so close to my birthday (I found out JFK was in Tampa on my actual birthday, could've been targeted that day). The drama of Sicilian Mafiosi / Cosa Nostra and Outfit, etc., accounts is etched right into the events; Dietsche does a great job of relating them journalistically, and limiting his own editorial gloss. He uses some direct discourse of his quoted sources, which gets a bit in the way - he relates subjective accounts, observations and quotes directly, with nothing to signal that it's a quote, or just one person's perspective, until you get to the footnote reference no. at the end; a few times I had to re-read paragraphs and check footnotes a few times, since I was equally interested in the consensus 'truth' as the dramatic pull of the account. But his research and commitment to the topic and world is extensive and impressive. Well worth reading for those interested in the subject and events.
May 18, 2015
This book was ok. Not as good as cigar city mafia. I picked this one up after reading cigar city because I wanted to learn a little more about the local history. I'm still happy I read it. It was an easy enough read. Took about a week, if was any longer I probably would have given up on it. Don't let this book stop you from reading cigar city mafia. They are both good books on the history of Tampa.
March 27, 2015
Not a complete biography but a really nice outline of the criminal activity of Santo Trafficante. I read this book to get some factual information regarding the mafia in Cuba for a project I'm working on. Definitely useful for my purpose and would suggest it for people who want a snapshot and not an ad nauseum account of a man's life.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews