The Westies: Inside New York's Irish Mob
Written by T. J. English
Narrated by James Anderson Foster
4.5/5
()
About this audiobook
From one of the writers behind NYPD Blue and Homicide: Life on the Street comes an incredible true story of what it means to survive in the world of organized crime, where murder is commonplace.
T. J. English
T. J. English is a noted journalist and author of the New York Times bestsellers Havana Nocturne, Paddy Whacked, The Savage City, and Where the Bodies Were Buried. He also authored The Westies, a national bestseller; Born to Kill, which was nominated for an Edgar Award; and The Corporation. His journalism has appeared in Esquire, Vanity Fair, Playboy, and New York magazine, among other publications. He lives in New York City.
More audiobooks from T. J. English
The Corporation: An Epic Story of the Cuban American Underworld Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Where the Bodies Were Buried: Whitey Bulger and the World That Made Him Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Savage City Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba...and Then Lost It to the Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to The Westies
Related audiobooks
Top Hoodlum: Frank Costello, Prime Minister of the Mafia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Deadly Don: Vito Genovese, Mafia Boss Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sonny: The Last of the Old Time Mafia Bosses, John "Sonny" Franzese Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Last Godfather: The Rise and Fall of Joey Massino Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blood Covenant: The Michael Franzese Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Confessions of Al Capone Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In Hoffa's Shadow: A Stepfather, a Disappearance in Detroit, and My Search for the Truth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Breaking Blue Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Manson Exposed: A Reporter's 50-Year Journey into Madness and Murder Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Creepy Crawling: Charles Manson and the Many Lives of America's Most Infamous Family Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Public Enemies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Made Men: The True Rise-and-Fall Story of a New Jersey Mob Family Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blood and Honor: Inside the Scarfo Mob - The Mafia's Most Violent Family Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gotti's Boys: The Mafia Crew That Killed For John Gotti Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Boston Mob: The Rise and Fall of the New England Mob and Its Most Notorious Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mob Cops: The Shocking Rise and Fall of New York's "Mafia Cops" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mob Cop: My Life of Crime in the Chicago Police Department Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gaspipe: Confessions of a Mafia Boss Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mob Boss: The Life of Little Al D'arco, the Man Who Brought Down the Mafia Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Last Don Standing: The Secret Life of Mob Boss Ralph Natale Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chin: The Life and Crimes of Mafia Boss Vincent Gigante Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5King of the Godfathers: “Big Joey” Massino and the Fall of the Bonanno Crime Family Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMurder, Inc.: The Mafia's Hit Men in New York City Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gotti's Rules: The Story of John Alite, Junior Gotti, and the Demise of the American Mafia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mafia Hit Man: Carmine DiBiase, The Wiseguy Who Really Killed Joey Gallo Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Double Cross: The Explosive Inside Story of the Mobster Who Controlled America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gotti Wars: Taking Down America's Most Notorious Mobster Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Cullotta Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Gangland New York: The Places and Faces of Mob History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sixth Family: The Collapse of The New York Mafia and The Rise of Vito Rizzuto Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
True Crime For You
The Ivy League Counterfeiter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Out of the Wreckage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hell's Princess: The Mystery of Belle Gunness, Butcher of Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What the Dead Know: Learning About Life as a New York City Death Investigator Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Devil and Harper Lee Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Breaking Free: How I Escaped Polygamy, the FLDS Cult, and my Father, Warren Jeffs Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Papillon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Franklin Scandal: A Story of Powerbrokers, Child Abuse & Betrayal Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sex Cult Nun: Breaking Away from the Children of God, a Wild, Radical Religious Cult Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sound of Gravel: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cult, A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Searching for Savanna: The Murder of One Native American Woman and the Violence Against the Many Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Code Name Blue Wren: The True Story of America's Most Dangerous Female Spy—and the Sister She Betrayed Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hearts of Darkness: Serial Killers, The Behavioral Science Unit, and My Life as a Woman in the FBI Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Foundling: The True Story of a Kidnapping, a Family Secret, and My Search for the Real Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sullivanians: Sex, Psychotherapy, and the Wild Life of an American Commune Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Trigger: Narratives of the American Shooter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Demon: Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America's Jack the Ripper Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tell Me Everything: The Story of a Private Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5After Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Psychopath: A True Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Westies
75 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Great story about the history of organized crime in Hells kitchen NYC
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A good listen, I reccomend. Mickeys side of the story.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5While I have yet to read a book by TJ English that I’d describe as anything short of remarkable, there is something special, almost intoxicating, about The Westies that periodically lures me back (this my 3rd listen/read) for more. Is it la creme-de-la-creme of his various masterpieces? I can’t say for sure, not yet at least, but it might be. So what are you waiting for? Hit Play!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5T.J. English is one of the best writers of true crime reporting that is a leap above the usual cheap paperbacks full of gory pictures that you see at the grocery store. His books are well-written, well-researched, and as much about the context of the crime or organized crime group that he is writing about.The Westies is his first book. In it you can see him working through all the things that will make his later books so fascinating. While he's written most about organized crime, he's continuing to expand his repertoire into further fields. Since Whitey Bulger was captured I've been wanting to go back and read this one - it was very hard to find when I discovered English and the one copy I did find was, shall we say, extremely used - ultimately the copy was so filthy it made it hard to want to read it.I was very happy to see that the book had been published in a Kindle format and really dug into things this time. The Westies is about a group of semi-organized criminals who operated out of the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood in New York (now called Clinton). They grew up in an atmosphere were crime was a way of life and they became one of the most notorious gangs in history. For twenty years they ruled with an iron fist - dismembering, murdering, selling drugs, robbing, loansharking - the list goes on and on. They terrified the Italian mob so much that they made an alliance with The Westies in order to try to tamp down the violence that caused a lot of unwanted attention.The Westies were a phenomenon of their changing time - the world they grew up in and into was a different place than the world of their parents. Much of their extreme brutality can be explained by the quote above along with exposure to the Vietnam War and their use and abuse of cocaine along with many other drugs.They were brought down by Mickey Featherstone, a long-time member and right-hand man to James "Jimmy" Coonan, the nominal leader of the crew. Featherstone is a complicated figure and the tale of his association with the Westies is a fascinating one.One warning: This is not a book for the squeamish. The Westies were infamous for their brutal violence and it would be impossible to write about them without writing about that in detail.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I first became interested in The Westies when I saw a program called "True Crime" on the History Channel. That particular episode was about the Westies and I was somewhat glued to my television (which is very rare ... usually I don't even turn the thing on any more). But this particular episode's story was so intriguing that I felt I had to know more so I bought the book. The Westies was gang that had as its home New York's Hell's Kitchen, home to many Irish-American immigrants and also controlled by a series of Irish organized crime gangs. Traditionally, these gangs followed certain codes of respect and deference, but as the author notes, it seems that after Vietnam, with the rise of a new generation, the old ways sort of went out the door and violence was the rule of the day. Enter young Jimmie Coonan -- a local boy, hotheaded and dangerous, with vengeful ambitions to take out the current head of the Irish mob in Hell's Kitchen, Mickey Spillane (not the author). His idea of killing was not only to do the deed, but then to "do the Houdini" -- meaning making the body disappear by dismemberment. Then add Mickey Featherstone, another local boy who had some serious mental issues & tended to solve his problems with knee-jerk violence. With other people working for them, they began a long reign of violence, extortion, murder, you name it. But Coonan decided that for them to get anywhere, they needed to hook up with the Italian mob. I won't go through the entire story but as it turns out, eventually a betrayal of trust leads one member down the path to become an informer. However, the criminal story is not 100 per cent of this book..English traces the attempts made by law enforcement agencies to take down these guys. I do have to also remark on the sad state of the justice system at the time as portrayed in this novel...Featherstone does several murders and walks? The details are amazing and this one another one of those books I had trouble putting down. My problems with this book stem from the fact that it seems somewhat biased in favor of Mickey Featherstone, who by his own admission was a cold-blooded, psychopath who did his share of killing. I find it hard to be sympathetic towards someone like this or to excuse their previous behavior just because he may have been rehabiltated later. All in all, a fantastic book. I'm looking forward to reading more about the topic and more books by this author. Recommended, for sure.