Reviews
"Howie Carr weaves a frightening tale of unlawful conduct, and it's all true." --Bill O'Reilly "The indictments of mobster-mangled Boston continue to rain down in Howie Carr's superb new true-crime book, Hitman . It's horrifying, it's deadpan shocking, it's a brilliant treatise on criminal psychopathy and a portrait of a city defined and subverted by hoodlums run amok. Read this book--it will grab you, garrotte you, and leave you gasping for breath." --James Ellroy, bestselling author of American Tabloid and L.A. Confidential , The indictments of mobster-mangled Boston continue to rain down in Howie Carr's superb new true-crime book, Hitman . It's horrifying, it's deadpan shocking, it's a brilliant treatise on criminal psychopathy and a portrait of a city defined and subverted by hoodlums run amok. Read this book--it will grab you, garrotte you, and leave you gasping for breath., "Howie Carr weaves a frightening tale of unlawful conduct, and it's all true." -- Bill O'Reilly "The indictments of mobster-mangled Boston continue to rain down in Howie Carr's superb new true-crime book, Hitman . It's horrifying, it's deadpan shocking, it's a brilliant treatise on criminal psychopathy and a portrait of a city defined and subverted by hoodlums run amok. Read this book--it will grab you, garrotte you, and leave you gasping for breath." -- James Ellroy, bestselling author of American Tabloid and L.A. Confidential
Synopsis
Martin Scorsese's The Departed barely touched on his story. Now radio talk show sensation, crime reporter, and Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr takes us into the heart of the life of gangster Johnny Martorano in Hitman . For two decades Martorano struck fear into anyone even remotely connected to his world. His partnership with Whitey Bulger and the infamous Winter Hill Gang led to twenty mob murders--for which Johnny would serve twelve years in prison. Carr also looks at the politicians and FBI agents who aided Johnny and Whitey, and at the flamboyant city of Boston which Martorano so ruthlessly ruled. A plethora of paradoxes, Johnny Martorano was Mr. Mom by day and man-about-town by night. Surrounded by fast-living politicians, sports celebrities, and show biz entertainers, Johnny was charismatically colorful--as charming as he was frightening. After all, he was, in the end...a hitman. The paperback edition of Howie Carr's riveting true-crime story includes a new epilogue detailing Whitey Bulger's dramatic June 2011 capture.., After graduating from high school, John Martorano turned down seven football scholarships and instead stayed in Boston. Hanging out in the notorious Combat Zone, he fell under the guidance of Stephen Flemmi-high ranking Winter Hill mobster and close associate of James Whitey Bulger-and by the age of twenty-five, Martorano was a professional killer. He became one of the Winter Hill Gang's most prolific-and feared-enforcers. This is the gripping true-life story of Martorano's years killing for the Winter Hill Gang, told in Carr's arresting inimitable style.