In the Godfather Garden is the true story of the life of Richie the Boot Boiardo one of the most powerful and feared men in the New Jersey underworld The Boot cut his teeth battling the Jewish gang lord Abner Longy Zwillman on the streets of Newark during Prohibition and endured to become one of the East Coast s top mobsters his reign lasting six decades To the press and the police this secretive Don insisted he was nothing more than a simple man who enjoyed puttering about in his beloved vegetable garden on his Livingston New Jersey estate In reality the Boot was a confidante and kingmaker of politicians a friend of such celebrities as Joe DiMaggio and George Raft an acquaintance of Joseph Valachi who informed on the Boot in 1963 and a sworn enemy of J Edgar Hoover The Boot prospered for more than half a century remaining an active boss until the day he died at the age of ninety three Although he operated in the shadow of bigger Mafia names across the Hudson River think Charles Lucky Luciano and Louis Lepke Buchalter a cofounder of the Mafia killer squad Murder Inc with Jacob Gurrah Shapiro the Boot was equally as brutal and efficient In fact there was a mysterious place in the gloomy woods behind his lovely garden a furnace where many thought the Boot took certain people who were never seen again Richard Linnett provides an intimate look inside the Boot s once powerful Mafia crew based on the recollections of a grandson of the Boot himself and complemented by never before published family photos Chronicled here are the Prohibition gang wars in New Jersey as well as the murder of Dutch Schultz a Mafia conspiracy to assassinate Newark mayor Kenneth Gibson and the mob connections to several prominent state politicians Although the Boot never saw the 1972 release of The Godfather he appreciated the similarities between the character of Vito Corleone and himself so much so that he hung a sign in his beloved vegetable garden that read The Godfather Garden There s no doubt he would have relished David Chase s admission that his muse in creating the HBO series The Sopranos was none other than Newark s erstwhile Boiardo crew

In the Godfather Garden: The Long Life and Times of Richie the Boot Boiardo (Rivergate Regionals Collection) by Mr. Richard Linnett (2013-04-01) PDF

The list of books you might like