Showing results by author "Anthony DeStefano" in All Categories

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anthony M. DeStefano presents the rise and fall of Vito Genovese in this first comprehensive biography of the legendary mafioso - from his childhood in Naples, Italy, and the beginnings of his bullet-ridden criminal career on lower Manhattan's mean streets, through his self-exile in the mid-1930s back to his homeland where he ran a black market operation under the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, and his return to New York where Genovese made a fortune as the head of an illegal narcotics empire.

For more than 20 years, Joseph "Big Joey" Massino ran what was called the largest criminal network in the US, employing over 250 made men and untold numbers of associates. The Bonanno family was responsible for over 30 murders, even killing a dozen of its own members. He would be brought down by Salvatore "Good Looking Sal" Vitale, the underboss who was not only Massino's closest and most trusted friend but also his brother-in-law. King of the Godfathers is the story of the brutal mob war that made Massino head of the Bonanno family and the most powerful gangster in America.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anthony M. DeStefano takes you inside John Gotti's inner circle to reveal the dark hearts and violent deeds of the most remorseless and cold-blooded characters in organized crime. Men so vicious even the other mafia families were terrified of them. Meet Gotti's Boys....

Using newly released FBI files, eyewitness accounts, and family mementos, Top Hoodlum takes you inside the Mafia that Frank Costello helped build from the ground up, from small-time bootlegging and gambling to a nationwide racketeering empire. Sometimes shocking, sometimes amusing, and always riveting, these are the stories that have inspired American crime classics like The Godfather, Casino, Goodfellas, and The Sopranos. This is the man who made the Mafia such a powerful force in our nation's history. This is Top Hoodlum.

One of the biggest scores in Mafia history, the Lufthansa Airlines heist of 1978 has become the stuff of Mafia legend - and a decades-long investigation that continues to this day. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Anthony DeStefano sheds new light on this legendary unsolved case using recent evidence from the 2015 trial of 80-year-old Mafia don Vincent Asaro, who for the first time speaks out on his role in the fateful Lufthansa heist.

Anthony DeStefano, the best-selling author of A Travel Guide to Heaven, takes us on an exploration of hell, the devil, demons, and evil itself.

From the Bowery Boys and the Five Points Gang through the rise of the Jewish "Kosher Nostra" and the ascendance of the Italian Mafia, mobsters have played a major role in the city's history, lurking just around the corner or inside that nondescript building. Bill "the Butcher" Poole, Paul Kelly, Monk Eastman, "Lucky" Luciano, Carlo Gambino, Meyer Lansky, Mickey Spillane, John Gotti - each held sway over New York neighborhoods that nurtured them and gave them power.

A witty and devastating takedown of the "new" atheist position, Inside the Atheist Mind debunks the theories of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and others, revealing how inconsistent, illogical, and frankly ludicrous their conclusions truly are. Poking fun at atheists in a clever and intelligent way, Anthony DeStefano demonstrates just how full of holes the new atheism is and reveals that it is actually a "religion" of its own, complete with a creed, a set of commandments, a rigid moral code, and rewards and punishments.

Everybody has one. It's called a "haunt detector". It's the little alarm that goes off in our heads whenever we detect that something mysterious or supernatural has occurred. You could be sitting around relaxing, and for no special reason you start thinking about someone. Then the phone rings; you pick it up, and amazingly, it's that person! Many of us have experienced this phenomenon.What is it? Anthony DeStefano answers this compelling question in his fascinating new book, The Invisible World.

Indiana-born Vivian Gordon fluttered to New York in 1920 looking for fame and fortune. Before long, the flame-haired chorus girl parlayed her youth, beauty, and ambition into more profitable means as a tough and glamorous symbol of Prohibition-era excess. She was a speakeasy owner, blackmailer, high-end escort, extortionist, racketeer, and con woman. But given her dangerously intimate associations, Vivian was also a woman who knew too much and who rightfully feared for her life.

So many people in the world are suffering but don't know how to receive help. Some beg and plead with God. Some negotiate, promising that they will change their ways if only He will grant them this one request. But then, if their request is not answered in the way they desire, they lose faith or get angry or sink into despair. There is a better way. There is a method of praying for a miracle that guarantees the best possible chance of getting a yes from God—or at least alleviation of our stress and satisfaction for our souls.

A recent Newsweek poll reports that 76 percent of Americans believe in heaven. Yet even avid believers have difficulty conjuring up more than vague images of halos, harps, and wispy angels in flowing robes. Anthony DeStefano knew there had to be a more complete, meaningful, and comforting vision of what heaven is like, and A Travel Guide to Heaven is the entertaining and enlightening result. Using the Bible as his guide, he notes that heaven is not only a spiritual place, but also a physical place.

Safe and cozy where he is, a tiny seed wants to remain in the drawer where he lives happily with other seeds. But one day the gardener who lives in the mansion takes him from his drawer and plants him in the ground. Faced with his biggest fear, the seed undergoes a miraculous experience that changes his life forever. Beautifully written in simple but delightful verse, The Seed Who Was Afraid to Be Planted reminds us all that no matter how small or scared we may be, God has great plans for us - plans even more wonderful than we can imagine.