Cosa Nostra News

FBI Mafia hunter, Mount Vernon Police Commissioner (who reduced the crime rate by 20 percent), and investigator of corruption in Westchester County, John S. Pritchard III -- the kind of man the world sorely lacks today, a goddamn good man -- died last Thursday. John Pritchard III Pritchard, who was 75, led the FBI team that helped  bring down Vincent The Chin Gigante . The New York Times described Pritchard as a " tenacious investigator whose law enforcement career spanned more than three decades and six agencies in New York..." Pritchard began as a beat cop who "eventually broke ground for black people in the top ranks of the New York City Police Department." And in addition to his role as an FBI chief, he was inspector general of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and of Westchester County. He was the acting chief of the Transit Police before it was absorbed into the New York City Police Department. He was also the police commissioner of Mou...

A film based on the pending memoir of onetime Philadelphia Cosa Nostra boss Ralph Natale is due to hit your local multiplex, an exclusive Deadline report  noted . (The story also noted that Leonardo DiCaprio is going to star in an untitled mob film for Showtime; we are working on getting further details.) Natale is working with  New York  Daily News reporter  Larry McShane  (a 35-year newspaperman who also wrote Chin, a Vincent Gigante biography) and Dan Pearson, who produced  I Married a Mobster. The Last Don Standing (the book is slated to debut on March 31; no date for the film's release has been provided) recounts the story of Natale's life, focusing on his rise and fall in the Philadelphia Costra Nostra. He's earned the sobering sobriquet of being the first Mafia boss to flip and testify as a federal witness.

Larry McShane covers the Mafia, among other things, for the New York Daily News ; he authored a book about Vincent "The Chin" Gigante  that is available now. Chin: The Life and Crimes of Mafia Boss Vincent Gigante will be available on May 31. (McShane also had a hand in writing Ralph Natale's memoirs, as noted , which is due for release next year but is already available for preorder in the U.K. The title, Lost Lives and Forgotten Vows: The Ralph Natale Story , may change, as the book's publisher noted.) First biography of the Oddfather McShane's Gigante offering is a welcomed addition to Mafia-related nonfiction, and since it is the first book dedicated solely to The Chin, it fills a huge void as well. Previously, Selwyn Raab's Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires  included details of Gigante's reign as part of its overview of the New York Mafia. Gigante's daughter also has written ...