The complete, sweeping, and destructively bloody history of New York’s Bonanno crime family and its blindly driven namesake, from inception in 1800s Sicily to present day.

By the time the Bonannos—hailing from the seaside Sicilian town, Castellammare del Golfo—emigrated to America at the turn of the 20th century, the foundations of the Italian Mafia were deeply woven into the fabric of the nation’s largest metropolis, and ambition was in young Joseph Bonanno’s blood. At 26 and wise beyond his years, he was already second-in-command to none other than Salvatore Maranzano, “Boss of Bosses” of the New York underworld.

After his mentor’s murder in 1931, Bonanno became one of the founding members of the Five Families’ ruling Commission, earning the respect of criminal leaders across the country. And so, the Bonanno family was born. For decades, they flourished. But greed, betrayal, reckless power grabs, and lethal internecine wars would eventually erode their influence and precipitate an inglorious descent.

Former FBI agent Joe Pistone, who infiltrated the family’s inner circle as undercover wiseguy Donnie Brasco, joins veteran crime journalist Larry McShane to chronicle the legendary Bonanno borgata and dispel its myths and falsehoods, many fostered by “Joe Bananas” himself in his autobiography A Man of Honor, including his alleged and suspiciously convenient kidnapping in 1964.

Here for the first time is the full, true story of what made the Bonannos so singularly vicious, bloodthirsty, and self-destructive, tracing their rise and fall from the family’s secretive origins through the subsequent reigns of Carmine “The Cigar” Galante, Philip “Rusty” Rastelli, Mob-boss-turned-rat Joseph “Big Joey” Massino, Vincent “Vinny Gorgeous” Basciano, and Michael “The Nose” Mancuso, the current 21st-century Godfather.

A twisting, macabre, and cautionary tale for the ages, The Bonannos: A Century of Murder finally sets the record straight on one of the most notorious crime families in American history.

Joseph D. Pistone