Good Rat: A True Story » (Bargain)

Jimmy Breslin was born in Jamaica, Queens. He was awarded the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary. His bestselling and critically acclaimed books include The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight; Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?; The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutiérrez; several anthologies; and the memoir, I Want to Thank My Brain for Remembering Me. He lives on Broadway, the Big Street, in New York City.

In his inimitable New York voice, Pulitzer Prize winner Jimmy Breslin gives us a look through the keyhole at the people and places that define the Mafia—characters like John Gotti, Sammy "the Bull" Gravano, Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso (named for his weapon of choice), and Jimmy "the Clam" Eppolito—interwoven with the remarkable true-crime saga of the good rat himself, Burt Kaplan of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, the star witness in the recent trial of two NYPD detectives indicted for carrying out eight gangland executions. Through these unforgettable real-life and long-forgotten Mafia stories, Jimmy Breslin captures the moments in which the mob was made and broken.

The New York Times - Marc Weingarten

The Good Rat is not an apologia for old killers now departed. Its main narrative is devoted to the story of Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, two New York police detectives who were fingered as mob assassins a few years ago by Burton Kaplan, a drug dealer and friend of the Luchese crime family who dropped a dime on the cops in exchange for less prison time…Breslin chronicles the cops' sordid tales with a mixture of awe, repugnance and perfect diabolical detail. He remains a master of transforming crookery into opera.