Murder Machine (Onyx) by Gene Mustain, Jerry Capeci
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Book Reviews of Murder Machine (Onyx)
Book Review: Real Life Sopranos
Summary: 5 Stars
Murder Machine by Gene Mustain and Jerry Capeci examines the most vicious crew inside the Gambino crime family, known as the DeMeo gang. Roy DeMeo served as leader of the crew. The DeMeo gang killed over 200 people during their reign of terror including many innocent citizens. The rules of the family were to only kill other criminals, but Roy ignored this policy many times. Some say that Roy killed out of pleasure because he would cut his victims into small pieces and dispose of the bodies. This became known as the Gemini Method. Roy had many conflicts in his life. One of those was when Roy's crew ripped off a Cuban drug dealer and a Cuban gang came from Florida to settle the score. The only way for Roy to get the Cuban gang off of his back was to murder his friend Chris Rosenberg. Chris Rosenberg was a small time drug dealer who only sold small amounts of marijuana. Selling drugs was against the rules of the Gambino crime family but Roy, despite this, took Chris under his belt and loaned him money to sell cocaine. Chris made a lot of money and soon he was working for Roy.
Anthony "Nino" Gaggi was Roy's partner. Nino tried to get Roy keep his violent behavior under control, but when Roy was declared a capo no one could manage his actions. Nino was arrested for loan sharking but was released. Latter his nephew, Dominick, turned in Nino and many others in the crew. Growing up, Dominick lived with his Uncle and was introduced to the Mafia. Dominick served in the Vietnam War as a Green Beret. After the war, unable to find a respectable job and against his true desires, Dominick started to work for his uncle and began killing people for Roy. He became an important person in the Gambino crime family. Later, Dominick Montiglio testified against his Uncle and the rest of the crew. Most of the crew was convicted and Roy was murdered. Mustain and Capeci tell the story of true "mafia life" and show that the Mafia is not as glamorous as it appears to be. Action packed and intriguing, Murder Machine is a real life Sopranos.
Book Review: Candid and Realistic
Summary: 5 Stars
"Murder Machine" was the most "out there" mob book I have ever read. I could not put it down. I was up all night reading it. It is unbelievably realistic, with "no holds barred." It is the candid tale of a real-life mob crew and goes into grisly detail describing their murderous antics. What amazed me about this book, were the numerous matter-of-fact murders committed by these guys. There was no remorse. They ordered cokes, pizza, and cut guys up, while eating and laughing all the way. They treated their hellish apartment behind the "Gemini Lounge" like a slaughterhouse. Montigilio speaks in unabashed detail about how they "iced" the victims, drained the blood out of their throats immediately after the kill, hung them upside down from hooks in the shower, and then cut and quartered them like butchers. Apparently, that was DeMeo's prior profession. It was gross, morbidly fascinating, and began to sound like men dressing out a deer or elk, except these guys were in New York City, and there weren't any elk around. He speaks of cutting and quartering the bodies and placing them in trash bags and dumping them at garbage sites. I was shocked and horrified, and wondered how these guys got a good night's sleep without having vivid nightmares. They did it all for money, prestige and membership in the mob. These guys would do anything to be made--even though the non-Italians were told over and over again, that they would never get made. Heck, even the Italians were not getting made. These guys even scared Big Paulie. This book is a "must read" for anybody who wants to read about the glamour and guts of mob-life mixed together in realistic, day-by-day detail. Mob politics, jealousy, drug addiction, girlfriends and murders are all there. Studio 54 and its heydey and Big Paulie grace the pages along with psychopathic Roy DeMeo and his crew of mob miscreants. One of the best mob books I've ever read.
Book Review: "Big Paul's main Capo's Gotti's Advisaries"
Summary: 5 Stars
Murder Machine is a very well written book by a great author who I've had the opportunity to chat with through e-mails. This book is mainly about Nino Gaggi a Capo in the Gambinos who was a stand up guy, with a short temper and a lack of patience. He got his nephew a green beret just back from "NAM" involved in family bus- iness, at one point in the book, he posts his nephew in an attic with an automatic M16, because a meeting over a serious charge is going to happen, and his orders were, if Paul and I are not the first ones out, that means were already dead and you open fire & kill those who live! It's a very intense book, that is why the high rating, at one point, Nino is at a b-day party for someone when another Capo, Roy DeMeo appears on his door step dripping w/ sweat and informs him that this guy who's supposed to be whacked just happens to be on the corner, talking on the payphone. So Nino excuses himself gets a pistol, and his nephew, and away they go. Shots are traded up and down a block, I mean this is taking place in the mid-afternoon in a pretty nice neighborhood and here are these cowboys shooting up the streets as if nothing or nobody's gonna complain. I'm not gonna say if they hit the guy or not, you gotta buy the book for that, but as they are making their way back to Nino's party, Roy,who fell has a huge rip in his pant leg and is sweating up a storm, while Nino who always liked to dress sharp had dirt on his hands and his hair was going every which way. See Roy DeMeo's main job was sending cars to the Middle East, he used the Westies, the Irish Mob in Hells Kitchen to get them and in turn they taught Roy how to dismember and cut up a dead body into pieces and explained the finer parts of that trade, so they wouldn't have to worry about a body being found. These where the guys who Big Paul Castellano where gonna use to clip Gotti, but DeMeo got caught and they all got indicted.Book Review: An engrossing account of a faction within the Gambino Crime Family
Summary: 5 Stars
You always know going in to a mafia book that you are going to follow a fairly linear structure: early years as children as they grew in to men, their life in crime and finally their fall by either death or turncoat. With Murder Machine you certainly get this as well, but the death and destruction is so rampant that the reader as continually shaking their head at what these set of men have done.
The main line follows Dominick Montiglio and Anthony "Nino" Gaggi. Dominick the nephew and Nino the uncle who was a made man and eventual capo of the Gambino Crime Family. From there Roy DeMeo and his group of killer thugs enters and we have a well rounded picture of their early lives. This is where the story just goes crazy as we watch Gaggi and the DeMeo crew kill so many people that their exploits are contiuously written about. You are reading about a double murder of a father son duo, and then that transitions in to another murder and so on. It isn't until Roy DeMeo dies that the killing begins to slow down. I mean DeMeo, even when Gaggi was on trial for murder of another father son duo, was still out killing people recklessley.
I am truly amazed that DeMeo ever became a made man. He seemed like to much of a liability, which he ultimately was. Then again this is the mafia, where normal rules do not apply. As Pete Hamil said on the cover, this is certainly one of the scariest books about the mob that I've ever read. A definite recommend for those looking for books on organized crime. This book is so much more than a bunch of thugs killing people, and is also a history of the Gambino crime family for the later years of Carlo Gambino through the years of Paul Castellano (whom Gaggi was a good friend and capo to). An engrossing read.
5 stars.
Book Review: More than expected.
Summary: 5 Stars
If you like Mafia type stories this a good read. The book is about the DeMao crew from NY. There are many people involved in this story from the top of the chain such as Paul Castellano on down the line to just wanna be's in the mafia regime. The story is basically about a crew that works under Big Paulie and is involved in drugs, racketeering, extortion, auto theft, pornography, and of course Murder. The title Murder Machine is no lie when it comes to this crew as the will kill anybody, anytime and just about anywhere. Some graphic details are laid out how the crew make people disappear or how they are left to be found for intense purposes. Killing for the DeMao crew is every day nature which is kind of creepy but just business in there eyes. The story is goes through high's and low's of the crews personal lives and "professional" lives and gives a good insight to how the crew operated day in and out and all the thing's that they were involved in to make money for themselves, there capo's and for "the family". At some points it's amazing how one minute everyone is a loving family and friends laughing, drinkning, eating and the next minute someone is aced out by the same people. Nothing lasts forever or at least that's what they say in the crime world but these guys eventually get busted due to some persistent FBI/NYPD guys. Of course in the mafia world being a "rat" is outta the question unless you feel you got no other choice or choose a different life. The book goes through differnent aspects of the characters lives and how it all comes to an end.