The Good Rat

✍ Scribed by Jimmy Breslin

• Publisher: Ecco;HarperCollins e-Books
• Year: 2008;2014
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 144 KB
• Category: Fiction

✦ Synopsis

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Throaty New York dialogue is wonderfully realized by Richard M. Davidson, who leads the way for a small cast of narrators who assume various roles in this powerful Mafia tale. Davidson is so firm and solid in his delivery, he actually becomes the hard-nosed characters in question: Sammy The Bull Gravano and Gaspipe Casso. Kaipo Schwab offers a fantastic supporting performance as U.S. Attorney Robert Henoch, while Richard Mover takes on the role of turncoat mob associate Burton Kaplan. Each character is so well developed and believable that listeners will suspect they're listening to actual recordings rather than outstanding performances. Breslin's words are perfectly suited to these fine readers, who make them their own in three stunning performances.
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From Bookmarks Magazine

The Good Rule demythologizes the all-but-glamorous life of organized crime. While Breslin focuses on the trial of the “Mafia Cops,” a story also recounted in Guy Lawson and William Oldhamâ€TMs The Brotherhoods (2006), Breslin, to criticsâ€TM delight, uses the case to delve deep inside the Mafiaâ€TMs demise and the bloody, backstabbing stories within it. An unsentimental writer, Breslin sees the mob for what it isâ€"a group of cold-blooded sheep, to which his inclusion of trial-transcript excerpts attests. Yet reviewers couldnâ€TMt help but comment on the authorâ€TMs somewhat regretful tone, a funeral hymn for an era. Chronological confusion may trip up some readers, but overall, “For true crime fans, The Good Rat is the next standard-bearer; for Breslin fans new and old, itâ€TMs a must” (_Milwaukee Journal Sentinel_).
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.