Mafia Insider tells the true story of the Mob’s early history in America

Borgata: Rise of Empire: A History of the American Mafia Part 1 (Pegasus Books) by Louis Ferrante—a former Mafia associate who served eight years in prison after refusing to incriminate his fellow Gambino family members—is the first book in a three-volume epic history of the Mafia that reveals exactly how and why this infamous secret society formed inside Sicilian culture. 

The culmination of Ferrante’s exhaustive research delving deep into Sicily’s socio-economic-political roots, Borgata: Rise of Empire picks up in places like New York and New Orleans, where the clannish Sicilians quickly realize the importance of diversity as they forge new alliances with other recently arrived ethnic groups as the borgata becomes the premier organized criminal network in the country.

In this first volume, Ferrante traces the mafia’s phenomenal “rise of empire” through larger-than-life characters such as Lucky Luciano, Vito Genovese, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Seigel, Albert Anastasia, and other legendary mobsters as they provide alcohol to the American public during Prohibition, penetrate industrial labor unions, practically take over the island of Cuba and, with extraordinary vision, create the gambling mecca of Las Vegas.

About the author: Louis Ferrante is a former Mafia associate and heist expert who served eight years in prison after refusing to incriminate his fellow Gambino family members. His last book, Mob Rules (HarperCollins), was an international bestseller, and his Discovery Channel Series, Inside the Gangsters Code, earned him a Grierson Award nomination for Presenter of the Year.