Blood and Honor: Inside the Scarfo Mob--The Mafia's Most Violent Family has been added to Amazon’s Kindle offerings, so we’re re-running Sarah’s 2012 review of the book for your re-consideration. (And, remember, if you buy it through a link in Best Evidence, we get a teensy cut!)

"Bruno was the consummate racketeer. Scarfo, on the other hand, was a gangster."

The crime

It's about the self-destruction of the Philly mob, so: pick your felony. But implied also is a metaphorical crime, an affront to the old-time Mafia code that kept the bullets in the drawer, and mouths and wallets closed. Angelo Bruno, head of Philadelphia's Mob presence, kept it tight; he was a businessman. His "successor" — if we can use that term for the man who sped up his own succession by murdering the boss — was notorious short fuse Nicodemo Scarfo. Scarfo, now in his eighties, remains in the federal pen at this writing, and wound up there because everyone he hadn't already killed knew the paranoid little psycho would get around to it eventually if they didn't turn state's witnesses.

The story

George Anastasia's chronicle of the Philly mob's '80s implosion is seeming proof that a physical crime-book template does in fact exist. It's a black paperback, lettered in white and reflective red; its title 1) contains two of the several dozen standard-issue true-crime-title nouns and adjectives (here, Blood and Honor; see also "mortal," "fate," "mystery," "cruel," e.g.) while 2) telling prospective readers next to nothing about the particular or criminals under discussion. That information is customarily the purview of the subtitle, and Anastasia's is accurate, to a point — "Inside the Scarfo Mob — the Mafia's Most Violent Family" — but it fails to describe the unique retro texture of the narrative. "One Man's Napoleon Complex Devolved Into Paranoid Psychosis and Destroyed an Underworld Institution: An Oral History by Protected Witness Nick 'The Crow' Caramandi" comes closer.

What the book gets called isn't up to Anastasia, but how it's structured is, and it's smart to let the Crow do a lot of the talking, more or less uncut. I love the oral-history format, vintage-Interview-magazine transcripts that leave in every "uh" and "you know"; nothing against glossy standardized usage, of course, but part of the point of getting a quote is to get a sense of the person giving it, and if it's too shined up, the reader's mind can just slide right over it and not catch on anything. Anastasia no doubt sanded off a few edges, but he lets you hear Caramandi:

So I'm waitin' for the guy. All of a sudden I see a guy turn the corner and this guy's got a jacket on. Hey, it's a hot summer day. It musta been a hundred degrees that day. No way, I thought. So I said, 'Shorty, there's something wrong. Get that bag and put it under that car.' I walk to the corner and I see a bunch of guys coming up one way. I look down the street and I see like the whole area is surrounded. They're zeroing in on me. All of a sudden, here comes a fuckin' helicopter. They got a fuckin' helicopter. (79-80)

It can get confusing when Caramandi takes a sidebar about some jabroni who's over at his sister's, his sister who dated one of the seventeen Johnnies in the book, but the dark fact is, you needn't bother keeping the players straight…because within a few pages of when you've finally figured out who's on which crew or is that guy with Salvie Testa or getting stalked by him or what, whoever it is gets killed or goes into witness protection. Everyone's always switching sides, killing each other so Scarfo doesn't decide to have them killed, on and on. Everyone's named Phil. On occasion, the timing of a hit, or Caramandi's comments on it, recall an episode or demise on The Sopranos.

Other times, it puts me in mind of my grandmother — not because she ran with the Scarfo crew, and even typing that gives me a giggle. Louise didn't go over to a friend's house for sherbet of a summer afternoon without white gloves on. But she did allegedly have a relative who allegedly did a few sub-Donnie-Brasco-level errands for alleged Scarfo associates to pay his alleged gambling debts; more to the point, she grew up in South Philly, and when Caramandi is talking, I can hear her accent. A Philadelphia accent is difficult to reproduce — "hurry" is "herry," "merry" is "murry," "way" is "wey" and no it's not quite the same diff. Anastasia has a few locutions of his own that capture the way that part of the country speaks, or used to, himself — "$80 slacks" on page 277. "It was time, at the end of each month, to send the 'elbow' money down the shore" on page 302.

Grandma is surely clawing her way aboveground as we speak to chastise me for associating her with That Thing Of Not Hers, so I'd better wrap it up here. Blood and Honor isn't just for folks whose ancestors met on the Sea Isle City boardwalk, or fans of The Sopranos, though those people might get more out of it. It's a briskly paced snapshot of a turning point for the Cosa Nostra, in Philly and elsewhere, in the late '70s and early '80s, and nestled in it is a nifty oral history of honor among thieves. Anastasia is a respected reporter on the Mob beat who turns up regularly as an expert on shows like Mobsters, and he uses the word "flimflam" about a dozen times, which isn't something you can say about too many books. The pictures seem a bit sparse — if you show $80 slacks in the first act, they'd better etc. — but of course these guys make a business practice of invisibility. -- SDB

A California bank robber is telling his side of things in a new podcast. Joe Loya served seven years in Lompoc for a 14-month spree in which he knocked over between 30 and 40 banks in Southern California. After his release in the mid-’90s, Loya made the career pivot to writer, and has reportedly acted as a consultant on films like Baby Driver. In October he also launched a podcast on his exploits, called The Score: Bank Robber Diaries.

Those who are seeking a gleeful romp through various heists will likely be disappointed by the pod, which is three episodes in. So far, Loya’s in guilt-and-remorse mode, probably a good thing given that while he was in prison he reportedly stabbed a guy in the face, bit off his cell mate's earlobe, and threw feces at guards. (Danny Ocean this is not.) You can catch up on The Score here. -- EB

A member of an online group called “True Crime Community” has been sentenced to 15 years in prison. First, all of y’all better behave yourselves, because I don’t want to see a headline like that about our little Best Evidence community. So here’s the story: Nearly a year ago, 23-year-old Elizabeth Lecron was convicted in an abortive “upscale mass murder” plot to bomb at least one Toledo, Ohio, bar, the Toledo Blade reported at the time.

According to the Blade, Lecron was part of an online group that shared memes “glorifying” mass murderers and serial killers, which caused The Daily Beast to characterize her as “a highly active member of the ‘true crime’ community, made up of mostly young people who idolize similarly young mass murderers.” She reportedly shared her plans to bomb the bar with an undercover informant, and was arrested after she purchased items prosecutors said were intended to build a bomb. Last month, she was sentenced to 15 years for the plan, as well as a “lifetime of supervision,” the New York Post reports. -- EB

A new Oxygen show will highlight “unexpected” killers. There are a lot of jokes to make about the title of Oxygen’s An Unexpected Killer, like how it seems like “expected” killers are more remarkable than the ones that surprise you (aka most killers).

It’s actually about plot twists, however: According to Oxygen’s press materials, the show will cover “a series of homicide investigations that appear to be inching closer to an answer before investigators are thrown for a loop by uncovering something unanticipated in their investigations.” Oh, I get it, it’s basically every procedural ever, in that you get the presumed killer by the end of the first act, only to learn it was someone else in the third. The show drops on Thursday, December 5, with an episode called "Modern Family Murder,” which is about the 1984 slaying of Robert and Kathryn Swartz. Don’t click on this link if you want the killer in that case to remain “unexpected”! -- EB

Tuesday on Best Evidence: Even cruise ships aren’t immune to true crime. Plus, a holiday subscription deal!

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