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The Westies
  • Published: 1 September 2008
  • ISBN: 9780553819564
  • Imprint: Bantam
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 544
  • RRP: $37.99
Categories:

The Westies

Inside New York's Irish Mob

Formats & editions
Paperback
1 Sept 2008
EBook
14 Jan 2016
Paperback
17 Jan 2023
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T J English's debut brings the near-unbelievable story of New York's notorious American-Irish mobsters, the Westies, to shocking yet compelling life in this true crime classic.

Forget Peaky Blinders - meet The Westies . . .

Even among the Mob, the Westies were feared.

Growing out of a partnership between two sadistic thugs - James Coonan and Mickey Featherstone - the Irish-American gang dominated the decaying slice of New York City's West Side known as Hell's Kitchen in the 1970s and '80s.

They excelled in extortion, numbers running, loansharking and drug-peddling, and they became the most notorious gang in the history of organized crime - then prosecutor Rudolf Giuliani calling them 'the most savage organisation in the long history of New York street gangs'. Upping the ante on brutality and depravity, their speciality when it came to punishment and killings was dismemberment.

Theirs was a reign that would last almost twenty years. And their end would come as their own violent natures got the better of them and precipitated a downfall as infamous and brutal as their rise.

This revised and updated edition of T J English's debut brings the near-unbelievable story of the Westies to shocking yet compelling life. The Westies is recognised as a true crime classic.
  • Published: 1 September 2008
  • ISBN: 9780553819564
  • Imprint: Bantam
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 544
  • RRP: $37.99
Categories:

About the authors

T.J. English

T.J. English is a noted journalist and screenwriter, and is the author of a number of other books about organised crime, including Paddy Whacked, Old Bones and Shallow Graves, Born to Kill, The Havana Mob and Dangerous Rhythms. He has written for numerous publications, including Esquire and Playboy, while his screenwriting credits include work on NYPD Blue and Homicide. The Westies was his first book and became a US bestseller, launching his career and establishing him as an expert on the multi-ethnic nature of organised crime in America. He lives in New York City.
T.J

P.G. Wodehouse

P. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) is widely regarded as the greatest comic writer of the 20th century. Wodehouse wrote more than 70 novels and 200 short stories, creating numerous much-loved characters - the inimitable Jeeves and Wooster, Lord Emsworth and his beloved Empress of Blandings, Mr Mulliner, Ukridge, and Psmith. His humorous articles were published in more than 80 magazines, including Punch, over six decades. He was also a highly successful music lyricist, once with over five musicals running on Broadway simultaneously. P.G. Wodehouse was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for 'an outstanding and lasting contribution to the happiness of the world'.
P.G

Praise for The Westies

A fast-moving tale of criminal corruption in which, for a change, the good guys win... English pulls no punches

LA DAILY NEWS

Sterling social history... the author's skillful reporting makes the most of his subject

NEW YORKER

Will shock even the most hardened readers

PLAYBOY

First-rate, dramatic and compelling

NEW YORK NEWSDAY

A fascinating look into an Irish-American criminal enterprise that may not have rivalled the Mafia in sophistication, but certainly surpassed them in terror

WALL STREET JOURNAL

Some very bad boys

NEW YORK MAGAZINE