Tough Jews

A terrific storyteller, drawing you right into the tenements where young thugs were recruited, the shooting wars and the perceived betrayals, the labour rackets and all-night card games...Few of the tough Jews Cohen writes about lived to see the inside of a recruitment community. They died young and they died out. But this is a dazzling tribute to their courage and to their cool.

Penny Perrick, The Times

In the history of American crime - organised crime - Italian names predominate, but there was a time when Jewish names ran them close...Rich Cohen...grew up long after the events he describes, but he has still managed to write an intensely personal book...It is an exciting story...In filling in the detail, Cohen doesn't just rely on family legend, or his imagination: he has done a great deal of research in police archives. But it's the sense of personal involvement which gives the book its pace and its energy...highly readable.

John Gross, Sunday Telegraph