Rating: 
Summary: Street Soldier
Review: I thought this book tells the truth about Southie and James "whitey" Bulger. Mackenzie isnt afraid to be honest about himself which makes it easier for the reader to connect with him. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to read about true crime.
Rating:
Summary: Street Soldier
Review: I thought this book tells the truth about Southie and James "whitey" Bulger. Mackenzie isnt afraid to be honest about himself which makes it easier for the reader to connect with him. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to read about true crime.
Rating: 
Summary: True or not, still a great read
Review: I'm not "in the know" so I can't comment on the veracity of the work. It certainly reads real. I found it to be a great follow up to "Black Mass." There is a wonderful chapter or two about Whitey's character that are not touched upon in Black Mass. IOW, it gives some of the characters talked about in that book more of a personal touch, rather than an outside journalistic approach. For that reason, I found the book very interesting. Also, because the book is very current, it includes many updates to the cast of characters (Flemmi, Connoly Bulger, etc.)As for Eddie's trials and tribulations; he is definitely blunt. There is no attempt to spin his stories. Much of the carnage he does is simply for the fact of doing it. You don't have that sense of Italian mafiosi creed of "we only mess with the people who mess with us." Eddie details racially-driven and gay bashing missions. There are some great character development stories in the beginning and towards the end. If the author has accomplished anything it has been to define himself and what he stands for. If you're looking for a true street soldier piece, I think many others have been done better. Simply because many of the people chronicled ended up having a higher role in the organization later on and could provide the tales from both view points. "Wise Guy" is the all time classic (the movie Goodfellas is based on this book) and "Last Mafioso" chronicles Jimmy Fratiano's life. These are both superb in the trenches with a mobster type reading. I'd strongly recommend reading "Black Mass." If that interests you, then "Street Soldier" provides a nice fill in the blank type piece. If I would have read "Street Soldier" without reading "Black Mass" first, I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much (maybe 3 or 3.5 stars). In the very least, it demonstrates that we all come from different walks of life.
Rating:
Summary: True or not, still a great read
Review: I'm not "in the know" so I can't comment on the veracity of the work. It certainly reads real. I found it to be a great follow up to "Black Mass." There is a wonderful chapter or two about Whitey's character that are not touched upon in Black Mass. IOW, it gives some of the characters talked about in that book more of a personal touch, rather than an outside journalistic approach. For that reason, I found the book very interesting. Also, because the book is very current, it includes many updates to the cast of characters (Flemmi, Connoly Bulger, etc.) As for Eddie's trials and tribulations; he is definitely blunt. There is no attempt to spin his stories. Much of the carnage he does is simply for the fact of doing it. You don't have that sense of Italian mafiosi creed of "we only mess with the people who mess with us." Eddie details racially-driven and gay bashing missions. There are some great character development stories in the beginning and towards the end. If the author has accomplished anything it has been to define himself and what he stands for. If you're looking for a true street soldier piece, I think many others have been done better. Simply because many of the people chronicled ended up having a higher role in the organization later on and could provide the tales from both view points. "Wise Guy" is the all time classic (the movie Goodfellas is based on this book) and "Last Mafioso" chronicles Jimmy Fratiano's life. These are both superb in the trenches with a mobster type reading. I'd strongly recommend reading "Black Mass." If that interests you, then "Street Soldier" provides a nice fill in the blank type piece. If I would have read "Street Soldier" without reading "Black Mass" first, I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much (maybe 3 or 3.5 stars). In the very least, it demonstrates that we all come from different walks of life.
Rating:
Summary: The Truth
Review: I've met Eddie on 4 or 5 occasions, and I have had long talks with him. I know some of the R.I. people he talks about. I've read the book. Everything Eddie says in this book is the truth as he saw it and lived it. I wish all of you could look into his eyes as he tells his story and see the pain of his youth, the disgust of Whitey's sexual tastes, and the true love he has for his 5 daughters.
This book is real, it deals with a part of life that most of us will never see. It does not make Eddie a hero it makes him a man that found the only door open to him to survive.
Read it!! It's hard, it's raw, it's true. If you start it in an evening plan on not going to sleep until it done---you can't put it down.
If he has a book signing anywhere near you go see him, talk to him, you'll never forget it!!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: O.K. but more to all this
Review: In the 1960s, a boy ('X') was shuffled around in multiple states, threatened with his possible murder by a man alleged to be the driver for one of the gangsters listed in this case.In the 1970s the boy was befriended by a caseworker attached to a subcontractor for Massachusetts who arranged a social security number for the boy while bouncing the child around foster homes who repeatedly threatened and intimidated the boy over a period of years in the late 1970s. Whitey signed up in the mid-1970s.
In the 1980s, 'X'now a teen, lived in Middlesex county while another person going by the same name and same town popped up and began having his mail diverted to this new man's address. Over the next 10 years, this man appeared to follow the teen as he became a man, calling his workplaces and leaving his name, moving to the same towns, and even attending the same church wherever this boy went. Once 'X' was nearly arrested for being AWOL, as this man was in the army and had used his address.
In the 1990s 'X' had a local newspaper article detailing his search for his unknown father.Not long after the editors and reporting staff changed and claimed no knowledge of their predecessors. After that, the man lost his job, began getting getting threatening calls and to be followed by men in suitsas well as plainclothes. on at least one occasion one of the plainclothes men was referred to as "Mr. Ring". An older man moved into the apartment complex beside 'X' and across from a unit where a woman claiming to do " acccounting for the government" lived.This man had Tennessee license plates,carried a revolver and claimed to work construction. Weeks later the man was seen driving a phone company truck and moved out immediately afterwards.But not before being seen laying cables from his apartment to the one across the hall.Barry Mawn, formerly of a Tennessee FBI office,was newly assigned Boston SAC. 'X',attending Northeastern University,suddenly began having problems with some instructors who appeared to have an unknown hostility to 'X'.Northeastern is where Agent Morris and R.Robert Popeo had affiliation. In addition to having many.many problems with his phones,'X' began courting malice from a group of 10(10 is the number of alleged secret witnesses against Whitey)who used threats and intimidation and coercion to keep the man constantly in fear and blamed him for "what is going on.." in the Bulger case. Since all of this,the man has been destroyed completely financially and careerwise and questions have been raised if FBI personnel have been monitoring the man and interfering with employment and communications as well as assuring financial destruction(like a state trooper was by Bulger).The man went to the Justice Department to seek help and was blown off by the Justice Management division while taps and traces by local police were ineffective against the hostile calls.
Additionally, the man repeatedly got daily blank phone messages from a phone linked to MBNA offices in Florida, where Paul Rico lived and which corporation Louis Freeh later became a senior Vice President of.
Since ,Trooper Foley, the champion in this case, has retired, the Government Reform hearings are closed, and there seems to be no one who can hold the FBI accountable.
Rating:
Summary: INSIDER'S VIEW OF SOUTH BOSTON MOBSTER, WHITEY BULGER
Review: Not asking for sympathy or forgiveness, Edward Mackenzie, a self acclaimed scumbag, tells everyone what it was like to work for Whitey Bulger. He uses graphic, bone crushing detail to portray the days when Whitey and his gang terrorized the streets of Boston. This book moves along quickly and offers a view unlike any I've read on the subject. It is not a researched, outsider's view - it's the real deal!
Rating:
Summary: From across the ocean
Review: Reading Edward MacKenzie's Street Soldier has brought back a lot of memories from another place and another time. Ed's memoir has a universal, transcendent quality about it, it's a raw and insightful narrative about that ugly part of big city life that those who live behind the fences don't see or are too squeamish even to admit it exists. The story could have been about a lot of people I personally knew in Tbilisi, Georgia and Moscow, Russia. Ten thousands miles removed from Boston, entire generations of young kids grew into relentless killing machines brought into the system by the strictest recruiting mechanism with its initiation rites and sacred codes of honor. And like Edward MacKenzie, the mean streets have always been the testing ground. Many like Ed started as vicious street brawlers, then were noticed by the "the men of honor" and later inducted into the system. Their progress within the hierarchy was accomplished according to merit assessment and the decision-makers were our domestic Dons. Reading Ed's book is like reading a familiar story in which only the setting and the names are different. Ed also makes many interesting observations dealing with fear, self confidence, and the ability to stand up for oneself. Now, if I ever were to write my own version of the story on the other side of the Atlantic, I'd like to invite Edward MacKenzie as my co-author.
Rating:
Summary: Violently Captivating
Review: Street Soldier is as intense as a kick in the teeth with a steel-toed boot, but without the pain and drive to the hospital. You get the same cringe of discomfort and sick-to-your-stomach feeling reading about MacKenzie's horrible acts of violence, though- not to mention all the same rubbernecking fascination. His tale is formulaic in a lot of ways: "Mac" is passed around from one foster home to another, abused and molested as a kid; he quickly excels at a life of crime and rises to great and seedy heights; and he gets caught, crashes, and waxes about his mistakes. Those heights reached were probably not known outside of South Boston, even notwithstanding the raft of Irish Mob stories of the last decade (representing a wave that Street Soldier is clearly trying to ride). Locality doesn't matter, though, since the story is interesting enough to transcend state and cultural lines. It is also violent enough to cross the lines of good taste. Not like I objected, but be forewarned that no details are spared as Mac clinically and dispassionately describes the kicking in of ribs, biting off of ears and fingers, and pulling out of teeth, all to collect a buck or spread the word of his boss' displeasure. All in a day's work... Some of the more interesting aspects of this story that separate it from its peers include MacKenzie's love for, and prowess in, the martial arts and boxing. While obviously helpful to his career as a thug, they allowed Mac to win heaps of athletic awards that in another lifetime could have been his ticket to legitimacy. Mac also didn't seem to indulge in the drugs and substances that he pushed, which arguably helped him remember the last 20 years more clearly. Additionally, this may be one of the first accounts of the Boston Irish Mob scene to really expose all of Whitey's flaws, transgression, and evil facets, even though Mac arguably stands nothing to gain (and everything to lose) by so doing. Lastly, Mac is speaking from the other side of his Mob life, having crossed without having failed. I mean, he got pinched, and had to rat out and set up Colombian drug lords in order to gain his own freedom, but he was pretty much a perfect success in Whitey's organization (at least as he tells it). The end of his criminal career was mostly engendered by Whitey's picking up shop and disappearing. Mac's tone as he recounts his life's work reveals a lot about how he views his violent role in society. Although he is careful to give the appearance of self-deprecation and candor about choosing the wrong path, you quickly get the impression he's window dressing, and is entirely too comfortable with having spent most of his adult life hurting and stealing from others. True, a lot of guys harmed were no angels, but there are a lot of innocents beaten up for the sake of it, and houses ransacked for a quick buck that went more to beers and good times than food and necessities. You wish Mac had had more violent comeuppance in his lifetime, and, no, his hard times as a kid just don't quite rise to the level of compelling the reader to enable his actions. The tone grows worse as the book wanes, too. Mac starts complaining about justice, particularly regarding one of his violent thug friends who is still locked up, without any irony whatsoever. Despite having walked away scot-free after a life preying upon poor, honest victims that he sized up as living suckers' lives, he has no problem whining about the world's injustices. Also unsettling is that Mac admits to not knowing whether or not living on the level is the right path for him; there is enough uncertainty about his flying straight to make it seem like the only happy ending means Mac is locked up away from the rest of us.
Rating: 
Summary: MACKENZIE'S ACCOUNT DISMISSED AS SPURIOUS
Review: The author, a small-time criminal, is putting one over on the public as well a the writers who put together this spurious accont of the Bulger Era in Boston.
If anyone is interested in this story, they should read BLACK MASS by two respected Boston reporters, ONEILL & LEHR who lived though period from 1965 to 1995 when four federal informants (Barbosa, Bulger, Martorano & Flemmi) murdered as many as 100 men & women in MA, FL, CA & OK.
Also watch for forthcoming novelization by KEVIN DOYLE entitled THE INFORMANT - LIFE & TIMES OF WHITEY BULGER
|
