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Rating: 
Summary: The Real Deal
Review: After reading Black Mass by Dick Lahr & Gerad O'Niel, I thought I knew it all about the FBI and the Boston Irish Mob AKA Whitey Bulger. After reading Edward Mackenzie's book Street Soldier, I realized the stark difference between someone who was on the inside (Mackenzie) and someone who was on the outside (Lehr & O'Niel) Mackenzie's book Street Soldier, shows us how(as Mackenzie's states)how one is turned from being prey to being predator! I couldn't stop turning the page, this book makes one feel like they are walking in Mackenzie's footsteps as he brings you chapter after chapter or horifying experiances! I read the book three weeks ago, and as I'm driving along in my safe suburban neiborhood, I cringe to think of what's going on in the inner city. Great read! I give this book 5 stars! Krystal MD.
Rating: 
Summary: You'd be an idiot to believe all this crap.
Review: Eddie Mac is using this book to "get back" at people he doesn't like. He accuses people of rape...yet he has 2 rape arrests himself. He accuses people of being a pediphile and blames the "system" for his evil nature. The fact is, this guy is a pervert and a thug. He claims to get sexual gratification from breaking people's bones and even goes so far as to say he had a "semi" erection from breaking some guys knees. For starters, if you believe this crap he is selling, your a fool, secondly, Eddie Mac is a cowardly thug, typically talking trash about all these people he supposedly messed up and cowed, then talks about how he is now a "cleaned up" college grad who wants to help the neighborhood kids, the same ones he used to watch undress I guess. People this guy is a liar, the material is the same as watching a drunk bully in a bar tell stories about his old "glory days". Simply not worth the time or money.
Rating:
Summary: Lif in the Big City.
Review: I saw Mackenzie on CSPAN Books. I was totally captivated by his willingness to share his world and inner fealings with the audience. This kid has to be telling the truth (I said to myself), so I bought the book. All I can say is, WOW. There is truly another world that we as civilized people only think we read about. Mackenzie, brings us into this world, and let me tell you, it's terrifiong but blatantly honest and raw. At times, I wanted to kill him, and at times I cried, and tipped my hat to him. At the end, the real Eddie Mac (as he calls himself) came out to be a loving father, a man who would give you the shirt off his back, but kill you in two seconds if you came near one of his kids in a threatening way. All in all, I rate this street thriller a 5.
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: 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: waste of time
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: A self-serving book
Review: This lowlife legbreaker writes about the sexual pleasure he gets from breaking peoples legs, rats out other crooks to save his own criminal behind, and then tells us about how touched he is after going to college and finding out he's a good guy who loves his daughters. I felt disgusted with this guy who seemed top think the OTHER crooks were bad and he was good, after all he went to college. (so did Ted Bundy)
I had read BLACK MASS earlier and liked it. Still curious about Whitey Bulger, I tried this book. It stunk. I could write about my disgust with this book (and I LOVE mob books) for days, but instead just send me your address and you can have my copy. This fool should not take anyone else's money.
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