Blood and the Badge: The Mafia, Two Killer Cops, and a Scandal That Shocked the Nation

I am a fan of tales of the mafia. I’m certain that I wouldn’t be as big a fan if I lived in the big cities normally associated with mafia activity now or even during the peak time of the most infamous mafioso. I also believe that “the families” still exist and are active. I was intrigued by the subtitle of this book…The Mafia, Two Killer Cops, and a Scandal That Shocked the Nation. This is what drew me to request a copy of this book. Like all gangster fans, I’ve enjoyed The Sopranos (hated the ending), The Godfather trilogy, Goodfellas, Boardwalk Empire (my favorite) and even a lot of mediocre to poor TV series and movies about mafia families. This book is different. This book describes real crimes committed by not only mafia bad guys but also two supposed “good guys.” Louie Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa were New York City police officers who worked their ways up to NYPD detectives. Sometime early in their detective careers they made the decisions to work both sides of the fence for the Lucchese crime family. This did not come totally out of the blue. Eppolito’s father and uncles had been active with the Gambino crime family, but Caracappa had no ties to any crime family. He had the “good fortune” of being Eppolito’s partner before becoming detectives. The partners were very close, and through hurt feelings, meanness, greed, a need to feel superior, missing hearts, or other unexplainable reasons, decided to not only feed valuable information to but also carry out acts of intimidation and actual murders for the Lucchese crime family. To say they acted with total abandon and did horrific damage in and around NYC is a huge understatement. If the reader is my age (mid-60’s) or older and lives in the NYC area, you may very well recognize the names of crime family members, NYPD officers and other detectives, and NYC district attorneys. I was unfamiliar with almost every person mentioned in this book. Every now and then a “famous” mafia name would drop into the narrative. I enjoyed that for some occasional familiar context. But to tell you the truth, I really didn’t need the name-drops for this book to hold my attention. Never a minute went by that it wasn’t crystal clear that I was reading actual true crime. I have read no other books by Mr. Cannell. I believe that he has written four other nonfiction books in the same genre (not sure about this). I will be checking them out once this excellent read has time to process. Here are a few basic reading notes. I liked the pace. It never lets up. I never felt that any information was filler or wasteful…even if I got a little lost in some of the legalese (especially concerning RICO). I was frustrated that it took DECADES for Eppolito and Caracappa to be brought to justice, but that certainly wasn’t the author’s fault. The suffering of all the victims’ families was horrifying and palpable!