18 books like The Westies

What to read after The Westies — books similar to it, matched on shared themes.

Paddy Whacked T. J. English · 2005 · ★ 4.3 · 480p · ≈ 16h · Moderate Here is the shocking true saga of the Irish American mob. In Paddy Whacked, bestselling author and organized crime expert T. J. English brings to life nearly two centuries of Irish American gangsterism, which spawned such unforgettable characters as Mike "King Mike" McDonald, Chicago's subterranean godfather; Big Bill Dwyer, New York's most notorious rumrunner during Prohibition; Mickey… Shares: Irish American criminals, Irish Americans, Criminals, True Crime

Brutal Kevin Weeks · 2006 · ★ 4.2 · 304p · ≈ 10h · Moderate I grew up in the Old Colony housing project in South Boston and became partners with James "Whitey" Bulger, who I always called Jimmy.Jimmy and I, we were unstoppable. We took what we wanted. And we made people disappear—permanently. We made millions. And if someone ratted us out, we killed him. We were not nice guys.I found out that Jimmy had been an FBI informant in 1999, and my life was never… Shares: Irish American criminals, Irish Americans, Criminals, True Crime

How Gangs Work J. Densley · 2013 · ★ 4.0 · 225p · ≈ 7h · Moderate "In the wake of the 2011 UK riots and the British government's new American-style 'war on gangs', this book is the definitive account of 'how gangs work'. Based on two years of ethnographic fieldwork with gangs and drawing on a variety of sources, How Gangs Work provides a vivid portrayal of gang life, but not as the British traditionally know it" -Back cover. Shares: Gangs, True Crime

Deadlock Sean Black · 2010 · ★ 4.0 · 396p · ≈ 13h · Moderate "The California State Prison at Pelican Bay holds three and a half thousand of America's most violent criminals. Three thousand, four hundred and ninety nine of them want the remaining inmate dead. Your job is to keep him alive..." ONE PRISONER Highly intelligent and brutally violent, Frank 'Reaper' Hays is a leading member of America's most powerful white supremacist prison gang. ONE… Shares: Gangs, Criminals

The private diary of Lyle Menendez Lyle Menendez · 1993 · ★ 4.6 · 263p · ≈ 8h · Moderate The personal story of Lyle Menendez is based on a four-and-a-half-year intimate correspondence with the author and covers the murders of Jose and Kitty Menendez by Lyle and his brother Erik and the court trials that ended in hung juries. Shares: Criminals, True Crime

Invisible Darkness Stephen Williams · 1996 · ★ 4.0 · 553p · ≈ 18h · Moderate Invisible Darkness is the story of one of the more bizarre cases in recent memory--killings so sensational that they prompted the Canadian government, in the interests of justice, to silence its national press and to lock foreign journalists out of the courts.To all appearances, Paul and Karla Bernardo had a fairytale marriage--beautiful working-class girl weds bright upper-middle-class guy and… Shares: True Crime

Nice Girl Rachael Jane Chin · 2011 Nice Girl? is a 1941 American musical comedy film directed by William A. Seiter and starring Deanna Durbin, Franchot Tone, Walter Brennan, Robert Stack, and Robert Benchley. Based on the play Nice Girl? by Phyllis Duganne, the film is about a young girl who finds herself attracted to one of her fathers business partners who comes to town to give her father a scholarship for his dietary studies. Shares: True Crime

Outlaws Adam Shand · 2011 What's it like to be an outlaw biker? 'We're dd magnets,' one of them tells Adam Shand. 'Drunks in bars like to test themselves against a so-called outlaw.' Once seen as a free-wheeling, brawling, pleasure-seeking bunch of misfits rolling down the highways, bikers are now cast as social bogeymen. If you believe the dire warnings of the media and politicians, they are an organised crime threat on… Shares: True Crime

Nutcracker Shana Alexander · 1985 · ★ 4.1 · 453p · ≈ 15h · Moderate Nutcracker begins at the ballet but tells the story of a seemingly wholesome all-American family, whose tranquil life's surface erupted in shocking acts of avarice, theft and murder. The victim was Franklin Bradshaw, Mormon self-made millionaire, workaholic. The killer was Bradshaw's grandson, prep school student. The architect of the crime was said to be Frances Schreuder, Bradshaw's daughter,… Shares: Criminals, True Crime, History

Woman at the Devil's Door Sarah Beth Hopton · 2018 · 283p · ≈ 9h · Moderate On October 24, 1890, a woman was discovered on a pile of rubbish in Hampstead, North London. Her arms were lacerated and her face bloodied; her head was severed from her body save a few sinews. Later that day, a blood-soaked stroller was found leaning against a residential gate, and the following morning the dead body of a baby was found hidden underneath a nettle bush. So began the chilling… Shares: Criminals, True Crime, History

Born Fi'dead Laurie Gunst · 1995 · 262p · ≈ 8h · Moderate Shares: Gangs, True Crime

Black mass Dick Lehr · 2001 · 417p · ≈ 13h · Moderate John Connolly and James "Whitey" Bulger grew up together on the tough streets of South Boston. Decades later in the mid-1970s, they met again. By then, Connolly was a major figure in the FBI's Boston office and Whitey had become godfather of the Irish Mob. Connolly had an idea, a scheme that might bring Bugler into the FBI fold and John Connolly into the Bureau's big leagues. But Bulger had… Shares: Irish Americans, Criminals, True Crime

Rothstein David Pietrusza · 2003 · ★ 3.6 · 464p · ≈ 15h · Moderate Rothstein is a Germanic-language (German, Yiddish) surname of several possible origins: toponymic surname from a place with the same name near Merseburg; from a Germanic personal name, Hrodstein (hrod- (Hróð-), "fame", "glory",Oscar Kuhns, "Studies in Pennsylvania German Family Names", in: Americana Germanica Quarterly, vol.4, 1902, https://books.google.com/books?id=VAELAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA306 p.306]… Shares: Criminals, True Crime, History

Wild Swans Jung Chang · 1989 · ★ 4.3 · 729p · ≈ 24h · Moderate "Jung Chang vividly evokes China's sights, sounds, and smells to create what must be one of the grimmest, yet most perceptive accounts of growing up middle-class in the maelstrom that has swept China since the 1920s." - Back cover. Shares: Irish Americans, History

Answer as a man Taylor Caldwell · 1980 · ★ 4.1 · 476p · ≈ 15h · Moderate All his life, Jason Garrity has had to battle intolerance and injustice in his quest for power, money, and love. His new hotel will give him financial security, the means to support a loving family and become an upstanding citizen. When family secrets and financial greed combine to destroy his dreams, his rigid moral convictions are suddenly brought into question. Shares: Irish Americans, History

The Authentic Life of Billy, The Kid Pat Garrett · 2008 · 128p · ≈ 4h · Moderate Hankering for a mostly true tale about the hard-living desperadoes who inhabited America's desert Southwest in the mid-1800s? This biography of the ill-fated gunslinger Billy, the Kid was written by Pat Garrett, the sheriff who shot Billy down. Although some historians now question the veracity of some of the self-aggrandizing bluster Garrett and his ghostwriter included in the book, The… Shares: True Crime

Last Yakuza Jake Adelstein · 2017 · ★ 4.4 · 408p · ≈ 13h · Moderate The Last Yakuza tells the history of the yakuza like it’s never been told before.Makoto Saigo is half-American and half-Japanese in small-town Japan with a set of talents limited to playing guitar and picking fights. With rock stardom off the table, he turns toward the only place where you can start from the bottom and move up through sheer merit, loyalty, and brute force — the yakuza.Saigo,… Shares: True Crime

Smaldone Dick Kreck · 2009 · ★ 2.0 I never thought it would end.—Clyde SmaldoneStarted by Italian brothers from North Denver, the high-profile Smaldone crime syndicate began in the bootlegging days of the 1920s and flourished well into the late twentieth century. Connected to such notorious crime figures as Al Capone and Carlos Marcello, as well as to presidents and other politicians, charismatic Clyde Smaldone was the crime… Shares: Criminals, True Crime, History

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