FindMyTBR

About Elizabeth Castellano

The Gambino crime family (Italian: [ɡamˈbiːno]) is an Italian American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the American Mafia. The group, which went through five bosses between 1910 and 1957, is named after Carlo Gambino, boss of the family at the time of the McClellan hearings in 1963, when the structure of organized crime first gained public attention. The group's operations extend from New York and the eastern seaboard to California. Its illicit activities include labor and construction racketeering, gambling, loansharking, extortion, money laundering, prostitution, fraud, hijacking, and fencing.

The family was one of the five families that were founded in New York after the Castellammarese War of 1931. For most of the next quarter-century, it was a minor player in organized crime. Its most prominent member during this time was its underboss Albert Anastasia, who rose to infamy as the operating head of the underworld's enforcement arm, Murder, Inc. He remained in power even after Murder, Inc. was smashed in the late 1940s, and took over his family in 1951—by all accounts, after murdering the family's founder Vincent Mangano—which was then recognized as the Anastasia crime family.

The rise of what was the most powerful crime family in America for a time began in 1957, when Anastasia was assassinated while sitting in a barber chair at the Park Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan, New York City. Some historians believe that Albert Anastasia's underboss Carlo Gambino helped orchestrate the hit to take over the family. Gambino partnered with Meyer Lansky to control gambling interests in Cuba and a few other places. The family's fortunes grew through 1976…

Elizabeth Castellano writes about American literature. Their best-known work is Save Whats Left.

On FindMyTBR we track 2 books by Elizabeth Castellano, 1 of them confirmed as audiobooks on Spotify or Apple Books — including Save What's Left. Full availability across Spotify, Apple Books, Audible, and Amazon is below.