Making Jack Falcone: An Undercover FBI Agent Takes Down a Mafia Family
by Joaquin "Jack" Garcia
List Price:
Our Price: $14.21
You Save: $10.74 (43%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $14.11 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Joaquin "Jack" GarciaContributor: Michael Levin
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-10-13
ISBN: 1416551638
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Touchstone
Book Reviews of Making Jack Falcone: An Undercover FBI Agent Takes Down a Mafia Family
Book Review: RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "A MAFIA SMACK-DOWN IN BLOOMINGDALE'S!"
Summary: 5 Stars
The author Jack Garcia has retired after twenty-six years as a special agent for the FBI. The preponderance of that time was spent undercover infiltrating every type of organized crime imaginable... drug distribution... weapon sales... jewelry theft... counterfeit money... counterfeit cigarettes... government corruption... police corruption... and in perhaps his greatest achievement of all... not only infiltrating the infamous Gambino Mafia crime family... but being next in line to be crowned a "MADE-MAN"... "A WISE GUY"... "A-KNOCK-AROUND-GUY... but then the FBI pulled the plug on the operation despite Jack's vociferous objections.
Jack was only the second FBI agent to ever be accepted as a Mafia undercover "ASSOCIATE". The first was the legendary Joe Pistone: aka Donnie Brasco. What helped Jack be so successful in his undercover status, in addition to ice cubes in his veins and a giant pair of "brass-ones" was the fact that he just DID NOT LOOK LIKE AN FBI AGENT. The FBI has strict physical guidelines that must be met including a certain height and weight ratio. It took Jack two tries to make it into the FBI because of his weight. Jack was originally six-feet-four and two-hundred-fifty pounds. Jack was told he had to lose forty pounds and come back. Jack lost the weight... came back and made the cut... but that weight class would be a forgotten memory down the road.
The FBI actually conducted a "MOB-SCHOOL" to teach potential undercover agents how to be a mobster. How to talk... how to walk... how to dress... proper slang... and... how to eat like a Mafioso. As Jack would learn firsthand, eating was almost a full-time job in the Mafia. So eat is what Jack did... and at one point his weight came very close to the FOUR-HUNDRED-FIFTY-POUND MARK! Like I said... he DID NOT look like an FBI agent. Jack's undercover name "FALCONE" was selected in honor of a "courageous Sicilian judge who had been murdered by the Mafia along with his wife and three police bodyguards a few years earlier. The FBI had honored Judge Falcone with a bronze bust at the FBI Academy because of his fortitude in his fight against the Italian Mafia." In addition to the sheer terror that Jack faced every day and night gaining influence in the Gambino family... additionally... it is an almost "IMPOSSIBLE-TO-BELIEVE" fact that he was *SIMULTANEOUSLY* working undercover in four other major cases... all with different persona's... in different parts of the country from Florida to New York... involving among other things the counterfeiting of United States one-hundred-dollar bills in North Korea using the same ink and the same paper as the U.S. Treasury. "In the eyes of the Secret Service, they were as good as real." "COUNTERFEIT MONEY POSES A GREATER THREAT THAN PRACTICALLY ANY OTHER CONTRABAND WHEN IT COMES TO NATIONAL SECURITY. IF NORTH KOREA FLOODED THE UNITED STATES WITH THESE FAKE BILLS, IT COULD TAKE DOWN THE ENTIRE U.S. ECONOMY. THESE BILLS WERE THAT GOOD."
Meanwhile Jack "Falcone" was also attempting to win the trust of Gambino "Capo" Greg DePalma who was known to take "tough" stances with people he suspected of stealing from him. Such as putting a power drill to the head of someone he believed had stolen from him at a strip joint... "And on another occasion used a cattle prod on a guy's scrotum." For a little "light" work Jack would mix in setting traps to catch crooked cops in Florida... and expose Atlantic City politicians on the take. As Jack's weight mushroomed he worried about his health... but for a number of years in a row the FBI cancelled his yearly physical due to budget constraints. In one of the "black-humor" life-is-stranger than fiction scenes in the story... the Mafia got Jack and the rest of their crew health insurance through a corrupt union official, and they all went to get a checkup... and they found that Jack had a serious heart problem and they kept him in the hospital. The FBI didn't know where Jack was... he couldn't call his wife... and after all the years worrying he'd be killed by a Mafia bullet... it turned out that his illicit Mafia "union" health insurance may have saved his life!
The stories are endless, and Jack's a natural born raconteur. One story involves a visit with Greg DePalma to Bloomingdale's because they knew that Petey Chops a Made-Man ate there. It turns out that Petey wasn't "KICKING-UP" (Which means he wasn't sharing his ill gained loot with the individuals above him in the Mafia food chain.) so "the crew" waited for Petey to show up at Bloomingdale's... and when he shows... one of the boys grabs "a solid glass Kosta Boda candleholder, nearly a foot in length, from the nearest display and whacked Petey over the head with it. When it connected, I heard a "pop" like a broken cantaloupe. Bystanders gasped. Petey Chops dropped to the floor, unconscious, blood gushing from his head." NOTE: The author provides a footnote with the exact description of the lovely product/weapon directly from Bloomingdale's website. You will not put this book down... start to finish... and luckily Jack leaves us with an ending promise that he has many more stories to tell. I hope so, because I will be the first one to buy his next book!
Law Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Law Books
A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorceby Alec Baldwin
St. Martin's Press; Published: 2008-09-23; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.50
Price in other shops:
Speaking for Myself: My Life from Liverpool to Downing Streetby Cherie Blair
Little, Brown and Company; Published: 2008-10-13; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $19.80
Price in other shops:
The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World (P.S.)by Lucette Lagnado
Harper Perennial; Published: 2008-07-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.74
Price in other shops:
10 More Actual, Official LSAT PrepTests (Lsat Series) (Lsat Series)by Law School Admission Council
Law School Admission Council; Published: 2007-08-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $18.75
Price in other shops:
The Official LSAT SuperPrepby Law School Admission Council
Law School Admision Council; Published: 2007-11-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $18.44
Price in other shops:
The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Lawby Norm Goldstein
Basic Books; Published: 2007-07-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.15
Price in other shops:
The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murderby Vincent Bugliosi
Vanguard Press; Published: 2008-05-26; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $10.32
Price in other shops:
The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriotby Naomi Wolf
Chelsea Green Publishing; Published: 2007-09-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.01
Price in other shops:
Making Jack Falcone: An Undercover FBI Agent Takes Down a Mafia Familyby Joaquin "Jack" Garcia
Touchstone; Published: 2008-10-13; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.65
Price in other shops:
The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Courtby Jeffrey Toobin
Anchor; Published: 2008-09-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.00
Price in other shops:
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008by Bob Woodward
Simon & Schuster; Published: 2008-09-08; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.70
Price in other shops:
Cullotta: The Life of a Chicago Criminal, Las Vegas Mobster and Government Witnessby Dennis N. Griffin, Frank Cullotta
Huntington Press; Published: 2007-07-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.57
Price in other shops:
The Brass Verdict: A Novelby Michael Connelly
Little, Brown and Company; Published: 2008-10-14; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $8.85
Price in other shops:
Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It to the Revolutionby T. J. English
William Morrow; Published: 2008-06-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $15.49
Price in other shops:
The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Lifeby Alice Schroeder
Bantam; Published: 2008-09-29; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $18.00
Price in other shops:
Gomorrahby Roberto Saviano
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Published: 2007-10-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $16.50
Price in other shops:
Covert: My Years Infiltrating the Mobby Bob Delaney, Dave Scheiber
Union Square Press; Published: 2008-02-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $7.75
Price in other shops:
The Good Rat: A True Storyby Jimmy Breslin
Ecco; Published: 2008-02-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $7.99
Price in other shops:
Kill Bin Laden: A Delta Force Commander's Account of the Hunt for the World's Most Wanted Manby Dalton Fury
St. Martin's Press; Published: 2008-10-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $15.18
Price in other shops:
Gaspipe: Confessions of a Mafia Bossby Philip Carlo
William Morrow; Published: 2008-07-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.99
Price in other shops: