Family Secrets: The Case That Crippled the Chicago Mob (Chicago Review Press), by Jeff Coen

The threat of being killed at any time, regardless of your best precautions, helped the bosses of Chicago's underworld keep the mob in line-at least before the 2000s, back when the Outfit "was a ruthless organization of extraordinary reach." So says Chicago Tribune crime reporter Jeff Coen, recalling a time in America when much of urban life was under the sway of organized crime, virtually a shadow government collecting taxes, granting loans and providing protection. Drawing from court transcripts as well as his own reporting, Coen reconstructs how Chicago's Outfit unraveled when the son of its don offered to cooperate with the feds. Like a true-life "Sopranos," complete with life-and-death drama, Family Secrets is a story of crime, corruption and the subterranean streams of money that built fortunes and sucked life from entire sectors of society.