Monday, February 01, 2021

Review: The Life and Times of Frank Balistrieri: The Last, Most Powerful Godfather of Milwaukee

The Life and Times of Frank Balistrieri: The Last, Most Powerful Godfather of Milwaukee The Life and Times of Frank Balistrieri: The Last, Most Powerful Godfather of Milwaukee by Wayne Clingman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was meticulously researched on the one hand, but seemed to be lacking so much on the other. At one point the author(s) point out that obtaining some documents via the FOI act would take too long so they didn't' do so (granted, this was ancillary to Balistrieri, but could have still helped a bit). Also there seems to be no mention of his sons. Wikipedia says they were quite involved and, in fact, were arrested along with him. There is no mention of any of this in the book. 

It is also interesting that, after Balistrieri's death, his son, then his brother, then his consigliere, all became bosses of the Milwaukee Mafia. Of course, this may be because there weren't that many people in this faction to begin with. Unfortunately none of this was addressed in the book either (I got it from Wikipedia again). 

Also, apparently Frank Balistrieri's daughter is suing her brothers and sister for part of the family fortune (again, not mentioned in the book): https://www.milwaukeemag.com/DaughteroftheDon/


Don't get me wrong. There was plenty of information in this book. Especially interesting were the section on Skimming, Rosenthal's car bombing, and the killing of Sam Cesario.

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