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• Killing the Mob: The Fight Against...

Killing the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime in America

• About the Book

In the 10th book in the multimillion-selling Killing series, Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard take on their most controversial subject yet: The Mob.

KILLING THE MOB is the 10th book in Bill O'Reilly's #1 New York Times bestselling series of popular narrative histories, with sales of nearly 18 million copies worldwide, and over 320 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

O’Reilly and co-author Martin Dugard trace the brutal history of 20th-century organized crime in the United States, and expertly plumb the history of this nation’s most notorious serial robbers, conmen, murderers and mob family bosses. Covering the period from the 1930s to the 1980s, O’Reilly and Dugard trace the prohibition-busting bank robbers of the Depression Era, such as John Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby-Face Nelson. In addition, the authors highlight the creation of the Mafia Commission, the power struggles within the “Five Families,” the growth of the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover, the mob battles to control Cuba, Las Vegas and Hollywood, as well as the personal war between the U.S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy and legendary Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa.

O’Reilly and Dugard turn these legendary criminals and their true-life escapades into a read that rivals the most riveting crime novel. With KILLING THE MOB, their hit series is primed for its greatest success yet.

Killing the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime in America by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard

• Publication Date: September 6, 2022
• Genres: History , Nonfiction , True Crime
• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• ISBN-10: 1250864623
• ISBN-13: 9781250864628

Book review: Latest in O'Reilly's 'Killing' series a brutal history of the Mob

"Killing the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime in America"

Authors: Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard

St. Martin’s Press, 304 pages, $30

“Killing The Mob” is an incredible story beginning in the 1930s about the brutal history of 20th-century organized crime in the United States. A page-turning history with shocks and surprises on every page, it shows how deeply the Mob has influenced every aspect of American politics, entertainment, society and labor.

The prologue opens on March 3, 1934, at Indiana’s Lake County Jail where because of 30-year-old John Dillinger’s notoriety the prosecuting attorney and sheriff in his current court case have a picture taken with their arms around his shoulders.

Chapter 21 details the 1982 testimony of FBI special agent Joseph D. Pistone, aka Donnie Brasco, the Mob’s worst nightmare, in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

For six years Pistone went under deep cover to infiltrate the Bonanno crime family. He could speak fluent Italian and knew when to speak and when to be quiet and could drive a large truck.

The postscript has very interesting information about what happened to some of the people in this book — still alive or deceased. The authors made a point to present the facts but to also note opposite theories if the details are too vague to support one viewpoint or another.

Due to the extreme violence depicted in horrific detail, this book is not for younger readers.

Richard Moore lives in Orange Park.

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Killing the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime in America Audio CD – Unabridged, May 4 2021

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In the tenth audiobook in the multimillion-selling Killing series, Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard take on their most controversial subject yet: The Mob. Killing the Mob is the tenth audiobook in Bill O'Reilly's #1 New York Times bestselling series of popular narrative histories, with sales of nearly 18 million copies worldwide, and over 320 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. O’Reilly and co-author Martin Dugard trace the brutal history of 20th Century organized crime in the United States, and expertly plumb the history of this nation’s most notorious serial robbers, conmen, murderers, and especially, mob family bosses. Covering the period from the 1930s to the 1980s, O’Reilly and Dugard trace the prohibition-busting bank robbers of the Depression Era, such as John Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby-Face Nelson. In addition, the authors highlight the creation of the Mafia Commission, the power struggles within the “Five Families,” the growth of the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover, the mob battles to control Cuba, Las Vegas and Hollywood, as well as the personal war between the U.S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy and legendary Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa. O’Reilly and Dugard turn these legendary criminals and their true-life escapades into a listen that rivals the most riveting crime novel. With Killing the Mob , their hit series is primed for its greatest success yet. A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

• Language English
• Publisher Macmillan Audio
• Publication date May 4 2021
• Dimensions 13.06 x 2.69 x 15.16 cm
• ISBN-10 1250781310
• ISBN-13 978-1250781314
• See all details

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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Macmillan Audio; Unabridged edition (May 4 2021)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250781310
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250781314
• Item weight ‏ : ‎ 249 g
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.06 x 2.69 x 15.16 cm
• #110 in Gang Violence
• #355 in Law Enforcement Biographies & Memoirs
• #477 in Organised Crime Biographies

About the authors

Martin dugard.

Martin Dugard is the New York Times #1 bestselling author of the Taking Series — including Taking Berlin (2022) and Taking Paris (2021).

He is also the co-author of the mega-million selling Killing series: Killing Lincoln, Killing Kennedy, Killing Jesus, Killing Patton, Killing Reagan, Killing England, Killing the Rising Sun, Killing the SS, Killing Crazy Horse, and Killing the Mob.

Other works include the New York Times bestseller The Murder of King Tut (with James Patterson; Little, Brown, 2009); The Last Voyage of Columbus (Little, Brown, 2005); Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone (Doubleday, 2003), Farther Than Any Man: The Rise and Fall of Captain James Cook (Pocket Books, 2001), Knockdown (Pocket Books, 1999), and Surviving the Toughest Race on Earth (McGraw-Hill, 1998). In addition, Martin lived on the island of Pulau Tiga during the filming of Survivor's inaugural season to write the bestselling Survivor with mega-producer Mark Burnett.

Bill O'Reilly

Bill O'Reilly is a trailblazing TV journalist who has experienced unprecedented success on cable news and in writing fifteen national number-one bestselling nonfiction books. There are currently more than 17 million books in the Killing series in print. He currently hosts the ‘No Spin News’ on BillOReilly.com. He lives on Long Island.

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Killing the Mob: The Fight Against Organized Crime in America

(part of the bill o'reilly's killing series series and bill o’reilly’s killing series (#10) series ).

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5 Biggest Mistakes in Bill O'Reilly's "Killing" Series

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With nearly 8 million copies of his Killing series ( Killing Lincoln , Killing Jesus , Killing Kennedy , Killing Patton , Killing Reagan , and Killing the Rising Sun ) sold, there’s no denying that Bill O’Reilly has a knack for getting folks to read about subjects they probably slept through in high school.

Unfortunately, O’Reilly has also garnered a reputation for sloppy writing and a lack of fact-checking in his book, co-written with Martin Dugard . While the mistakes, which range from the minor (referring to Ronald Reagan as “Ron Jr.,” or using the word “furls” when he meant “furrows”) to the sort listed below, haven’t slowed down his book sales, they have hurt his legacy as the thinking man’s conservative. What’s worse is that most of these mistakes could have been easily avoided with just a bit more due diligence. One would think that with his sales O’Reilly could afford a few serious scholars to review his work, but over the course of his books, O’Reilly has offered up some howlers—and these are the five most egregious.

Taking the Romans' Word

O’Reilly is nothing if not unpredictable. Not only does he occasionally surprise viewers of his show with admittances of error or even unexpectedly liberal views, but he also has demonstrated a distinct talent for finding the unexpected choices. His book Killing Jesus is a prime example: No one else would have thought of investigating Jesus’ death as if it was an episode of CSI: Bible Studies . There’s so much we don’t know about Jesus and his life, making it a brilliant choice for subject matter.

The problem isn’t with the choice of Jesus—even non-Christians might find a figure who had such a profound impact on history interesting to read about—it’s with O’Reilly’s simplistic acceptance of Roman historians at their word. Anyone with even the briefest exposure to actual historical study knows that Roman historians were usually more like gossip columnists than scholars. They often crafted their “histories” in order to impugn or elevate dead emperors, to prosecute revenge campaigns sponsored by rich patrons, or to propagandize Rome’s greatness. O’Reilly often simply repeats what these dubious sources wrote, with no indication he understands the complexities involved in confirming the information within.

Going Sensational

O’Reilly also often chooses to report sensational details as fact without checking too hard, sort of the way your drunk uncle will repeat things he heard on TV as pure fact without checking into it.

Killing Lincoln reads like a thriller, and O’Reilly really does manage to make one of the most familiar crimes in American history seem exciting and interesting—but often at the expense of numerous small facts. One pretty big mistake though is in his depiction of Mary Surratt , a co-conspirator with John Wilkes Boothe in the assassination, and famously the first woman to be executed in the United States. O’Reilly claims in the book that Surratt was treated abominably, forced to wear a padded hood that marked her face and drove her insane from claustrophobia, and that she was chained up in a cell on board a ship, all while intimating that she was falsely accused. This misstatement of facts is used to support O’Reilly’s vague insinuations that Lincoln’s assassination was in part countenanced if not planned by forces within his own government—something else never proved.

The Oval Office

Also in Killing Lincoln , O’Reilly undermines his whole argument that he’s a learned historian with one of those mistakes people who haven’t actually read an original source often make: He repeatedly refers to Lincoln holding meetings in the “Oval Office.” The only problem is that the Oval Office didn’t exist until the Taft Administration built it in 1909, nearly fifty years after Lincoln’s death.

The 25th Amendment

O’Reilly really tears into thriller territory again with Killing Reagan , which speculates—largely without evidence—that Ronald Reagan never truly recovered from his near-death after the attempted assassination in 1981 . O’Reilly offers plenty of anecdotal evidence that Reagan’s capacity was sharply diminished—and claims pretty brazenly that many in his administration contemplated invoking the 25 th Amendment, which allows for the removal of a president who has become unfit or infirm. Not only is there zero evidence this happened, but many members of Reagan’s inner circle and White House staff have also stated it is simply not true.

Killing Patton

Perhaps the oddest conspiracy theory that O’Reilly passes off as fact comes in Killing Patton , where O’Reilly makes a case that General Patton, widely regarded as a military genius at least in part responsible for the success of the invasion of German-occupied Europe at the end of World War II , was assassinated.

O’Reilly’s theory is that Patton—who wanted to continue fighting after Germany surrendered because he saw in the Soviet Union an even bigger threat—was killed by Joseph Stalin. According to O’Reilly (and literally no one else), Patton was going to convince President Truman and the U.S. Congress to reject the cozy peace that eventually allowed the U.S.S.R. to set up its “Iron Curtain” of client states, and Stalin had him killed to stop this from happening.

Of course, Patton had been in a car wreck, was paralyzed, and none of his doctors was at all surprised when he passed away in his sleep a few days later. There’s absolutely no reason to think he was murdered—or that the Russians, even if they were worried about his intentions, would feel the need to when he was clearly on death’s door.

Grain of Salt

Bill O’Reilly writes exciting, fun books that make history fun for a lot of folks who aren’t otherwise captivated by it. But you should always take what he writes with a grain of salt—and do your own research.

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Killing the Mob Summary

1-Sentence-Summary: Killing the Mob discusses a controversial topic – the mob, by outlining how the organized crime took place in America during the twentieth century, how conmen, robbers, murderers, and many others lived their lives, and how many organizations and rich families kept their power centralized.

Favorite quote from the author: 

Mafia and organized crime can sometimes become so powerful that they start to resemble day-to-day institutions. So many people join their movements, directly and indirectly. That they not only get away with their crimes but become symbols and gain worldwide fame. Throughout history, many characters fit this description: Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, and Lucky Luciano to name just a few.

Despite remarkable efforts to eradicate the mafia, governments worldwide often failed terribly in doing so. Therefore, they’d start cooperating with them in exchange for peace. The downside of this toxic relationship is that it often led to corruption between the intermediary bodies, the authorities, and other entities that were supposed to fight the mob.

J. Edgar Hoover was one of those appointed to fight crime. This authoritarian leader was a fearful force in America. His achievements remain remarkable, as he was responsible for creating the FBI’s blacklist, catching Bonnie and Clyde, Lucky Luciano, and many others. However, he had a secret side, one that we’ll learn about more later.

Here are my three favorite lessons from the book:

• The mafia was engaged in anything that could make them money.
• John Edgar Hoover was, in fact, fighting two battles.
• The passion for law helped an ordinary officer to uncover the American mafia.

The fight between good and evil compiles many details and lessons for us. Let’s explore them!

If you want to save this summary for later, download the free PDF and read it whenever you want.

Lesson 1: For the mafia, cash inflow was their number one priority .

It’s no secret that the mafia is engaged in all kinds of activities, especially those that produce large inflows of cash. In Sicily, the mob took over people’s lives and the economy for generations, until fascists under the rule of Benito Mussolini chased them away to New York. 

The government was cornered, so they had to cooperate with them in exchange for peace. Therefore, the criminal organization conducted by Lucky Luciano kept their economic activities in the port going. Another industry that sparked their attention was Hollywood. 

Seeing that Jewish Eastern Europeans had talent when it comes to creating movies, but no money to produce them, they saw an opportunity. They would lend the needed cash and then take the profits. 

Sometimes they would even step in and give indications to the staff. Oftentimes, the heads of the mob would gather around to discuss how they can take their criminal enterprise international. Usually, these actions included drug trafficking and covering their actions in suspicious ways. 

On the other hand, conmen and thieves who were conducting crimes on their own were usually involved in bank robberies, breaking into people’s homes, and stealing cars. Needless to say, criminals will engage in everything that produces their money.

Lesson 2: The secret battle of J. Hoover took place behind the scenes .

Well-renowned for his remarkable endeavors, J. Edgar Hoover was living a secret life behind the curtains. Unfortunately, this situation interfered too much with his professional life. To the point that he was doing a poor job of acknowledging and fighting the mafia. 

So what was his mysterious secret? According to the tales of the time, Hoover was seeing his second in command, Clyde Tolson. 

More than that, he was blackmailed by the mafia, who knew all about it and even had evidence that could be easily leaked to the public. Considering the homophobic society of that time, this could’ve ended Hoover’s career, so he was doing everything in his power to hide his secret, including hiding the mafia’s secret operations.

Indeed, he was fighting individual conmen, robbers, and other criminals, but he publicly denied the existence of an organized criminal enterprise multiple times. Even though many people came forward by sending letters to the government to beg for public assistance, Hoover was in public denial. 

The US Senate Committee even managed to subpoena hundreds of mobsters and their victims to conduct a public hearing. As it was televised, and the public eye could see the opulence of the mobs in contrast with the lives of their victims, you’d think that there was no way Hoover could keep his eyes closed to the situation. Surprisingly, he was still denying it, but not for too long.

Lesson 3: Crosswell’s passion for justice helped him catch 60 Mafiosi in one night .

Edgar Dewitt Crosswell was no renowned policeman . In fact, he was a simple man with a passion for law, living in Apalachin, a small town in New York state. However, one thing was very clear to him. That was his desire to catch Joseph Barbara, a mafia head who owned a high-end villa in the city.

Crosswell was truly intrigued by the thought of catching Barbara. So he would spend nights at the office for years just to put together ideas and strategies. One night, he had a brilliant thought, as he noticed that Barbara ordered luxurious food and booked top-tier rooms for the date of November 14th.  

At that point, it was clear that the mafia boss was throwing a party, or a gathering of mafia leaders. Clearly, Crosswell was right. That night he ordered policemen in the area to surround the villa and wait for the Mafiosi. As they were discussing ways of taking their operations international and expanding into the textile industry, they had no idea of what was about to happen to them.

When they learned that they were being surrounded, they started to run off into the woods. The policemen were better prepared, so they managed to catch and detain 60 of them. The successful operation was all over the news the next day. WhenHoover found out all about it, there was no way for him to deny the existence of organized crime done by the Mafiosi.

Killing the Mob Review

Killing the Mob is a great read for those who like to learn more about the hidden gems in traditional history. Not only does it explore the facts and historical side of the mafia in the twentieth century, but it also delves into the personal lives of characters such as J. Edgar Hoover, or criminals like Bonnie and Clyde. 

Therefore, the book manages to balance intrigue and history. This is in a way that captures the reader’s attention while leaving one wanting more.

Who would I recommend Killing the Mob summary to?

The 60-year-old who is passionate about the history of the FBI and the mafia of the twentieth century. The 20-year-old history student who wants to deepen their knowledge on these topics. Or the 40-year-old policeman who has a passion for law.

Last Updated on November 3, 2022

While working with my friend Ovi's company SocialBee, I had the good fortune of Maria writing over 200 summaries for us over the course of 18 months. Maria is a professional SEO copywriter, content writer, and social media marketing specialist. When she's not writing or learning more about marketing, she loves to dance and travel all over the world.

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