Genovese, Gambino, Bonnano, Colombo, and Lucchese. For decades these Five Family members ruled NY and constructed the American Mafia (or Cosa Nostra) into an underworld empire. Today, the Mafia can be an endangered varieties, battered and beleaguered by intense investigators, incompetent leadership, betrayals, and generational adjustments that produced violent, unreliable leaders and recruits. A twenty-year assault against the five households in particular blossomed in to the most effective law enforcement campaign of the last century.

Selwyn Raab’s Five Households is the brilliant story of the rise and fall of New York’s premier dons, from Lucky Luciano to Paul Castellano to John Gotti and more. The publication also brings the listener right up to the feasible resurgence from the Mafia as the FBI and regional law enforcement organizations turn their focus on homeland security and from organized crime.