Surviving the Mob A Street Soldier's Life Inside the Gambino Crime Family

What do you do when the law wants you behind bars and the New York crime families want you buried? That was the life-and-death dilemma confronting Andrew DiDonato, who began his criminal career at age 14 under the watchful eyes of the local mob. He learned early that on the streets, you could either be a predator or prey, and he chose to steal cars, shake down drug dealers, and use his fists to impose his will. By the time he was 17, the infamous Gambino family made DiDonato an associate of the Nicholas Corozzo crew. For the next 14 years, he was a loyal street soldier. But by 1996, DiDonato had run afoul of both the law and his friends, turning him into a hunted man on two fronts. After 17 months on the run, the law caught him first. Surviving the Mob is a cautionary tale of the harsh reality of a criminal, inmate, fugitive, and witness who-so far-has lived to tell the tale.

In 1994, Dennis N. Griffin retired after a 20-year career in investigations and law enforcement in New York and moved to Las Vegas. In 1996 he wrote his first novel, The Morgue, based on an actual case he investigated, and currently has six mystery thrillers in print in addition to four non-fiction titles for Huntington Press: Policing Las Vegas, The Battle for Las Vegas, Cullotta, and Surviving the Mob. He is an active member of the Mystery Writers of America, Las Vegas Valley Writers Group, Henderson Writers Group, and the Police Writers Association and is a consultant and frequent on-screen contributor to documentaries and films about the history of the Mob.

Growing up in Brooklyn, in a house wedged between two Mafia social clubs, Andrew DiDonato was pretty much destined to become a gangster. Barely a teenager when he started stealing car parts, selling marijuana, and shaking down competing dealers, DiDonato spent 15 years rising up through the ranks of the Gambino crime family. But at age 31, he robbed the wrong drug dealer and found himself running from both the cops and—far more dangerously—his former mob “family.” So, for the sake of his actual family and his own life, DiDonato decided to turn snitch and spill the beans on one of the Cosa Nostra’s most notorious organized-crime dynasties.