The Westies: Inside New York's Irish Mob / T. J. English

From T. J. English, the New York Times bestselling author of The Corporation: An Epic Story of the Cuban American Underworld, The Westies: Inside New York’s Irish Mob is the true account of the vicious gang that ruled Hell’s Kitchen from the 1960s through the 1980s.

Even among the Mob, the Westies were feared. Starting with a partnership between two sadistic thugs, Jimmy Coonan and Mickey Featherstone, the gang rose out of the inferno of Hell’s Kitchen, a decaying tenderloin slice of New York City’s West Side. They became the most notorious gang in the history of organized crime, excelling in extortion, numbers running, loan sharking, and drug peddling. Upping the ante on depravity, their specialty was execution by dismemberment. Though never numbering more than a dozen members, their reign lasted for almost twenty years―until their own violent natures got the best of them, precipitating a downfall that would become as infamous as their ascension into the annals of crime.

This revised and updated chronicle of the Westies served as the basis of the crime film State of Grace, starring Sean Penn, Ed Harris, and Gary Oldman.