Jimmy Breslin
New York cops Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa killed at least eight people for the Mafia. The murders were at the behest of Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso, an underboss in the Luchese crime family. The go-between between the cops and the mob was drug dealer Burt Kaplan, who, being Jewish, was ineligible for Mafia membership but was intimately involved in mob life. Kaplan testified against the cops at their trial in 2005 and 2006 and is the “good rat” of the book’s title.
“The Good Rat” is a beautifully-written account of a sordid story. Breslin combines the columnist’s mastery of detail with a cinematic selection of scenes. The result is an allusive book made up of precisely-rendered incidents. There are probably more detailed or more analytical books on the “killer cops”, but there can’t be any that are more pleasurable to read.
Update: I encourage readers to look at the comment below and follow the link. The comment writer questions Breslin’s veracity and journalistic ethics: something I’m not qualified to judge. Breslin’s book is impressionistic and well-written, but is it accurate, does it give the whole picture, is it even fair to the people whose lives were ruined by Casso, Eppolito. Caracappa, and Kaplan? It makes me wonder if “a beautifully-written account of a sordid story” can be a form of pornography.
July 17th, 2008 at 11:00 am
This book, while “well written”, has some crucial mistakes. In particular the short paragraph descrtibing the circumstances of the murder of the mafia cops first victim Israel Greenwald. This tragic, horrendous cold-blooded act was on behest of Kaplan “the good rat” alone and was done so out of his own paranoia that Greenwald could possibly cooperate with the FBI and get Kaplan in trouble. Kaplan never met Israel Greenwald and the story behind how Israel even got involved at all is even more complicated. You can learn more at israelgreenwald.com. In a nutshell, Jimmy Breslin commited a huge injustice to the memory of Israel Greenwald who was an innocent victim in this whole sordid tale. And the “good rat” is really a murderer, as much as the aofia cops are.