First published 2016
Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran sits across from author Charles Brandt, ready to break decades of silence. The first time Jimmy Hoffa spoke to him, the union boss said, "I heard you paint houses." Painting houses means killing people. The paint is blood on walls and floors. Over five years of recorded conversations, Sheeran admits he carried out more than twenty-five murders for the mob and for Hoffa himself. He learned to kill during 411 days of combat in World War II Italy. Back home, he worked as a hustler and assassin for crime boss Russell Bufalino. He rose so high that prosecutor Rudy Giuliani named him one of only two non-Italians among twenty-six top mob figures. When Bufalino ordered him to murder his friend Hoffa, Sheeran pulled the trigger. He knew refusal meant his own death. The confessions reveal new details about Joey Gallo's assassination and JFK's murder, exposing secrets from a dark chapter of American crime.
Genres: historical-fiction, 20th-century, crime, non-fiction, biography-memoir, american-history
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, suspenseful
Tropes: confession, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Italy, United States
Period: World War II, 20th Century
366 pages · Paperback · Steerforth
Content warnings: murder, violence