The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer

Product Description

Philip Carlo’s The Ice Man spent over six weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List. Top Mob Hitman. Devoted Family Man. Doting Father. For thirty years, Richard “The Iceman” Kuklinski led a shocking double life, becoming the most notorious professional assassin in American history while happily hosting neighborhood barbecues in suburban New Jersey. Richard Kuklinski was Sammy the Bull Gravano’s partner in the killing of Paul Castellano, then head of the Gambino crime family, at Sparks Steakhouse. Mob boss John Gotti hired him to torture and kill the neighbor who accidentally ran over his child. For an additional price, Kuklinski would make his victims suffer; he conducted this sadistic business with coldhearted intensity and shocking efficiency, never disappointing his customers. By his own estimate, he killed over two hundred men, taking enormous pride in his variety and ferocity of technique.This trail of murder lasted over thirty years and took Kuklinski all over America and to the far corners of the earth, Brazil, Africa, and Europe. Along the way, he married, had three children, and put them through Catholic school. His daughter’s medical condition meant regular stays in children’s hospitals, where Kuklinski was remembered, not as a gangster, but as an affectionate father, extremely kind to children. Each Christmas found the Kuklinski home festooned in colorful lights; each summer was a succession of block parties. His family never suspected a thing.Richard Kuklinski is now the subject of the major motion picture titled “The Iceman”(2013), starring James Franco, Winona Ryder, Ray Liotta, and Chris Evans.

Review

“Carlo effectively tells the life story of the family man who spent thirty years as a professional killer, while hosting barbecues in suburban New Jersey.” ―New York Post“This is a work written like a novel . . . highly recommended.” ―Library Journal“We’ve all read novelists and true crime writers who try to put you inside the mind of the serial killer, but I can’t remember one that succeeded with the physical and psychological intimacy of this collaboration between the writer and the killer himself.” ―John Strausbausch, New York Press, on The Night Stalker“An exceptionally well-told true crime tale.” ―Publishers Weekly on The Night Stalker

About the Author

Philip Carlo was the author of
The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer, his
New York Times bestselling book about Richard “Ice Man” Kuklinski, murderer of 200 people and a favorite among all seven of the East Coast crime families. He was also the author of
Gaspipe,
The Butcher, and
The Night Stalker, which chronicles the brutal career of serial killer Richard Ramirez. Carlo grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, amidst the world’s highest concentration of Mafia members. When he was 16, Carlo was shot in the head in a gang war, and while recuperating, he read voraciously, discovering the magic of books for the first time. His intimate knowledge of Mafia culture―their walk and their talk―helped Carlo become a successful crime writer. He died in 2010 from ALS.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1At the turn of the twentieth century, Jersey City, New Jersey, the place where Richard Kuklinski was born and raised, was a bustling Polish enclave. Because of its many Polish Catholic churches and an abundance of blue-collar work, Polish immigrants flocked to Jersey City in large numbers.The Lackawanna, Erie, Pennsylvania, and Central railroad companies all had bases in Jersey City. Trains from across the United States brought all kinds of produce to the East Coast of America, and this was the final stop. Sprawling rail yards filled the area. Rail tracks ran on just about every other street. Jersey City’s main thoroughfare, Railroad Avenue, had a trestle running right down the center of the wide two-way street. Powerful black locomotives pulling long rust-colored trains to the waterfront were the nor