Homicide Is My Business: Luigi the Zip--A Hitman's Quest for Honor

by Michael Vecchione, Jerry Schmetterer

Overview

The story of Luigi Ronsisvalle is an intimate look at the life of a professional killer. It is, in some ways, the story of all workingmen and women with ambition who never achieve their ultimate goal. But what makes Luigi unique is that, for him to achieve his goal, people had to die. His ambition, from when he was 12 years old, was to be a made man in the Mafia. He once told a presidential commission, "American child falls in love with baseball, I fall in love with Mafia."

Co-author Michael Vecchione spent months interviewing the hitman about his life in the Sicilian and American Mafia, finally becoming his confidant. Those days, weeks, and months together brought Luigi to realize that, despite the concept of omertà—the code of silence ingrained in him from an early age—the road to a truly honorable life meant turning on those he once admired.

Luigi had done everything asked of him by his Mafia bosses. This included the murder of 13 people. But unlike other hitmen, whose stories have been told in the pages of bestsellers and on movie screens, Luigi was denied the Mafia recognition he felt he deserved. Drawing on personal files, handwritten notes, and official sources, this book attempts to explain his complicated life.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940185596623
Publisher:	Camino Books, Incorporated
Publication date:	10/18/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	842,805
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Michael Vecchione has been an attorney for over 48 years. For 30 of those years, he was a prosecutor in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. He served as Chief of Homicide, Chief of Trials and to top off his career, he spent the last 13 years as Chief of the Rackets Division. His duties included prosecuting Mafia figures, crooked judges, corrupt politicians, and corrupt lawmen. He has served as an administrative law judge for four New York City agencies; taught university level courses on organized crime; and was an adjunct professor of law in three New York law schools. He is a frequent contributor to documentaries, television news shows, radio shows and podcasts. He has been a technical advisor for movies and TV shows where organized crime was the subject. Vecchione has co-authored with Jerry Schmetterer: Crooked Brooklyn: Taking Down Corrupt Judges, Dirty Politicians, Killers and Body Snatchers (St. Martin’s, 2015), and Behind the Murder Curtain, Nurses Who Kill Our Veterans (Post Hill, 2018). He also co-authored Friends of the Family: The Inside Story of the Mafia Cops Case (HarperCollins, 2009.) He lives in Long Island City, NY.

Jerry Schmetterer was a veteran print and broadcast journalist and prolific author. He was a former Police Bureau Chief and City Editor for the New York Daily News. He also served as City Editor for the New York Post. In television he was Managing Editor for CNN and WPIX-TV in New York City. He was the past president and longtime member of the New York Press Club. From 2011 until he retired in 2013, he was the head of public information and chief spokesman for the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. He also taught communications at New York University. Schmetterer was co-author of The Coffey Files (St. Martin’s, 1992), The King of Clubs (Barricade Books, 1996), and E-Man (Landmark Books, 2006.) He lived in Manhattan, NY with his wife Emily until he passed away in 2021 after a long illness.

Editorial Reviews

"Homicide is My Business is an insider's look into the life of a Mafia hitman by the prosecutor who flipped him. You won't be disappointed."
—Nicholas Pileggi (New York Times Bestselling Author of Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family and Casino)

New York Times Bestselling Author of Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family and Casino - Nicholas Pileggi

"Murder was his business... and for years, the mob used [Luigi] as a lethal gun for hire, yet denied him the honor of membership. In the capable hands of Vecchione, the prosecutor who turned him, he became a different kind of "man of honor": one of the greatest government informants of all time. In Homicide is My Business, his story becomes a must-read true crime thriller. From the mean streets of Brooklyn's mob wars, it is well worth the journey to a place of honor on your bookshelf."

Deputy Commissioner, New York City Police Department - Richard Esposito