The Mayfair Mafia: The Lives and Crimes of the Messina Brothers

It is a little known fact that one immigrant Italian family ran London’s thriving vice trade unchecked from the mid-1930s for some twenty years.

The five Messina brothers imported prostitutes from the Continent on an industrial scale, acquiring the women British citizenship by phony marriages. Demanding 80% of earnings, the Messina family became fabulously wealthy, purchasing expensive properties, cars and influence.

As this revealing and absorbing account describes, the brothers ruled with a...