Whitey Bulger: America's Most Wanted Gangster and the Manhunt That Brought Him to Justice

by Kevin Cullen, Shelley Murphy

Overview

"This is the definitive story of Whitey Bulger…a masterwork of reporting." —Michael Connelly, best-selling author of The Wrong Side of Goodbye

A New York Times Bestseller
A #1 Boston Globe Bestseller

An instant classic, this unforgettable narrative, rich with family ties and intrigue, follows the astonishing career of a gangster whose life was more sensational than fiction. Cullen and Murphy have broken more Bulger stories than anyone, and Whitey Bulger became front-page news, revealing the mobster's secret letters written from Plymouth Jail after the sixteen-year manhunt that led to his capture and offering unparalleled insight into his contradictions and complex personality. The afterword covering the results of the dramatic and emotional trial provides a riveting denouement to this "eminently fair and thorough telling of a life, which makes it all the more damning" (Boston Globe).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393240917
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	02/11/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	528
Sales rank:	737,031
File size:	9 MB

About the Author

Kevin Cullen, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has written for the Boston Globe since 1985, was the first to raise questions about Whitey Bulger's relationship with the FBI. A frequent commentator on NPR and the BBC, Cullen has won major journalism prizes including the Goldsmith Prize, the George Polk Award, and the Selden Ring Award.
Shelley Murphy has covered Whitey Bulger and organized crime in Boston since 1985, beginning at the Boston Herald and moving to the Globe in 1993. She has won a George Polk Award for National Reporting.

Table of Contents

Maps ix

Prologue 3

Part 1 The Rise

1 The Lessons of Logan Way 15

2 Stick-up Man 37

3 The University of Alcatraz 49

4 Becoming Untouchable 72

5 Just Don't Clip Anyone 98

6 Southie Is His Hometown 115

Part 2 The Reign

7 A Beautiful Friendship 141

8 Lancaster Street 170

9 Circles Within Circles 181

10 Overreach 210

11 The Wrong Man 241

12 Deep in The Haunty 270

Part 3 The Run

13 A Head Start 307

14 Where's Whitey? 335

15 St. Monica's West 361

16 Uncontrolled Wickedness 383

17 Captured: The Man Without a Country 400

Epilogue 423

Notes 431

Acknowledgments 465

Index 471

Editorial Reviews

If you locked director Martin Scorsese, screenwriter Nick Pileggi and TV producer David Chase in the same room for a month, I doubt they would come up with anything as rich in scope and details as the real-life tale of Whitey Bulger.

The Washington Post - Jeff Greenfield

"Riveting."

The Economist

"Easily the best story about crime I've read."

Jimmy Breslin

"If you locked director Martin Scorsese, screenwriter Nick Pileggi and TV producer David Chase in the same room for a month, I doubt they would come up with anything as rich in scope and details as the real-life tale of Whitey Bulger."

Washington Post - Jeff Greenfield

"A great read…So many terrific, amazing stories."

NPR's Fresh Air - Dave Davies

"This is the definitive story of Whitey Bulger. As much social documentary as riveting crime story, the book is a masterwork of reporting by Cullen and Murphy. I couldn’t put it down."

Michael Connelly

"This is the Whitey Bulger book by the two expert journalists who know the turf best."

Michael Patrick MacDonald

"Whitey Bulger... is as much a social history as a biography or manhunt thriller.... In the same way that J. Anthony Lukas’s Common Ground is essential to understanding Boston’s racial history, Whitey Bulger is an authoritative treatise on the city’s late-20th-century underworld."

Boston Globe - Sean Flynn

"A terrific book…A portrait of its subject in all his complexity."

Los Angeles Times - David Ulin

Cullen and Murphy have made careers of covering Whitey Bulger for the Boston Globe. This sweeping biography—which includes coverage of his 16 years on the lam and his capture in 2011—is an excellent prelude to Bulger's upcoming trial. The scandalous story of the Irish American Winter Hill gang leader is familiar to many. Bulger was an informant for the FBI tasked with helping bring down the Boston mafia. His brother Bill served as Massachusetts State Senate president for several years before becoming president of the University of Massachusetts. (Bill Bulger was forced to resign when news came out that he'd been in contact with Whitey while Whitey was in hiding.) Bulger was given such free rein from his FBI handler, John Connelly (now serving 40 years for murder), that he saw himself as Connelly's partner. Not just the story of Bulger, this is a cautionary tale for how not to work with an informant; the FBI's mishandling seemingly made it easier for Bulger to stay free for so long. VERDICT Highly recommended. Should be very popular.—Karen Sandlin Silverman, Dresden, ME

Library Journal

A well-researched book claiming to be "the first complete and authoritative account" of the life of criminal James "Whitey" Bulger. From his Boston childhood to his current home in a prison cell, Boston Globe reporters Cullen and Murphy follow their subject through every documented moment in his life. Bulger is a true "Southie" character, his name well-known to residents of the mostly Irish neighborhood before gentrification. After starting as a petty juvenile criminal, he moved quickly to auto theft and then bank robbery, landing himself in prison. Bulger even did a stint in Alcatraz before earning enough good-behavior time to end his sentence more than a decade early. When he returned to Boston, the criminal underworld was ripe for the picking; rather than going straight, he went to the top of what some called the Irish mob--with the support of the FBI. The authors can't quite decide if they want to let the story become personal. They work hard to refer to themselves in the third person but make it clear what they think of their subject and his accomplices. Maintaining distance was a mistake, as personalizing their involvement could make the book stronger, with more palpable tension and the consequences of attracting Bulger's attention more real. Still, Bulger's crimes and partnerships are so compelling that the pages almost turn themselves. Moments of insight into his mind make the book sparkle--e.g., the scene when he's finally caught and refuses to kneel. The authors explain, "Whitey's biggest concern, he later said, was that there were oil stains on the garage floor where he was standing." Solid writing, remarkable details and the addition of Bulger's fairly recent capture make this a worthy addition to the literature of the mob.

Kirkus Reviews