For the Sins of My Father: A Mafia Killer, His Son, and the Legacy of a Mob Life

by Albert Demeo and Albert De Meo

Book Overview

A suspenseful, emotionally charged real-life Sopranos: The son of New York's most notorious Mafia killer reveals the conflicted life he led being raised by a cold-blooded murderer, who was also a devoted family man, and the wrenching legacy of Mafia family life.

Al DeMeo will never forget the day in 1992 when a coworker, a fellow trader at the New York Stock Exchange, taunted him with a copy of the hot new book Murder Machine, chronicling the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0767906896
• ISBN13: 9780767906890
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Very Good

I know I might be breaking omerta but, this is in my top ten books about the mob. Talks about the Demao crew from a different point of view . I recommend this if you into the mob genre.

A journey into one young man's Heart of Darkness

I bought this book on the spur of the moment. It was in the sale and I thought, "What the heck, I've nothing else to read tonight!"The author Albert DeMeo pulls no punches as he chronicles not only his father's life, the Mobster Roy DeMeo and his steady rise to power in the Mafia in New York but also his own involvement from the tender age of five in a world that was seductively charming as it was dangerous. "For the Sins of my Father" is a brutal, candid, violent, tender portrayal of a life in a huge glass bubble in which escape is not an option for anyone.However Albert DeMeo is not an apologist for his father's actions, rather he pulls the reader in a world in which corruption is at the heart of everything. Just as you can't feel sorry Roy DeMeo for the choices he made in his life you also cannot feel anything for the Police, the FBI, the Government, the Court system because they were often as corrupt as the people they claimed they were trying to bring to justice.Albert's father knew many people and many considered themselves law abiding whilst at the same time asking and getting favours from the Mafia Capo who was their "neighbour" and "friend".In one chapter the young Albert helps his father's "crew" to work out how wipe clean some audio tapes that could send one of their members to jail; magnets the child tells them men can wipe clean magnetic tapes of all their contents. It is a corrupt police officer who puts a magnet next to the audio tapes so that they will be blank when they are played in court.It is also to Mafia owned drinking dens that many court officials, police officers and other city officials attend to drink, buy drugs and enjoy the company of Prostitutes. Roy DeMeo's murder in the early 1980s is a brutal wake up call for the teenage Albert and hounded by both the Mafia who want his silence and the FBI wanting him to turn State's evidence, Albert somehow manages to salvage his life out of the wreckage of violence his father has left behind.This is not a fairy tale, there is certainly no happy ending but Albert DeMeo is living proof that you can walk a way from organised crime and go on to live a legitimate life, all it takes is a lot of courage, the memory of how your father, a man you loved beyond all words, died in a hail of bullets, murdered by the very people who were supposed to be his friends and associates.This book is very different from the gratuitous Best Seller "The Murder Machine" which demonises Albert's father; this is a book that puts a life into perspective, warts and all. Violence, car crime, prostitution, gambling, protection rackets, corrupt officials, loan sharking, pornography are put on display and it is left up to the reader to judge where the line between right and wrong lies.There is no moving away from the fact that Roy DeMeo was a murderer, a Mafia Capo and a man with a criminal mind, but the world he worked in was a world providing services and commodities that people wanted and even the law wa

I couldn't put it down--the story rings true to me.

I couldn't put this book down as I rooted for Al all the way through. However, I think this book will be much more appreciated if you read MURDER MACHINE first. Al DeMeo describes his childhood as the only son of a high ranking mobster, and the double life he led as a kid at school and a wiseguy in training. I admire him for surviving all he describes and becoming a man of whom his father surely would have been proud. I wish him every success and happiness.

a very sad case

as a father i couldnt even imagine doing what roy demeo did to his son al,by involving such a young boy in such things,and basically taking his childhood away,and from a sons view,al really loved his father and no child should have to go through with what al had to do.this book really shows al truly suffered most of his adult life,i only hope he can start a new life for himself and someday be a great father since he is only 37.good luck al i hope you find peace,you deserve it...

For the sins of my father

Great Book! Keep's you reading until it's done. I had seen the review put out by "Concerned Citizen" and had to laugh. Does he think the writer of the "Murder Machine" had all the right answers to all that went on with Roy DeMeo? I guess no-one person has all the answers but I am open minded enough to hear all the perspectives. Albert had first hand knowledge of the events and was trying to write a human interest story and not a crime novel. Did Al get rich off the blood money? could have,but no amount of money will bring back a lost parent, fix a failed marriage or give back the years he has lost to depression. Read this book, it will give anyone more humility.