Product Overview
This unforgettable narrative follows the astonishing career and epic manhunt for Whitey Bulgera gangster whose life was more sensational than fiction.
Raised in a South Boston housing project, James Whitey Bulger became the most wanted fugitive of his generation. In this riveting story, rich with family ties and intrigue, award-winningBoston Globereporters Kevin Cullen and Shelley Murphy follow Whiteys extraordinary criminal careerfrom teenage thievery to bank robberies to the building of his underworld empire and a string of brutal murders.It was after a nine-year stint in Alcatraz and other prisons that Whitey reunited with his brother William Billy Bulger, who was soon to become one of Massachusettss most powerful politicians. He also became reacquainted with John Connolly, who had grown up around the corner from the Bulgers and was nowwith Billys helpa rising star at the FBI.
Once Whitey emerged triumphant from the bloody Boston gang wars, Connolly recruited him as an informant against the Mafia. Their clandestine relationship made Whitey untouchable; the FBI overlooked gambling, drugs, and even homicide to protect their source. Among the close-knit Irish community in South Boston, nothing was more important than honor and loyalty, and nothing was worse than being a rat. Whitey is charged with the deaths of nineteen people killed over turf, for business, and even for being informants; yet to this day he denies he ever gave up his friends or landed anyone in jail.
Based on exclusive access and previously undisclosed documents, Cullen and Murphy explore the truth of the Whitey Bulger story. They reveal for the first time the extent of his two parallel family lives with different women, as well as his lifelong paranoia stemming in part from his experience in the CIAs MKULTRA program. They describe his support of the IRA and his hitherto-unknown role in the Boston busing crisis, and they show a keen understanding of his mindset while on the lam and behind bars. The result is the first full portrait of this legendary criminal figurea gripping story of wiseguys and cops, horrendous government malfeasance, and a sixteen-year manhunt that climaxed in Whiteys dramatic capture in Santa Monica in June 2011.
16 pages of photographs
