The Sopranos<\/em>, becoming one of the most notorious professional assassins in American History whilst hosting neighbourhood barbecues in suburban New Jersey.<\/p>\nKuklinski was Sammy \u2018the Bull\u2019 Gravano\u2019s partner in the killing of Paul Castellano. John Gotti hired him to kill his neighbour and he was intimately involved in the killing of Jimmy Hoffa. He conducted his sadistic business with cold-hearted intensity, never disappointing his customers. For an additional price, he would make his victims suffer. By his own estimate, he killed over 200 men, taking enormous pride in his cunning and ferocity of his technique.<\/p>\n
The Ice Man is a bone-chilling insight into the mind of one of the world\u2019s most prolific serial killers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thoughts<\/h2>\n
I think the first thing that I have to mention is this book is extremely violent and absolutely isn\u2019t for the faint-hearted. This becomes apparent in the introductory chapter which describes Richard taking one of his victims to some caves inhabited by rats in Bucks County and leaving him there tied up and naked for the rats to feast on. Indeed this is just one very violent episode and the book has plenty of gory moments that I struggled to read through.<\/p>\n
The book then takes us on a biography of Richard\u2019s life, from his upbringing in an abusive household in one of the projects of New Jersey (America\u2019s equivalent of the UK\u2019s council houses). His father Stanley regularly beat him and his older brother Florian, killing his brother when Richard was five. Meanwhile his mother Anna, was largely indifferent to him and spent much of her time praying and not looking after her son. Anna had two more children with Stanley, Richard\u2019s sister Roberta and another son, Joseph before Stanley largely disappeared. Richard turned to a life of crime, initially theft to get food for his siblings to eat, however he enjoyed reading true crime magazines and was regularly bullied on his estate.<\/p>\n
One day Richard confronted one of his bullies, Charley Lane with a pipe and in a rage beat him to death. Richard disposed of and hid the body but from then on a switch changed and he became more and more involved with murder, killing people both for hire and also whenever he felt someone had \u201cwronged\u201d him.<\/p>\n
I did find the book very entertaining and gripping and couldn\u2019t put it down as you wanted to find out what happened next in Richard\u2019s life and also how it eventually all came crashing down when a young detective, Pat Kane, managed to piece together seemingly unrelated murders committed by Richard to create a full picture of a violent serial killer.<\/p>\n
The book does try to present Richard in a nuanced way and I think does a pretty job of presenting him as a somewhat complicated man. On the one hand he was capable of extraordinary acts of violence, yet he couldn\u2019t stand bullies or harmed women or children which the book places a lot of emphasis on, even rescuing some children who had seemingly been trafficked by one of his associates, however the levels of violence he was capable of I think makes it pretty clear that he was beyond redemption.<\/p>\n
In writing this review I have also read some other reviews. I\u2019m not very familiar with Richard\u2019s story but a number of reviews have mentioned embellishments and inaccuracies in this book although I couldn\u2019t find specific examples but I have knocked a point off this as people who enjoy reading about the Mafia might have come across this inaccuracies. If anyone knows more about these I would love to know more in the comments down below.<\/p>\n
However for a gripping but extremely violent read and introduction to the world of Mafiadom in America this is a very interesting start but be warned that it isn\u2019t for the faint of heart.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n