Kill the Irishman

Book excerpt: Be sure to see Kill the Irishman—the major motion picture based on Rick Porrello’s true-crime masterpiece! A modern warrior known as Greene Was very quick and smart, and mean. He scrambled hard and fought like hell, And led a charmed existence. They shot him down and blew him up With most regular persistence. —From The Ballad of Danny Greene Clevelan d, the 1970s: A fearless Irishman boldly muscles in on the Italian-American Mafia—intrepid, charismatic, shrewd, cunning, and armed with a master plan to take over the rackets under the auspices of the Irish banner of which he was so fiercely proud. His name is Greene, his signature color is green, and with his Irish luck for surviving bungled mob attempts on his life, he is seemingly indestructible. In the end, the war with Danny Greene—and his ultimate murder—severely crippled the Italian stranglehold on organized crime, with historic repercussions that outlived the unsinkable Irishman himself.