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    Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI, and a Devil's Deal
    Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI, and a Devil's Deal
    Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI, and a Devil's Deal
    Audiobook13 hours

    Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI, and a Devil's Deal

    Written by Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill

    Narrated by Christopher Evan Welch

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    James "Whitey" Bulger became one of the most ruthless gangsters in US history, and all because of an unholy deal he made with a childhood friend. John Connolly a rising star in the Boston FBI office, offered Bulger protection in return for helping the Feds eliminate Boston's Italian mafia. But no one offered Boston protection from Whitey Bulger, who, in a blizzard of gangland killings, took over the city's drug trade. Whitey's deal with Connolly's FBI spiraled out of control to become the biggest informant scandal in FBI history. Black Mass is a New York Times and Boston Globe bestseller, written by two former reporters who were on the case from the beginning. It is an epic story of violence, double-cross, and corruption at the center of which are the black hearts of two old friends whose lives unfolded in the darkness of permanent midnight.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateDec 7, 2012
    ISBN9781470336974
    Black Mass: Whitey Bulger, the FBI, and a Devil's Deal
    Author

    Dick Lehr

    DICK LEHR is a professor of journalism at Boston University and a former reporter at the Boston Globe, where he won numerous awards and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for investigative reporting. He is the author of six award-winning works of nonfiction and a novel for young adults. Lehr lives near Boston. 

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    Reviews for Black Mass

    3.5/5

    138 ratings12 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I picked up this book after reading "All Souls" by Michael Patrick MacDonald. I am very interested in the subject matter, but the writing is very dry. The events described did not "flow" for me. I am glad to have read it for the information but MacDonald's work grabbed me in a way that this one did not.
    • 4/5
      Black Mass has been sitting on my bookshelf for quite a while, I was looking for a third book about Jimmy “Whitey” Bulger written by Dick Lehr, I have “Whitey” and have been trying to find “Underboss”. Then I saw the movie “Black Mass” (starring: Johnny Depp and Benedict Cumberbatch as the Bulger brothers and Joel Edgerton as John Connolly, former FBI agent) was scheduled to be released in September 2015. I decided I had to read the book before I saw the movie, which I desperately want to see (I haven’t seen it yet, I have seen “Pawn Sacrifice” and “Steve Jobs”).In 1988 Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill started to write a story for the Boston Globe about the Bulger Brothers, Jimmy and Billy. One was Boston’s most powerful criminal and Billy was the most powerful politician (which some might say is the same, but hey he never killed anyone, that we know of). In the course of the investigation, they discovered that Jimmy Bulger seemed to be made of teflon, since 1965, while he climbed the ranks of Boston underworld from street soldier to boss, he had not been arrested, not once. He seemed to know when the authorities were closing in on him. He knew about wiretaps. Some in law enforcement felt ‘the fix was in’ even so far as ‘the FBI had secretly provided him cover all these years’. But there was no proof. Mobsters hated informants, this was the world Whitey Bulger lived in. In the end however, the FBI had to come clean, Bulger and Flemmi (Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi) had been informants for over 20 years.The first meeting between John Connolly, FBI agent and Jimmy Bulger was in 1975, Flemmi was already an informant at this time, had already experienced the protection the FBI could offer, he was never questioned about his criminal activities, even the murders he may or may not have committed. When asked, he told Bulger “Go talk to him.” The deal was made, and the fix was in. There is more to this story than two mob guys being informants and more FBI involvement than one agent covering up. Connolly covered Flemmi and Bulger, other agents covered him. There was a massive head in the sand approach to what was going on. The truth started to come out in 1997, 10 months later after sworn testimony and the opening of secret FBI files the Boston FBI office was revealed to be a gigantic stack of shit. This book tells it all.Detailed with extensive documentation this books read like a too good to be true Godfather book, except its true, and it’s fascinating. I recommend this to true crime fans in particular fans of mafia books.
    • 5/5
      My daughter gave me this book for Xmas because of my interest in Irish-American history. I was really impressed with the legwork these former reporters did in order to get the story, and even more impressed with the even more extensive legwork that the detectives and policemen needed to do in order to curtail the activities of Whitey Bulger and his many partners in crime.

      A fascinating look at how the good guys and the bad guys operate.
    • 3/5
      Whitey Bulger is a bad man.

      The writing style was rather cheesy and melodramatic at times, but the story was very interesting.
    • 5/5
      The book for anyone who wants to understand this chapter in Boston history. I re-read it after James "Whitey" Bulger was arrested and it was still excellent. It would be interesting if they wrote a follow-up about the trial and all the legal manuvering.
    • 3/5
      I should like this! It's a book with true crime, mind-blowing intrigue, violence, unimaginable corruption of values that ought to be inviolable, and platters and platters of Italian food. What's not to like?Quite a bit, unfortunately. The series of articles that ran in the Boston Globe - the meat of the book - actually appears in the middle, starting with a chapter called Murder, Inc. (at least that's the first one I recognized). The beginning is a long, slow buildup added to flesh out the book. If you can survive the opening chapters, and keep track of the characters involved (the author annoyingly alternates between last names, first names, and mob names, tripling the number of things you have to memorize just to follow along), you'll certainly know everything there is to know about how Whitey Bulger neutralized every law enforcement agency that set out to bring him down.But with Whitey in the news, it's good to read, even if it's got some slow bits.
    • 3/5
      Black Mass is the true story of James "Whitey" Bulger and Stevie Flemmi's work as informants with the Boston FBI. Whitey Bulger and Stevie Flemmi became FBI informants giving information on the Italian mafia and other organized criminals. Special Agent John Connolly was the handler for both Bulger and Flemmi. Connolly along with other FBI agents and law enforcement officials became involved in a twisted web of lies in order to protect Bulger and Flemmi. By doing so Bulger and Flemmi were "free" to move up the mafia chain, eliminate opposition, and move about Boston with a seemingly untouchable attitude. The alliance between the FBI and Bulger and Flemmi begins to crumble when the lies can no longer hold up in a criminal case brought against Bulger and Flemmi. I knew nothing about this case before I read this book. I was shocked that such an alliance between members of the mafia and the FBI could lead to such a breach in information. The FBI agents, particularly Connolly, seemed to be caught up in the idea of hanging with such "powerful" people and were willing to put others in danger in order to remain where they were. This case illuminates the problems with how the FBI handled informants and was the reason for major revisions within the FBI.The authors managed to take a complex long-term story and make it easy to understand. There were times that I became bored with all the background, but overall it aided in the telling of the story. This story was one that showed how the mafia worked while Bulger was in it and showed how law enforcement deals with organized crime cases. There were moments of suspense and thrill in this true story that will have any reader caught up in the double life of Whitey Bulger, Stevie Flemmi, and John Connolly.
    • 3/5
      A quick, easy read about the ties between Whitey Bulger, head of the Irish Mob in Boston, and the FBI. Written by two staff writers from the Boston Globe, this book takes on the difficult task of drawing together testimony and the FBI's secret files (as well as reading between the lines) in order to show how the FBI colluded with one of the most notorious gangsters in Boston. While it can be dry at times, the facts serve to strengthen the argument that Whitey Bulger was the one controlling his relationship as an informant--quite literally getting away with murder while drawing down threats presented from La Cosa Nostra in New England and members of his own crew by informing on their crimes and misdeeds.
    • 4/5
      I thought this was fascinating and it was terrifying, too. It was hard for everyone in law enforcement to imagine how Whitey Bulger and Steve Flemmi were able to operate with such impunity in Boston during the 1980s--but it was because the FBI protected them. FBI agent John Connolly was star-struck with the wiseguy informants he was supposed to be handling, meanwhile the residents of South Boston were shaken down, drugged, and extorted and no one would stop the crime. It's true this book is journalism, written by Boston Globe reporters, but the material is so good it's engrossing even with minimal literary embellishment.
    • 4/5
      The scene is Boston, starting in the 1970s. The FBI has made it a top priority to clamp down on organized crime (in this case, the Mafia, populated by the Italians of North Boston). John Connolly, a very young FBI agent, is called to the Boston office to work in the Organized Crime unit. The idea was that if he could find someone to rat out the Italians, the FBI's job would be made much easier. Connolly begins to cultivate James (Whitey) Bulger, a former acquaintance from Connolly's old neighborhood in South Boston. Bulger was a career criminal, beginning his future occupation as a young boy, and he and one of his associates, Steve Flemmi, had ties to the Italian mob in Boston. Whitey was also part of a gang in Southie. He became an informant for the FBI, and in return, he was given protection by the FBI. His information was very helpful and did help to put away some of the Mafia guys, but in the meantime, he also gave info on anyone in South Boston that he considered might be standing in his own way as he rose up through the ranks of the criminal underworld. The authors, Lehr and O'Neill, used a variety of first-hand sources to not only write this book, but to break the entire story in the Boston Globe. What they examine here is basically the true cost of the information provided by Bulger. While he's giving them good information, he's also being allowed to literally get away with murder. I won't go further into this book, but I picked it up the other night and could hardly put it down once I started. I guarantee you that if you have an interest in organized crime, this is a no-miss story. I would like to say that I was appalled by the sheer abuse of power from members of an institution created to protect the American public, but frankly, it's getting harder and harder to be surprised any more. Very well written and very taut; I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in organized crime, the FBI, in the so-called Irish Mob in the United States or in true crime in general.
    • 3/5
      Engrossing and scary, the story of the pact between FBI and Irish Mafia in Boston crosses twenty years of corruption, extorsions, murders.
    • 3/5
      A highly readable true crime version of the Whitey Bulger story - a plot that is truly better than fiction. A quick and worthy read.