The Honored Society

Rating:
Summary: Rates ZERO STARS-The Author Is A Con Man-NOT Michael Gambino
Review: According to today's(Aug.28th)edition of the New York Post-the headlines are screaming about how this book was a total lie-Michael Gambino is actually a smalltime Vegas con man named Michael Pellegrino. Pellegrino didn't spend half as much time in jail as he's written in this book. The real Michael Gambino is Carlo's great grandson-a 16 yr. old still in high school. Don't waste your time or your money on this, folks. Not recommended at all.

Rating:
Summary: who cares who he is
Review: Come on people,,,this is fiction isn't it? Who cares who he is or where he is actually from. He has written a book that tells it like it really is whether he lived the life or not. How many other authors write under a different name? Lots....

Rating:
Summary: The Straight Poop from THE Man himself.
Review: For anyone interested in mafia lore, this book is the coup de gras. Michael Gambino is the grandson of Carlo Gambino, the infamous head of the Gambino Family during their "glory" years. More recently, most will know the current head of the Gambino Family, the jailed and cancer-stricken John Gotti.

Michael Gambino followed the only footsteps available to him. As mentioned, his grandfather, Carlo Gambino ruled the Five Families of New York for decades and his father, Vito was a career gangster. Michael was well on his way to upholding this family tradition when he found the end of the trail for most gangsters...prison.

The Honored Society dipicts the "fictional" escapades of one Michael D'Angelo. Gambino informs the reader at the beginning of the book, "The persons, places, situations, and crimes in this work are true to their background and circumstances. They are not, however, real. Characters are based upon composites of many of the people I have known. The experiences of these characters are based upon reality, barroom boasting, and my own overactive imagination. Many of the names, crimes, places, and circumstances have been changed to protect the guilty and innocent alike." That as it may be, you, the reader, can make your own assessment if this isn't the ostensible autobiography of Mr. Gambino.

To give you a flavor of the type of detail to expect....In the beginning of the book, Michael "D'Angelo" douses two pimps with gasoline and sets them on fire for severely beating a few of his friends. Michael watched them as they burned. As a result of that event, Michael's father tagged him with the nickname, Mike "the Match." The Honored Society tells of Michael's adventures in the Family business in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Colombia. As expected and mentioned, this book depicts an incredible level of violence. In a recent interview, Gambino said, "It's kind of accurate. I extracted everything I have been through, and found a way to put it into an entertaining, fiction form. Without causing problems."

Quite expectedly, Gambino finds prison any number of times. However, he indicates that prison life changed him, at least his last stint. Gambino spent 23 hours a day locked up alone at the federal maximum security penitentiary in Marion, Illinois, just down the aisle from John Gotti. In the book's introduction, Gambino says, "I have been arrested for murder, kidnapping, extortion, gambling, money laundering, robbery, running a house of prostitution, bribery, impersonating a federal agent, counterfeiting, burglary, bid-rigging, bookmaking, interstate wire fraud, possession of guns, running a chop shop, tax evasion, and drug trafficking." But he was convicted, he says, for "a lot of tax evasion."

All-in-all, an outstanding expose on the mafia life and details of the "transactions" from within. A good read.

Rating:
Summary: WORSE READ IN FOURTY PLUS YEARS OF READING
Review: I cannot believe I wasted my time reading this one. I suppose I got hooked because after the first chapter I thought to myself "it cannot get worse than this." I kept going...boy was I wrong. If this story is in anyway true (which I seriously doubt) then it is a pitiful tale of a pitiful person and it saddens me. On the otherhand, if it is true (which I doubt), please blow up the Ford Tarus as it is not paid for and not the Blaizer. Thank you....I cannot recommend this read for anyone.

Rating:
Summary: dull writing
Review: I read this book and loved everything thrilling about it. Although fiction, this book draws you into the mob circle, leaving you with the feeling that you know this stuff really happens. I really love this persons writting knowledge and hopes that he has another novel soon. Great reading.

Rating:
Summary: RE: Author is God
Review: I suspect that the vast majority of this books is a work of
"wishful thinking" and the results of reading too many "True Crime" stories while the author was in high school. Be that as it may, if only one tenth is indeed true, then the author has some major problems, on many different levels, the lack of ability to write leading them. Most of the book consists telling us just what a bright fellow he, the author, is, and just how brutal he was/is. The chronology of events is often completly
incorrect and the author's thoughts and deeds simply do not jive with those previously recorded. All in all, the books comes across as being written by a seventeen year old city kid who has watched the God Father movies one too many times. If only one tenth of the books is true, then I truely feel sorry for this kid and do wish him well. On the other hand, at least he did make an effort to write, and if the story be truely true, then he probably needs the cash. I am rather surprised he found a publisher though. NOTE: If the author reads this,and really takes offense, please blow up my old pick-up, not the newer cars - they are not mine, they belong to my wife. The truck is mine, and I could use the insurance money. Please be kind enough to make sure I or my dog are not in it. Thanks.

Rating:
Summary: A HAUNTING READING
Review: Michael Gambino, grandson of the original Godfather, is the highest ranking member of the mob to record the secret workings of the Mafia.

"I am going to show you what my life was like," he writes. I am going to make you feel the things I felt. You will find out, as I did, what the Honored Society is all about. This is a work of fiction, but the things I am talking about are real."

His birthright is crime, assassinations, and secret ceremonies. Michael D'Angelo, a child of the feared D'Angelo crime family is schooled by his elders and earns his stripes on the streets of Chicago during the 1970s. His boyhood is brief, ending when he sees his first dead body.

At the age of seventeen when other teenagers are going to proms, Michael makes his first hit. Only a year passes before he is a "made man," meaning he is accepted into the syndicates most secret and powerful echelon.

His life's path is dictated by his peers and predecessors whose greed is voracious, whose cruelty knows no limits.

Mr. Gambino brings us a candid picture of mob life, shattering in its honesty, haunting in its violence.

Rating:
Summary: The Honored Society review by L.F.
Review: The Book The Honored Society written by Michael Gambino is an auto biography on his life in an organized crime family. Michael Gambino is very descriptive and talks about almost everything you can think of. Michael Gambino also talked about many of the problems faced by men in his profession so if organized crime or the honored society as Mr. Gambino would call it interest you then you would enjoy this book a lot.
The book begins with Michael as a young boy and continues with him rising rapidly through the ranks of a powerful Chicago organized crime family. In the book Michael Gambino tell you about loan sharking, shakedowns, the rackets, ext. The book is truly one of the best book I have ever read because of how deep he goes into detail.
The book The honored Society is interesting, entertaining, and it keeps you coming back for more. It's a book you just cant put down and believe me I read the book two times. I would have to agree with many of the opinions stated by Michael Gambino. For example Michael said he Mafia should be called anything but the honored society. I would have to agree with this opinion because there are many rats that would turn on you at any moment. You also may never know when you might have to kill your best friend or if may be the other way around. This book has affected me greatly. It changed the way I thought about the Mafia and the way it works.
Overall I think this book was outstanding. Michael Gambino covered everything possible and he covered it with so much detail that it was unbelievable. I strongly recommend this book to anyone that has interest in organized and to people that don't.