Takedown: The Fall of the Mafia Empire

Seldom has the netherworld of the Mafia been revealed with such fascinating detail and sheer suspense. Like the classics of the genre - from The Godfather to The French Connection to Wise Guy - Takedown leads us to the inner ring of a conspiracy of corruption and terror that held New York City in its grip for nearly 50 years.

Rick Cowan was a young NYPD detective in 1992 when he dropped by a Brooklyn waterfront warehouse to investigate a recent firebombing - only one in a string of interviews he considered routine. But what he found there was far from routine, for it would take him on a five-year odyssey and nearly cost him his life. In fact, he had stumbled on the lead of a lifetime - the suspicion that he might unearth the hard evidence police and federal agencies alike had been chasing for decades: the proof of collusion among the mob families to extort billions from the nation's most influential corporations that call New York their home.

Featuring eccentric, larger-than-life New York characters and an undercover cop on the brink of being discovered - and murdered - at every step, Takedown is a riveting real-life procedural and one of the most important investigative books of its time.