The Brothers Bulger: How They Terrorized and Corrupted Boston for a Quarter Century

by Howie Carr

Overview

The riveting New York Times bestseller by award-winning columnist Howie Carr—now with a stunning new afterword detailing Whitey Bulger's capture.

For years their familiar story was of two siblings who took different paths out of South Boston: William "Billy" Bulger, former president of the Massachusetts State Senate; and his brother James "Whitey" Bulger, a vicious criminal who became the FBI's second most-wanted man after Osama Bin Laden. While Billy cavorted with the state's blue bloods to become a powerful political force, Whitey blazed a murderous trail to the top rung of organized crime. Now, in this compelling narrative, Carr uncovers a sinister world of FBI turncoats, alliances between various branches of organized crime, St. Patrick's Day shenanigans, political infighting, and the complex relationship between two brothers who were at one time kings.

As the film Black Mass, starring Johnny Depp as Whitey Bulger, hits theaters, take a deeper dive into the story of the Bulgers, and their fifty-year reign over Boston with Howie Carr's The Brother's Bulger.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781455579761
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	06/04/2013
Pages:	358
Sales rank:	600,160
Product dimensions:	6.18(w) x 8.84(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Howie Carr is the author of two New York Times bestsellers, The Brothers Bulger and Hitman. Before Bulger fled in 1994, Carr was such an implacable foe of the serial killing gangster that Whitey tried to kill him as he left his house in suburban Boston — an incident reported in 2006 on 60 Minutes. Whitey's younger brother, Billy Bulger, then the president of the Mass. State Senate, publicly referred to Carr as "the savage." Carr is also the host of daily syndicated four-hour radio program heard throughout New England, and is a member of the national Radio Hall of Fame in Chicago. He won a National Magazine Award in 1985 for Essays & Criticism in Boston Magazine.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Listeners might imagine the late Edward R, Murrow telling this fantastic story . . . Anyone who doesn't know the details of the Bulgers' amazing dual saga will find them all spelled out in Michael Prichard's clean, understated delivery, which makes the whole thing even more incredible." —-Publishers Weekly Audio Review

Editorial Reviews

James "Whitey" Bulger would qualify as the bad seed in any household. Now a wanted fugitive, this street-smart South Boston mobster stands accused of numerous violent crimes, including no fewer than 18 murders. Not surprisingly, Whitey's brother Billy has always been known as "the good son." But according to this revelatory book, William Bulger's career as a Massachusetts state senator and as the president of UMass was also riddled with corruption and chicanery.

Pritchard sounds so much like actor David Strathairn of Good Night and Good Luck in this compelling audio version of Boston journalist Carr's book about William and Whitey Bulger, that listeners might imagine the late Edward R. Murrow telling this fantastic story. Pritchard, a heralded veteran of more than 430 audiobooks, minimizes any moments of possible melodrama, subtly catching instead the superb irony of two brothers who rose to the heights of their chosen careers. Billy was a political powerhouse and kingmaker who was president of the Massachusetts senate and head of the University of Massachusetts. Whitey (born James) was a psychotic gangster who used such tools as flagrant murder and FBI corruption on his climb to the role of chief of Boston's flourishing Irish mobs and who has now disappeared. Anyone who doesn't know the details of the Bulgers' amazing dual saga will find them all spelled out in Pritchard's clean, understated delivery, which makes the whole thing even more incredible. Simultaneous release with the Warner hardcover (Reviews, Oct. 24). (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Boston Herald reporter Carr tracks a pair of Beantown siblings along a twisted trail of extortion, graft, murder and other crimes that overran even the FBI. Making it clear that he will not be unduly obsessed with journalistic objectivity here, the author describes his behavior during Billy Bulger's testimony at a 2003 congressional hearing: "In full view of the CSPAN camera, I periodically grimaced, made faces, stuck out my tongue, rolled my eyes, and grabbed my throat when I thought Billy was being less than forthcoming." Carr goes on to document that Billy's reputation as "the good brother" was as misleading as his congressional testimony. He follows Billy's ascent from Boston's notorious Southie neighborhood (which he served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives to his eventual presidency at the University of Massachusetts. Big brother Whitey Bulger was in Carr's estimation a fulltime, nonpareil crook, possibly the model for the hit man in George V. Higgins's celebrated Boston crime novel, The Friends of Eddie Coyle. For nearly three decades, the author contends, Billy worked inside the system while Whitey worked outside the law; the crux of Carr's thesis is that they cooperated in buying and corrupting whomever they could not intimidate or, in Whitey's case, permanently remove. Among those bought, the author asserts, was FBI agent Zip Connolly, another Southie boy; it was a congressional investigation of corruption in the Boston office of the FBI that finally cost Billy his job at UMass. Billy's eventual disgrace tainted an associated host of Boston political hacks and bureaucrats, but he still draws a state pension; Whitey remains at large, reportedly sighted in locales asdisparate as Thailand and Portugal. A classic, seamy portrait of widespread moral turpitude, conveyed with crackling Boston-Irish sarcasm.

Kirkus Reviews

"Listeners might imagine the late Edward R, Murrow telling this fantastic story . . . Anyone who doesn't know the details of the Bulgers' amazing dual saga will find them all spelled out in Michael Prichard's clean, understated delivery, which makes the whole thing even more incredible." ---Publishers Weekly Audio Review

From the Publisher

There's some intriguing history in this well-researched book and some transcendent lessons, like the synergy Carr notes between school desegregation busing of the 1970s and the ability of Mobsters to increase their reign. And there's the usual Irish and Italian Mafia goings-on to marvel at in disgust: adultery, alcoholism, bigotry, corruption, drugs, decapitations, fraud, homosexuality, money, murder, and sex. However, there's a problem with this production. It's like having Tom Brokaw reading the Sunday newspaper to you with a cold. Michael Prichard is flat and nasally throughout, a quality that takes some getting used to. But he's got the “ums” and “ers” of natural conversation down pat. D.J.M. © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

AUG/SEP 06 - AudioFile