About this item
Martin Scorsese’s The Departed barely touched on his story. Now radio talk show sensation, crime reporter, and Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr takes us into the heart of the life of gangster Johnny Martorano in Hitman. For two decades Martorano struck fear into anyone even remotely connected to his world. His partnership with Whitey Bulger and the infamous Winter Hill Gang led to twenty mob murders—for which Johnny would serve twelve years in prison. Carr also looks at the politicians and FBI agents who aided Johnny and Whitey, and at the flamboyant city of Boston which Martorano so ruthlessly ruled. A plethora of paradoxes, Johnny Martorano was Mr. Mom by day and man-about-town by night. Surrounded by fast-living politicians, sports celebrities, and show biz entertainers, Johnny was charismatically colorful—as charming as he was frightening.
About the Author
Howie Carr is the New York Times best-selling author of The Brothers Bulger and Hitman, in addition to several other Boston organized-crime books and two novels. He is the host of a New England-wide radio talk-show syndicated to more than 20 stations, and is a member of the Radio Hall of Fame in Chicago. He is also a columnist for the Boston Herald, and has won a National Magazine Award for Boston Magazine. He is also a contributor to Breitbart.com.
Boston organized-crime boss Whitey Bulger was so infuriated by Carr's groundbreaking reporting that he once put out a murder contract on Carr, a story detailed on 60 Minutes. At his 2013 trial on murder and racketeering charges, Bulger tried to have Carr banned from the courtroom by calling him as a defense witness. Now imprisoned for life in Arizona, the crime czar still says his greatest regret was not murdering Carr when he had the chance. Carr once taught a course at Harvard, where he had to cross a picket line against himself to get to his class.
