Book Report: Brutal

So I've decided to start doing book reports again, because, honestly, was there a better assignment back in those halcyon days of elementary school? There was not.

The latest book I read was Brutal:The Untold Story of My Life Inside Whitey Bulger's Irish Mob by Kevin Weeks.

Let me just say that the title "Brutal" is a good example of truth in advertising. These guys were not nice fellows. There is much fighting. Much killing. Much burying of bodies. Much extortion, drug-deals, car-chases, back-stabbing (often preemptive, sometimes literal).

There are some interesting tidbits. The opening chapter is about growing up in a poor Irish family in Southie. He paints it as quite the decent place to grow up and asks us not to blame it for his and Whitey's descent into criminality. Interestingly, Weeks had 2 brothers who went to Harvard and claims that he, too, might have been Harvard-bound, if he could only have stopped getting in fist-fights with... everybody.

He might even be right. Clearly, he and Whitey had a special kind of gift for criminality, which is why they were so successful at it, but it might have just been a general gift that they applied to criminality because it suited their temperaments. Their brothers were clearly successful (for those of you who don't know, Whitey Bulger's brother was President both of UMass and the Mass. State Senate), so it's not crazy to assume they would have done well at whatever they set themselves to.

Throughout the book, in fact, he talks about how he and Whitey would often ponder over how much more money they might be making if they were putting the kind of effort they put into criminal enterprise into legit enterprise. While counter intuitive, that's probably right. Criminal enterprise carries a premium because of the risk of getting killed or jailed or beaten or whatever. If you are putting the kind of effort into it that these guys were -- that is the kind of effort that keeps you alive, out-of-jail, and relatively healthy -- the premium is probably not fully compensating you for the extra effort.

Other interesting bits were some advice for the aspiring criminal. For example, Whitey was apparently quite fond of using darkness and the weather to help conceal his activities when possible. At night, in the rain, there are fewer people out, meaning fewer potential witnesses. Also, those who are out are carrying umbrellas, generally have their head down, and are in a hurry to get out of the rain, thus less likely to be looking around taking in the scenery. So when planning a hit or a move of guns or money or the ditching of a getaway car, Whitey would wait for bad weather and do it then.

Another helpful tip was what might be called the "walk, don't run" school of getting-away-with-it. This is something I've actually noticed in my own life. When you're trying to escape notice or sneak by someone, so often the temptation is to do it quickly, to run, in other words. This is wrong. The thing to do is to walk normally, as if you totally belong there. This way you blend into the background and are less likely to be noticed or remembered. This comes in handy as they are dumping a body off a pier in one chapter. They walk by some other fishermen on the way out and the fishermen offer to watch their stuff for them. They just say thanks and keep walking. No way the fishermen will even remember talking to them.

At any rate. I came across the book on the NY Times Freakonomics blog here.

It was alright. Though not the best written book I've ever read, the down-to-Earth, first-this-happened-then-this-happened style worked for the subject matter.

I give it two and a half stars. I'll decide out of how many some other time.