Charles Brandt (1) (1942–2024)

I'm a sucker for mobster stories - especially ones that turn out to be true! When I saw a preview for the Netflix movie - The Irishman - I was hooked. I immediately went online to find out more about it and I discovered it was a book. So naturally I had to read the book. It did not disappoint! I learned more about Jimmy Hoffa, organized crime, the Teamsters, and Bobby Kennedy then I had in any other book. It was dark, fascinating, twisted and impossible to put down! Charles Brandt listened show more to Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran for the the final years of his life and got him to discuss his time working for the mafia and his involvement in the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa. This book was told orally to the author and the gaps were filled in with historical facts, anecdotes, and pictures. It was freaking awesome. Dense at times, but never boring; this mob tale is a definite winner! show less

Frank Sheeran grew up a tough working class kid, learned how to kill in Italy during World War II and continued killing as a Teamsters Union official and frequent mob hit man. Along the way, he became an intimate of Jimmy Hoffa and many of the high ranking mobsters who had a hand in running the teamsters. Former prosecutor Charles Brandt spent several years interviewing Sheeran during the latter's final years. The result was this book, which is about two-thirds "as told to" memoirs, with the show more remaining third historical perspective about Jimmy Hoffa and his legal troubles (especially with Bobby Kennedy) written by Brandt.

"I Heard You Paint Houses" were, according to Sheeran, the first words Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke to him ("Painting houses" being a mob euphemism for killing). This book is horrifying, fascinating and extremely readable. Sheeran's testimony is very matter of fact and understated, and he doesn't waste any time pandering for sympathy. Whether this was Sheeran's own attitude or Brandt's editing is hard to tell. Along the way in this book, Sheeran lays out circumstantial evidence about the mob's involvement in the Bay of Pigs and the JFK assassination (and their reasons for both) as well as intimate details about Hoffa's murder and disappearance. If Sheeran is to be believed (and Brandt makes a pretty strong case that he is), all these mysteries were cleared up when this book was published in 2004. I haven't done an online search to see if there has been any sort of refutation of this testimony, however.

At any rate, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in reading an "inside baseball" account of organized crime and the mob's influence on unions in general and the Jimmy Hoffa case in particular. The key to the book's success, as I mentioned earlier, is that it's really quite readable and, despite the subject matter, enjoyable. show less

Charles Brandt spent a lot of time with Frank Sheehan (the Irishman), mob tough guy and union boss in the Teamsters union, as well as a close friend to Jimmy Hoffa (we all know who he was). and Russell Bufalino, Don of the Pittstone family, and one of the top five mob bosses in the Big Five consortium. Frank came from humble beginnings, and because he was always big, his muscle was always tested, first by his father, and then by the army and then by the mob as he was a main enforcer and he show more could be trusted to "take care of the thing", whatever "the thing" was. Frank enlisted in the army at the beginning of the war at the age of 17, and his main posting was in Sicily. He saw a lot of bad things, had to kill a lot of people, and saw some good friends die. Frank himself said that it was excellent training for a Mob enforcer. The book is written by Charles Brandt, who is a lawyer, and he usually worked with army medical cases in order to ensure they got a fair deal. That is how he met Frank Sheehan. Frank was suffering from crippling arthritis at the end of his mob career, and he had been in and out of prison a few times while he was doing Mob business. He was Jimmy Hoffa's right-hand man, and Jimmy was hand-in-glove with many mob bosses, so Frank worked for quite a few families Brandt does a great job of introducing his readers to big Frank Sheehan. The book reads like a fiction book, but everything in it is all true, corroborated by many other outside authorities and other mob guys who had been arrested. I could go on forever about this book and the people in its pages, but that would spoil the fun for new readers. I have to agree with one of my favourite television mob guys, Stevie Van Zandt, "This is one of the greatest Mafia books I've read, and I've read them all. It's so authentic." You will remember Stevie played Tony Soprano's consigliere, Silvio Dante, my most favourite "made man" in that series. If you love the Mafia folklore like I do, and if you would like to know what happened to Jimmy Hoffa, and President John F. Kennedyand why, read this book. You'll know the ins and outs of Mafia life in its hayday, the guys to be wary of, the rats, the bosses, the foot soldiers and the enforcers like you are part of the group. That's how realistic this book is! 5 bright, shiny stars for this one. show less

3.5***

Subtitle: Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran & the Inside Story of the Mafia, the Teamsters, & the Last Ride of Jimmy Hoffa

Well, that pretty much covers it. Brandt, a former prosecutor, managed to get Frank Sheeran to tell the true story of what happened. This virtual death-bed confession is sometimes fascinating, but I could not reconcile the violent behavior of this man (and that of his “friends”). He may have made a full confession and gotten absolution from a priest, but to me show more Sheeran was a thug and sociopath who was making excuses for his behavior.

Still, the story of how Hoffa came to power and succumbed to his own ego is fascinating. show less