RICK PORRELLO BOOKSIGNING

Sunday, December 15, 2019 - 2:00pm to 3:30pm

Rick Porrello, author of Bombs, Bullets and Bribes: The True Story of Notorious Jewish Gangster Alex Shondor Birns will sign books at Mac's Backs on Sunday, December 15th from 2-3:30 pm

Alex Shondor Birns was Public Enemy Number One---- a friend of powerful Jewish and Italian mobsters and a trusted partner of black gambling racketeers. He went toe-to-toe against relentless challenges --the police wanted him in prison, immigration officials wanted him deported, and the IRS wanted his nightclub, car, and cash. Black gangsters wanted the old white man out of the numbers racket, and rogue underlings wanted to kill the king.

One protégé in particular had Birns on the ropes in a high-finance mystery stretching from the US to Israel, and Canada to Cuba. Then along came Ellie, a second grade schoolteacher thirty-three years his junior. She was an unlikely paramour and ally, but clearly smitten with Shondor Birns.

For half a century, the charismatic hood beat the odds, cultivating allies high and low, including ambitious reporters whose careers he helped build via blazing front-page coverage. Combine the name Shondor Birns with stories of bribes, bullets, and bombs, and it sold newspapers. It was this notoriety that Shondor embraced through the decades as his turbulent story was memorialized. Until, that is, it reached a shocking crescendo.

Author, drummer, and former police chief Rick Porrello has a knack for writing books that attract interest from filmmakers. Hollywood snapped up To Kill the Irishman--the War that Crippled the Mafia and turned it into the movie Kill the Irishman, starring Ray Stevenson, Vincent D'Onofrio, Christopher Walken, and Val Kilmer. A motion picture based on Superthief--A Master Burglar, the Mafia, and the Biggest Bank Burglary in U.S. History is in development. He is also the author of The Rise and Fall of the Cleveland Mafia: Corn Sugar and Blood

Event address: 
1820 Coventry Rd.
CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, OH 44118
Books: 
Bombs, Bullets, and Bribes: the true story of notorious Jewish mobster Alex Shondor Birns By Rick Porrello Cover Image
$18.95
ISBN: 9780966250848
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Rick Porrello - October 9th, 2019