It had split into two factions. This book centers on the more ruthless Brooklyn faction. Away from the scrutiny of the Manhattan police, for many years it could do what it wished. Gene Mustain and Jerry Capeci spare no details in detailing the cruel jokes these men told to one another while they engaged in their killing spree, nor the callousness of their attitudes towards their victims. The reason that these criminals were so effective at getting rid of bodies was because they were willing to do the unthinkable -- maim the corpses, and bury them piecemeal to avoid discovery. Some of the maiming they engaged in was gruesome without even a practical point to the violence. One of Roy's cousins was called Dracula, because he specialized in training the blood from the bodies. The authors devote a great part of the book to detailing the biographies of these men, one of whom, the main informant for the book, had served a tour of duty as a Green Beret in Vietnam. The authors suggest that he may have been suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, and could not adjust to the slower pace of civilian life. The brutality that had once been directed in service to the army was now directed in the service of an illegal organization. However, being a part of the DeMeo Gang allowed him to give full vent to his pent-up sadistic impulses, just like being in Vietnam.

Readers...

His version may be somewhat self-serving, and the authors are only getting his version of the dark and illegal operations of the family. However, this is an inevitable problem, perhaps, with any book on organized crime -- the individuals who turn state's evidence will 'write' the history, and there is no one who is willing to talk who is still involved in the organization to dispute what they say.
The one resonance with crime films is that the prosecutors emerge as less than heroic in the text. The Brooklyn police were slow to catch on to the gang's activities, and despite the extensive attention the book devotes to prosecution, the gang usually seems one step ahead of the law. And because this is nonfiction, the reader gains little sense of moral closure at the end of the text. For example, Roy DeMeo was the son of an unskilled worker, yet his own family still has the money from his ill-gotten gains, and in one final resonance with the fictionalized Sopranos, his son and daughter became well-educated professionals. Of course, he never lived to see his children grow to maturity, but neither, one might add did the DeMeo Gang's victims

Works Cited

Mustain, Gene & Jerry Capeci. Murder Machine. New York: Onyx, 1993.