Hit #29

The New York Times-bestselling author of Killer: The Autobiography of a Mafia Hit Man reveals the true story of his most harrowing contract murder. Joey the Hit Man was a Bronx-born hired assassin who achieved widespread notoriety after writing a bestselling memoir and appearing on the David Susskind show. In this down-to-earth realistic account, Joey tells the riveting story behind the strangest of his thirty-eight kills (Los Angeles Free Press). In the fall of 1969, a public execution in an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn earned Joey a mention in the New York Daily News and a twenty-grand payout from the mob. On the surface, his next job seemed just as routine: The bosses suspected their trusted numbers controller, Joe Squillante, was skimming the nightly bets to settle personal debts. Joey gave Squillante two weeks to live. But there was one problem: Squillante once had a hit out on Joey too. No clueless patsy, #29 was an unpredictable bull's-eye, and the contract holder was a dangerous mobster with a personal grudge against Joey. Taking the job meant entering into a game of predator and prey as nerve-racking as the cock of a .38 hammer. From first tail to all-night stakeouts to the intricate planning of the final confrontation, this is the shockingly detailed first-person account of a professional hit. Full of twists, turns, and double crosses, Hit #29 tells it like it is and delivers an unforgettable insider's view of the mob (Kirkus Reviews).