Jodi Ceraldi

This was a great book taking place at the end of the fading protection racket ran by the Mafia in the late 1970's and early 1980's. It was a true story, but written in novel form because some of the conversations could only be guessed imagined. Nina, at age 18, unknowingly married a mobster; in this book called Vito DeGregetti (Paul Castellano in real life) who ran things such a protection rackets, prostitution rings, credit card scams, etc. She was able to divorce him and tried to keep her 3 sons from the mob and was successful with only 1 of them joining the Marines. The other 2 became involved in family businesses but to their credit did not know with whom they were really getting involved. I feel the title is misleading because Nina really didn't redesign the mob or anything they did, so I am unsure as to why the title No doubt Nina had a tough life and I feel for her working her entire life to insure her sons did not follow the path of their father. DeGregetti (Castellano) was gunned down by the Gambino family in 1985. I got this book for free on Kindle sometime in either 2011 or 2012 356 pages… (mehr)