Mob Girl. The Explosive True Story of the Woman Who Took on the Mafia; Harpercollins, 2020

Arlyne Brickman dated the wiseguys but she was wiser than them all…

Born in 1934, the daughter of a Jewish mobster, Arlyne Brickman (then Weiss) grew up on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. She idolised gangster’s moll Virginia Hill and apsired to the same glamorous life.

Addicted to the rush of danger and lawlessness, Brickman became involved with a succession of wiseguys, including Joe Colombo and Bonanna hitman Tony Mirra. But when a crew of loan sharks threatened her daughter, she turned informant.

Wearing a wire for the FBI, she emerged as a key witness in the case against the Colombo crime family and ultimately brought down one of its top lieutenants, Anthony Scarpati.

Mob Girl, by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Teresa Carpenter, is a gripping insider account of a woman’s life in the New York underworld that reveals how you get out when you’re in too deep.