CASEY SHERMAN is a Boston-based journalist and the author of A Rose for Mary: The Hunt for the Real Boston Strangler and Bad Blood: Freedom and Death in the White Mountains, among others. He is the coauthor of The Finest Hours: The True Story of the Coast Guard's Most Daring Rescue.
"[A] fascinating biography. . . [Sherman] details the role of
crooked FBI agents in the Animal's story, compromised court cases,
infighting among Irish mob groups, and myriad grisly murders. Fans
of mafia history will relish this portrait of a forgotten figure
from the heyday of organized crime."--Publishers Weekly
"Boston-based journalist Casey Sherman takes us deep into the
origins of the FBI's infamously corrupt Top-Echelon Informant
program, whose poster child remains Whitey Bulger, and shows that
Bulger wasn't the first FBI informant to use his bureau connections
to get away with murder: Joe Barboza would create the horrific
template. . . . Animal is a compelling account of the life and
death of the legendary New Bedford psychopath."--Boston Globe
"The ghost of Joe "The Animal" Barboza has returned, so you might
want to put your hands on your cheeks and scream. . . .
Fascinating!"--San Francisco Examiner
"Drawing on interviews with [Joe 'The Animal'] Barboza's family and
former associates, as well as troves of government documents,
Sherman describes a life that started on the rough streets of 1930s
New Bedford. Sherman tells the story of Barboza, whose ambition to
join the Mafia despite his Portuguese heritage led him to allegedly
kill more than two dozen people. It also describes how FBI agents
used him for their own, at times, extralegal, purposes."--Cape Cod
Times
"I couldn't put down award-winning journalist Casey Sherman's
riveting account of the life and death of Joe Barboza, one of the
most feared killers in the history of the Mob. Animal is a
fascinating tale of murder, brutality, and betrayal on both sides
of the law; for fans of the gangster genre, it's a must-read."
--Terence Winter, creator and executive producer of Boardwalk
Empire
"With Animal, author Casey Sherman takes you into the belly of the
beast. You ride along with Joe Barboza, one of the most brutal
gangsters in the history of American organized crime, during
unspeakable acts of murder. Equally important, Sherman reveals how
Barboza became a covert FBI informant and played the System until
the System was indistinguishable from the criminal underground. An
important book written by a skilled storyteller, Animal belongs on
a shelf alongside The Valachi Papers, Wiseguy, and other essential
works of Mob history." --T. J. English, New York Times best-selling
author of The Westies, Havana Nocturne, and The Savage City
"In Animal, author Casey Sherman serves up Joe Barboza, a mob
killer of Portuguese descent that even the Italian Mafia feared and
respected. In clear prose Sherman breathes life into a wild and
dangerous era in New England's organized crime heyday. As the story
unfolds, the ending will both surprise and shock." --Charles
Brandt, author of "I Heard You Paint Houses" Frank "The Irishman"
Sheeran and the Inside Story of the Mafia, the Teamsters, and the
Last Ride of Jimmy Hoffa
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