The story of Luigi Ronsisvalle is an intimate look at the life of a professional killer. It is, in some ways, the story of all workingmen and women with ambition who never achieve their ultimate goal. But what makes Luigi unique is that, for him to achieve his goal, people had to die. His ambition, from when he was 12 years old, was to be a made man in the Mafia. He once told a presidential commission, "American child falls in love with baseball, I fall in love with Mafia."
Co-author Michael Vecchione spent months interviewing the hitman about his life in the Sicilian and American Mafia, finally becoming his confidant. Those days, weeks, and months together brought Luigi to realize that, despite the concept of omertà—the code of silence ingrained in him from an early age—the road to a truly honorable life meant turning on those he once admired.
Luigi had done everything asked of him by his Mafia bosses. This included the murder of 13 people. But unlike other hitmen, whose stories have been told in the pages of bestsellers and on movie screens, Luigi was denied the Mafia recognition he felt he deserved. Drawing on personal files, handwritten notes, and official sources, this book attempts to explain his complicated life.
