Blood Relation - Softcover

One of the 20 best books coming out this fall.--GQ

A deeply weird, terrific story ... scrupulously reported and wonderfully told, with wiseguys as vivid as any in Elmore Leonard.--William Finnegan

Terrifying, moral, and funny... affirms our faith in the power of the best nonfiction to move and delight us.--Walter Kirn

Konigsberg's inspired reporting cracks a window on the bedlam of post-war organized crime ... vivid, haunting, funny, magnificently original.--Katherine Boo

Written so well, with such care and emotional precision.--Geoffrey Wolff

"A portrait of evil that is never banal, Blood Relation plays out like Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt" in reverse.--Edward Conlon

"Absorbing and marvelously told [in] graceful, perfectly pitched prose . . . a mesmerizing expedition."--New York Times Book Review

A picture of the classic gangster, an excellent study not only of crime but of family and Jewish identity.--Library Journal

The most personal and affecting account of Mob violence you're going to get until The Sopranos returns (whenever that is).--GQ

Skillful ... Readers get to enjoy the creepy thrills without actually having to meet [Konigsberg's gangster uncle] face-to-face.--Kirkus Reviews

Traces the author's discovery that his believed-dead great-uncle was in prison for his work as a mafia enforcer, describing the author's series of visits to "Uncle Heshy's" cell during which he encountered his relative's brutal and paradoxical character and came to understand deeper dynamics within his family's Jewish heritage. Reprint. 10,000 first printing.