Top Hoodlum

BOTH FRANK COSTELLO AND VITO GENOVESE FEATURE AS MAIN CHARACTERS PLAYED BY ROBERT DE NIRO IN THE 2025 FILM THE ALTO KNIGHTS, WRITTEN BY NICHOLAS PILEGGI AND DIRECTED BY BARRY LEVINSON

From Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Anthony DeStefano, Top Hoodlum is the definitive book on the man who defined the Mafia as we know it: Frank "The Prime Minister" Costello. From a dirt poor childhood in southern Italy, Costello rose through the ranks of New York's Mafia and became its most public face, even becoming the inspiration for The Godfather's Don Corleone. Now with new FBI revelations, eyewitness accounts, family mementos, and never-before-published material, Top Hoodlum takes readers inside the life of the preeminent mob boss of the 20th Century.

The press nicknamed him "The Prime Minister of the Underworld." The U.S. Treasury's Bureau of Narcotics described him as "one of the most powerful and influential Mafia leaders in the U.S." But to friends and associates, he was simply "Uncle Frank." Who was Frank Costello really? That's the question Pulitzer Prizewinning reporter Anthony M. DeStefano sets out to answer--in his definitive portrait of one of the most fascinating figures in the annals of American crime . . .

Using newly released FBI files, eyewitness accounts, and family mementos, Top Hoodlum takes you inside the Mafia that
Frank Costello helped build from the ground up, from small time bootlegging and gambling to a nationwide racketeering empire.