Anthony ‘Gaspipe’ Casso, former head of the Lucchese family, is currently serving 13 life sentences at a federal prison in Colorado. Now, he has given bestselling author Philip Carlo the most intimate look into the world of La Cosa Nostra ever seen.

Casso concocted ingenious schemes to hijack trucks, rob banks and traffic vast quantities of marijuana and heroin – shattering the myth that the Mafia didn’t handle drugs. He also worked with the other Mafia families and forged strong ties with the Russian mob.

He was bringing in so much cash that he had dozens of large safety-deposit boxes filled with bricks of hundred-dollar bills. But there was tragedy, too, and it ate away at the seemingly bulletproof Casso, who loved his family but ultimately questioned his choices in life.

The law finally caught up with him in his New Jersey safe house in 1993, and, rather than stoically face the music like the old-time mafiosi he revered, Casso became the thing he hated – a rat.

Detailing Casso’s feud with John Gotti, the ‘Windows Case’ that led to the beginning of the end for the mob in New York and Casso’s dealings with the NYPD Mafia cops, Gaspipe is a chilling and illuminating roller-coaster ride into a netherworld few outsiders have ever dared to enter.