The Mad Ones chronicles the rise and fall of the Gallo brothers, a trio of reckless young gangsters whose revolution against New York City’s Mafia was inspired by Crazy Joe Gallo’s forays into Greenwich Village counterculture. Crazy Joe, Kid Blast, and Larry Gallo are steeped in legend, from Bob Dylan’s eleven-minute ballad “Joey” to fictionalizations central to The Godfather trilogy and Jimmy Breslin’s The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. Called the toughest gang in the city by the NYPD, the Gallos hailed from the rough Red Hook neighborhood on the Brooklyn waterfront. As low-level Mafiosi, they were expected to serve their don quietly, but the brothers stood apart from typical gangsters with their hip style, fierce ambition, and Crazy Joe’s manic idealism. Here, for the first time, is the complete story of the Gallos’ war against the powerful Cosa Nostra, an epic crime saga that culminates in Crazy Joe’s murder on the streets of Little Italy, where he was gunned down mid-bite into a forkful of spaghetti in 1972. The Mad Ones is a wildly satisfying entertainment and a significant work of cultural history. PRAISE FOR TOM FOLSOM’S THE MAD ONES “In The Mad Ones, Tom Folsom deftly evokes a wacky world populated by the sort of characters celebrated by Jack Kerouac.” —The New York Times “You couldn't make this up...Gallo is a compelling character, a sort of thinking man’s hoodlum, probably psychotic, but also fearless....The real fun of this book is the reader is never quite sure what's going to happen on the next page.” — San Francisco Chronicle “Riveting, richly atmospheric pulp nonfiction...prose as tight and hard-boiled as any James Ellroy novel.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)