Tony comes off an a nice-enough guy who treats the lesser celebrities, old friends (Joe Pesci shows up a lot, pre-Raging Bull), business partners, and the general public with the same respect. But the book also doesn’t flinch in showing some of Tony’s rougher edges, from his womanizing to his temper.
Sinatra, Gotti, and Me is well-written, and though there are some stories that could have been cut out for brevity's sake, it’s an entertaining read. If there is one major gripe I have with the book it’s the timeline of the narrative. The book follows a fairly straight narrative path interspersed with flashbacks, but there are occasions when it dives into flashbacks without any attribution or physical break. The halts interrupt the continuity of the book. Not enough to negatively impact the overall story, but enough to make you notice.
One glaring omission was in the postscript. Though it tells what happened to Sinatra, Gotti, and Tony Delvecchio, it doesn’t mention to final day of Jilly Rizzo’s life. He was killed in a horrific car crash in Palm Springs California on May 6, 1992.
Though the story ends in the early 1980s, it would have been interesting to hear about Tony’s scrapes with the law afterwards, as well as his post-Sinatra life. Unfortunately Tony isn’t around anymore to fill in those gaps, but maybe he left enough for Herschlag to come out with a follow-up.
Article comments