The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer, is one of those books that as you read it, you are also watching the Martin Scorsese movie version in your head. It is a epic, serial killer tale, with all the trimmings. Through the eyes of the man the books about, Richard Kuklinski, AKA The Ice MAn, we see the younger days that show his father, an alcoholic who beat every family member in the house, including Richard.
Richard takes the abuse over the years and builds it into hate. He then turns it against his first kill, a childhood bully that messed with the wrong kid.
Now the book has many times been the target of comments, saying the novel is full of false stories and inaccurate representations of how things happened, and even if they happened. What they are, and if they are, I'm not sure of. All I am sure of is that, if you are a person who loves true mob stories, or true crime stories, this is a great book to read.
But is told from Kuklinski's point of view, so most of the violence is very glorified, so if that kind of thing offends you, you might want to steer clear.
If you do however dig that kind of gritty, descriptive information on the stories of Richard Kuklinski's slayings, this is your cup of tea, in mass quantity. Now how this thing has avoided being a film by now, I can only explain with one reason. It is so full of info, stories, and meetings that it would really be hard to make a movie less then five hours of this book.
Stories of his involvement with John Gotti, or the Hoffa murder, or Paul Castellano's departure from this planet. That stuff is just a sliver of what's in this book. Now I must say, the book doesn't paint Kuklinski as a, Dexter, if you will. He wasn't a good guy doing bad things. He was a very bad guy, doing very bad things. And this book doesn't go light on the horrors of knowing, loving, and living with the man.
So I will close this review up for now, but again, I warn you that this book is very detailed about it's gore. So take heed.
Now a side note, the Audio book version actually has interviews with the real Kuklinski, so anyone who gets a hold of that has an extra little treat at the end.