3.2 out of 4.
Chock full of information!
I am from Massachusetts, so it’s basically a sin that this is my first time reading “Black Mass”. It is also bizarre because I work right in Fort Point, South Boston where this book takes place. I was able to gain so much valuable information from reading this and I thought I was very familiar with the case! I can’t imagine someone from out of state reading this and how overwhelming it would be.
James (Whitey) Bulger was the head of the Irish mob in South Boston, Massachusetts. His track record ran deep. It was almost if there was no crime that he wasn’t willing to commit. These disturbing acts included: contract killing, rape, armed robbery, extortion, drug dealing and loan-sharking. He didn’t go at it alone either. His accomplice in crime, Stevie (Rifleman) Flemmie was never too far behind. What could be scarier than two criminals on the loose in your backyard?
Add in a FBI agent that is looking to live out his own Southie glory days and you have your self some blurred and corrupt lines. The agent was John Connolly and he came up with the brilliant plan to bring Bulger and Flemmie in as informants for the Boston FBI division. Only problem was that for every crime the boys spilled details on, they also performed five more devious acts in addition. It was bloddy tic-tac-toe. How was this possible? John Connolly. He gave Whitey and Stevie the unwritten promise that he would protect them.
This relationship lasted DECADES. Several people were killed by Bulger and Flemmie but the blind eye was turned to these crimes because they helped the FBI bug the North End Mafia. It seemed as though Whitey and Rifleman could not be stopped. If anyone tried to take them down (including dueling mafia members) they would plant fake evidence and get them locked up or they would end the person’s life themselves
Some would say that although FBI agent John Connolly never pulled the trigger himself he was just as guilty as any of these criminals were.
The book circles around the question over and over again, “how essential is an informant and is it worth all the corrupt law that comes with it?”
When this story ends we are left with another question, “Where is Whitey Bulger?” At the point that Boston Globe reporters, Lehr and O’Neil wrote these accounts Whitey was on the run. He watched from afar as his two accomplices get locked up (Connolly and Flemmie) and still didn’t come back to defend them.
A lot has changed since this book has been published!
In 2011 after 16 years of being on the run, Whitey Bulger is found in Southern California with his long time girlfriend, Catherine Greig. He is 84 years old when he is sentenced just down the street from his boyhood home to two life sentences in prison. Only his younger brother in the courtroom to see him off.
