James 'Whitey Bulger is the last of the old-fashioned gangsters. A polished, sophisticated psychopath, Bulger's Boston reign of fear lasted 20 years – he was second only to Osama bin Laden on the FBI's most wanted list. Captured after 16 years in hiding, he now sits in a maximum security prison awaiting trial on racketeering charges and 19 counts of murder. But Bulger will have his payback: at trial he has promised to lift the lid a toxic conspiracy of federal agents, cops, judges and politicians that helped enforce his rule.

Combining first-rate reporting and the storytelling of a novelist, T.J. English has been writing about men like Bulger for over two decades. Here, in addition to coming face to face with Whitey, you'll discover hitman Joesph 'Mad Dog' Suliivan's favoured assassination method, you'll meet Eric Vassel, the Jamaican rudeboy who took on the Italian mob, you'll travel deep into the Mexican/American narcosphere as English takes his readers on a bloody but fascinating journey to the dark side of the American Dream.