The Five Families: The Rise, Decline & Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empire.

The story is detailed in the book, Takedown, the Fall of the Last Mafia Empire (ISBN 0399148752; ISBN 9780399148750), by Detective Rick Cowan and co-author Douglas Century.

"Women have always been considered an inferior element in the Mafia," says Selwyn Raab, a retired New York Times reporter who chronicled the lives of the Gottis in his book "Five Families: The Rise, Decline and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires."

He is also a major character in the book Takedown: The Fall of the Last Mafia Empire by Rick Cowan.

Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires.

Takedown: The Fall of the Last Mafia Empire, (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2002), an investigative account of Operation Wasteland co-authored with NYPD Detective Rick Cowan.

"Takedown: The Fall of the Last Mafia Empire", New York.

FIVE FAMILIES The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires.

Still, the mob's influence in the opening years of the 21st century remains a far cry from its glory days, as Selwyn Raab reminds us in his excellent history of the New York Mafia, "Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires."