Operation Underworld: How the Mafia and U.S. Government Teamed Up to Win World War II

Did you know that the U.S. won World War II thanks, in part, to the New York Italian mafia, La Cosa Nostra? It sounds fantastical, but as you’ll discover in the pages of Operation Underworld, it’s absolutely true.

Join journalist and crime historian Matthew Black on a journey back to 1942, when the U.S. Naval Intelligence recruited the one-and-only Charles “Lucky” Luciano to not only help defend New York Harbor against Nazi agents, but also take the fight to Italy—a plan that led to the invasion of Sicily by U.S. Forces in 1943.

Read how the Mafia gangs that terrorized and controlled the Brooklyn and Manhattan harbors played a crucial role in defending the country against German and Italian spies, and without whom, World War II could have ended very differently.

It’s a dark, twisting tale of a Faustian bargain that forever changed the course of not only American history, but the fate of the world.