Wiseguy: The 25th Anniversary Edition Kindle Edition

Just like the movie it's based on, "Goodfellas", this is a great story!

I must have seen "Goodfellas" so many times that I can't even remember HOW many times I've seen it. I've been wanting to read "Wise Guy" for YEARS now.......and when I tell people this, they say, "Just watch the film!" Even though, as I've stated, I've seen it MANY times before. You would think that there's no reason to read the novel it was based on, right? Wrong. Nicholas Pileggi's engrossing, fascinating, oft-times frightening (and at the SAME time), very funny "Wise Guy" is something you MUST read to get the full impact of the life of Henry Hill.......who, at the very young age of 12, started on his path of a life of crime that saw him run with some of the most notorious gangsters, killers & con men of his era of organized crime. One of the most striking thing about this tome was that I didn't feel myself sitting and thinking about the film, and wondering, "When's the scene going to happen where Tommy kills Spider?" Or "Hey, when does Billy "Batts" show up"? Instead, you're feeling yourself drawn into Henry's world and finding out things that they DIDN'T talk about in the film. Lots of different characters that Henry was actually more closer to than Tommy or Jimmy, such as one of Paul Vario's sons. The side scams that he used to have with SO many other characters that you didn't even hear about when watching "Goodfellas"........and the fact that Henry, early in his teen years, actually started feeling the desire to get out of "the life" .........by enlisting in the army. Where he actually recounts taking a LIKING to it! But then seeing how he invariably is drawn back into it. One wonders if the line from ANOTHER famous Mafioso figure in movies ("Just when I thought I was OUT........they pull me back IN!"), had anything to do with Henry Hill. There are SO many different scenarios & settings and things that I could go through here as examples that you didn't get to see in the film, but it has to be experienced for oneself. If you've read it, you'll already know what I mean, if you DIDN'T........pick up a copy and see for yourself. For me, one of the things that I really enjoyed of this read is the fact that I'm a born & raised Queens, N.Y. native, and just the way Hill recounts all his experiences (more so in his adult years, he was born and raised in East N.Y., Brooklyn), but his remembering of his nightclub, The Suite, on Queens Blvd., or The Sherwood Diner on Rockaway Blvd.........it reminds ME of those days when, in hushed whispers, people would talk about "certain places" where "pinky rings" used to hang. Sort of nostalgic, in a way.......but NOT in a good way. What is the MOST endearing thing about "Wise Guy" is that in the end.......just like in the film it was made into..... this is NOT the life you would want to become YOUR'S. After reading this, I felt that it could become required reading for juvenile delinquents, or troubled youth. You don't have to send them to a prison on a field trip to get scared straight. Let them read THIS.... they'll get the message a lot faster.

Bought as a gift my daughter was happy with it

Love Goodfellas, and Now “Wiseguy” might now surpass the movie as my favorite… the book, goes into greater m detail, and explains in detail more about Hills Rackets, and You piece together this and that, and understand now , why they combined this and that for the movie.

Seldom is the movie true to the book, but in this case "Goodfellas" was well lined up with the book "Wiseguy." A compelling, well-written story. A timeless tale of Henry Hill and his murderous crew who pulled off one of the biggest robberies in history. This should sit on the bookshelf with the best mob books ever written.Joe Bradley - Author of "South End Syndicate."

Very well written. I have read many books about the mafia and it seems information overlaps with similar accounts of different events in most of them. Still, a very good book.

You'll love Wiseguy. All the stories are here, but with all the backstory and greater context. You'll learn who is who and why they did what they did in the New York mob of the 1970s

Wiseguy is Henry Hill's story. If you don't know who that is you probably have never seen the movie Goodfellas, if you have never seen that movie you should watch it. Henry Hill was a New York City mobster associated with the Lucchese crime family.I enjoyed this book a great deal because a lot of it is Henry talking for himself. There are even parts from his wife Karen's point of view. It does go back and fourth from first person to third person which annoyed me at first but after awhile I seen why it was needed for the story to flow.I guess this would be a True Crime book and if you say it that way it is one of the better ones I have read. There were some parts that got a tiny bit boring for me but mostly I was very into the story. It has been a very long time since I have seen the movie and only remember that I liked it so I can't say how closely if at all the movie follows the book but either way if you are interested in the mafia at all this is worth your time.