Il Dottore: The Double Life of a Mafia Doctor

By Ron Felber

Book Overview

This narrative describes the experiences of a prominent heart surgeon who lived a double life working at Mount Sinai Hospital by day and providing illegal medical services to members of the Mafia by night. Felber (a doctoral candidate at Drew U.) recounts the doctor's early ties to criminals during his childhood in the Bronx, his participation in a

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1569802785
• ISBN13: 9781569802786
• Release Date: October 2004
• Publisher: Barricade Books
• Length: 278 Pages
• Weight: 1.27 lbs.

Customer Reviews

FANS OF THE GODFATHER AND THE SOPRANOS WILL LOVE THIS STORY.

Il Dottore is a true story of a "nerdy Jewish kid" in the Bronx who grows up mixing with the future mafia kids. They trust him and have always protected him on the streets when other rough kids picked on him while he was growing up. He goes to university and becomes a physician to the top Mafia Dons including John Gotti, Carlos Gambino and Joe Bonanno. His name was know among the Mafia as a medical genius but he also becomes one America's top cardiac surgeons. This story paints a very real portrait of this doctor's unlikely life in the fast lane wining and dining and doing favours for the top Mafia. Eventually he has to make a choice between his loyalty to the Mafia and kill someone on the operating table or be true to his medical career.

An exciting and suspenseful true story

Il Dottore: The Double Life Of A Mafia Doctor by author and biographyer Ron Felber is the startlingly true story of a physician at Mount Sinai Hospital who provided health care services for Mafia kingpins including John Gotti and Joseph Bonanno. By day, he pursued a flourishing career as a respected cardiac surgeon; by night, he was a gambling and sex addict, drawn ever deeper into the high-stakes world of organized crime. His double life came to a head-on conflict in the mid 1980's when the government's star witness, Ralph Scopo, lay on the operating table. Directed by John Gotti to "make sure that only one of you comes out of the operating room breathing" on one hand, yet threatened with ruin by mayor Giuliani on the other, he had to make the choice of a lifetime between loyalty to La Cosa Nostra and adherence to the Hippocratic Oath. An exciting and suspenseful true story, more enthralling than fiction.

A Super Read!

I've read a lot about the mafia, but reading Il Dottore by Ron Felber is like eating popcorn at a movie theater, you just can't stop. Elliot Litner's (Il Dottore) life is a roller coaster ride through a time when giants walked the streets of NYC: John Gotti, Carlo Gambino, Joe bonanno, Rudy Giuliani. The gang's all here, and they've never looked better.