Detective Michael Palermo built his career on his unique ability to inhabit two worlds at once: the world of law enforcement and the underworld of New York’s crime family organizations in their 1960s and ’70s heyday. A member of the elite Special Investigation Unit, he participated in over two thousand arrests while maintaining close relationships with the kingpins of organized crime—ties that allowed him to stay one step ahead of the rest of the New York City Police Department.
Detective Palermo was one of the privileged few members of the law enforcement community to be informed of the impending arrest of crime lord Vito Genovese by the federal government, and he served as an expert witness in international drug smuggling cases. Palermo’s hangouts included Castle Hill Avenue Bar in the Bronx, where he visited underworld informant Joe Valachi, and the Manhattan after-hours bar and casino owned by Vegas underboss Carmine Canicatti, a Mafia haunt where he was one of only two cops to gain admittance. From carrying out sensitive negotiations with major underworld figures to busting Harlem drug tracker Albie Simmons, underboss to drug lord Leroy “Nicky” Barnes, every dealing in Detective Palermo’s tortuous story shows nerve, world-class Mafia expertise, and integrity at a time when crooked cops were the norm. This true crime drama takes you inside the New York City Police Department at its most corrupt and into the dark and dirty world of dons, consiglieres, underbosses, button men, soldiers, and cowboys.