Alphaville: 1988, Crime, Punishment, and the Battle for New York City's Lower East Side

### From Publishers Weekly Setting his story against one of the grittiest New York City neighborhoods of the late 1980s, Codella, a retired detective sergeant in the NYPD, with ghostwriter Bennett, relates how a tradition-rich district still populated by aging Polish and Ukrainian immigrants was threatened with destruction by the heroin trade. Codella describes his own origins in Brooklyn's Canarsie neighborhood, where old-time mob capos and cops lived side-by-side, as a prelude to his joining the police crusade against a ruthless drug kingpin, Davey Blue Eyes, and his loyal gang of smack dealers, "The Forty Thieves." They dominated the part of lower Manhattan known as Alphabet City. Written in a hyper-noir style reminiscent of Richard Price and George Pelecanos, this memoir features all the stuff of an excellent police procedural complete with drug gang rivalries, beatings, killings, and endless dealer collars and convictions. Raw, bloody, and very real, Codella's book is a historical snapshot of what was one of Gotham's most dangerous neighborhoods and the men who brought order to its frightening mayhem. (Nov.) (c) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ### Review "Codella describes [Alphabet City] so vividly, with such hardboiled language that you feel like you’re in the squad car with him." --_New York Post_ "Written in a hyper-noir style reminiscent of Richard Price and George Pelecanos, this memoir features all the stuff of an excellent police procedural complete with drug gang rivalries, beatings, killings, and endless dealer collars and convictions. Raw, bloody, and very real, Codella's book is a historical snapshot of what was one of Gotham's most dangerous neighborhoods and the men who brought order to its frightening mayhem." --_Publishers Weekly_ "From dodging Internal Affairs and a hit ordered by a drug kingpin to making a huge dent in New York’s drug trade, Codella’s life makes for a real page-turner. This should be popular with true crime readers whether or not they agree with him that the ends justified the means. Highly recommended." --_Library Journal_ "Codella secures justice of a sort in this taut true-crime tale... genuinely exciting." --_Kirkus_ “Terrific... It's one of the best cop books I've ever read, and sits on my bookshelf beside such classics as "The French Connection," "Serpico" and "Prince of the City." Codella has written a hair-raising, suspenseful, pull-no-punches true-crime tale about the hunt for Davy Blue Eyes through the bloodstained streets and murderous housing projects of Alphabet City.” –Denis Hamill, _The New York Daily News_ "A blistering cop’s-eye view of the Drug War during the heady years of the late-1980s. Codella and Bennett take the reader down alleyways and into shooting galleries, capturing the mood and patter of a time when a cop nicknamed Rambo and a gang of smack dealers called the Forty Thieves were caught in a dance to the death. You will feel as though you are pounding the pavement and dodging bullets. _Alphaville_ is the real deal.” – T.J. English, _New York Times_ bestselling author of _Havana Nocturne_ and _The Westies_ “_Alphaville_ is a quick, nitty gritty, page turning read that will leave you breathless. Through the eyes of former undercover cop Mike Codella we are given a bird's eye view into one of the most dangerous neighborhoods anywhere in the world- Manhattan's Lower East Side. Though the book is a true account, its characters are so colorful and vivid it reads more like a well-paced novel. I highly, highly recommend this read.” --Philip Carlo, _New York__ Times_ bestselling author of _Ice Man_ "A balls out cop tale from the bad old days of New York City. Watch your back in Alphaville." --Tom Folsom, _New York Times_ bestselling author of The Mad Ones "A narcotics cop's front-line exposure of the battles to eradicate one of America's most drug-infested landscapes. A penetrating primer on how street-savvy investigators struggle to overcome corruption, hitmen, frustrating internal rivalries and bureaucratic red tape in an often disheartening campaign to relieve the miseries generated by well-heeled, sadistic traffickers on a captive community." --Selwyn Raab, author of _Five Families_ “Nerve-shreddingly real. Addictive, brilliant and compelling. A staggeringly well-written true-life drama, which had me breathless from the first page to the last. Stunning!” --R.J. Ellory, author of _A Quiet Belief in Angels_ and _A Simple Act of Violence_