Hitman: The Untold Story of Johnny Martorano, Whitey Bulger’s Enforcer and the Most Feared Gangster in the Underworld

Howie Carr

Apr 2011 · Blackstone Audio Inc. · Narrated by Keith Szarabajka

About this audiobook

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Brothers Bulger comes the story of Johnny Martorano, whom the FBI called “the most feared man in the underworld.”

Martin Scorsese’s The Departed barely touched his story, but radio talk show sensation, crime reporter, and Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr takes us into the heart of the life of Johnny Martorano. For two decades, Martorano struck fear into anyone remotely connected to his world. His partnership with Whitey Bulger and the infamous Winter Hill Gang led to twenty murders, for which Johnny would serve only twelve years in prison. Carr also looks at the politicians and FBI agents who aided Johnny and Whitey and at the vibrant city of Boston which they so ruthlessly ruled. But most of all, Carr depicts Johnny—the most fascinating crime figure Carr has ever encountered. A plethora of paradoxes, he was Mr. Mom by day and man-about-town by night. Surrounded by fast-living politicians, sports celebrities, and show-biz entertainers, Johnny was charismatically colorful—as charming as he was frightening. After all, he was, in the end, a hitman.

Ratings and reviews

I couldn't put the book down,very intriguing n very gruesome but I liked it very much so.🔫💵💰💸🔫

About the author

Howie Carr, a native of Portland, Maine, is a popular radio talk show host who is syndicated across New England. Known for his scathing exposes of local politicians, he has raised lots of eyebrows and voices over the years. He's famous for pushing the envelope and not regretting that he went too far. He has also been featured regularly on NBC, MSNBC, C-SPAN, Court TV, CNN, and the Fox News Network. Carr was Boston City Hall bureau chief of The Boston Herald American, and he later worked as the paper's State House bureau chief. As a political reporter for WNEV, Channel 7, his coverage of then Mayor Kevin White was so relentless that after the mayor announced he wasn't running again, he told the Boston Sunday Globe that one of the things he enjoyed most about his impending retirement was not having Carr chase him around the city. In 1985, he won the National Magazine Award, the magazine industry's equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize, for Essays and Criticism. In television, he has been nominated for an Emmy Award.

Keith Szarabajka has appeared in many films, including The Dark Knight, Missing, and A Perfect World, and on such television shows as The Equalizer, Angel, Cold Case, Golden Years, and Profit. Szarabajka has also appeared in several episodes of Selected Shorts for National Public Radio. He won the 2001 Audie Award for Unabridged Fiction for his reading of Tom Robbins’s Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates and has won several Earphones Awards.