I, Mobster rips open the dark heart of the American Dream—where loyalty is a racket, love is a setup, and the only way out is in a coffin.
Tony Mauriello clawed his way out of the gutter and into a penthouse—one shakedown, one payoff, one corpse at a time. From waterfront dives to Park Avenue suites, he bought cops, broke men, and took whatever he wanted… especially women. He treated murder like simple bookkeeping. But every score comes with a price, and even a mob king can’t muscle fate.
The original, 1951 novel sold milions of copies was adapted into the 1959 film I Mobster, directed by Roger Corman and starring Steve Cochran.
The book’s actual author was writer and publisher Joseph Hilton Smyth (1901-1972). In 1942, Smyth and two of his business partners were convicted of acting as agents of the Japanese government and sentenced to seven years in prison. They’d used Japanese money to fund their publishing enterprises…in return for spreading pro-Japan propaganda. After his release, he wrote several novels (some as “Joseph Hilton,” “Hilton Smith,” and “Anonymous”) including The Sex Probers and The Nuder Gender, and edited the Saturday Review of Literature.
Joseph Hilton Smyth /
Crime Fiction, Historical
