Citizen Somerville : growing up with the Winter Hill Gang
(Book)

In the early 1960's a bloody civil war broke out between the two powerful Irish Mob families in the Somerville Massachusetts neighborhood known as Winter Hill. Over sixty men were murdered, including the leader of the Winter Hill Gang, James "Buddy" McLean. The leadership of one of the most influential non-Italian crime organizations in the United States was inherited by his childhood friend, Howard T. "Howie" Winter. The events during Winter's tenure offer a true picture of an era in Boston's pre-Whitey Bulger history when the streets were protected by a close-knit group of Irish-Italian "businessmen." This story slices a layer deeper than a crime memoir by allowing a usually ostracized faction to speak - the women. After decades of silence, three strong and very different females lift the Mob veil and voice their own struggle to survive in Somerville's criminal circle. Often painfully poignant and yet frequently hilarious, this is a microscopic view of a generation struggling to walk the moral tightrope between societal decency and the loyalty of criminality.