Here's the starred review from BOOKLIST: * Mafia Spies: The Inside Story of the CIA, Gangsters, JFK, and Castro. By Thomas Maier Apr. 2019. 440p. Skyhorse, $25.99 (9781510741713). 364.1 This is a standout in the field of spy nonfiction. Maier, a Newsday investigative journalist for 30 years, uses a slew of documents (including the National Archives’ recently declassified files about the Kennedy assassination, along with sworn court testimony, congressional hearings, and CIA and FBI documents) to make what is a totally credible case that two gangsters worked with the CIA in the early 1960s to try to assassinate Fidel Castro. Not only does Maier give beyond-solid evidence for the strange alliance of politicians, mobsters, movie stars, entertainers, and Cuban-exile commandos in Miami seeking to bring down Castro, he also makes the whole book crystal clear (a rarity in spy nonfiction) and enormously fun. The focus is on Hollywood/Las Vegas gangster Johnny Roselli
Among those who once visited the Hotel Nacional in Havana was Winston Churchill, a subject of my last book WHEN LIONS ROAR. Today the hotel has named a posh bar in Churchill’s name. During a visit last week, it was good to see a reminder of Winston as I prepared for my new book, coming out April 2. MAFIA SPIES is all about spying and Winston was a master of it. Just ask Joe Kennedy and Tyler Kent, as described in LIONS. That chapter got me to thinking that I’d like to do a whole book about spying in the Cold War.