Alphaville : 1988, Crime, Punishment, and the Battle for New York City's Lower East Side
(2011)

Nonfiction

eAudiobook

Provider: hoopla

Details

PUBLISHED
[United States] : Blackstone Publishing, 2011
Made available through hoopla
EDITION
Unabridged
DESCRIPTION

1 online resource (1 audio file (9hr., 32 min.)) : digital

ISBN/ISSN
9781982508043 MWT19283531, 1982508043 19283531
LANGUAGE
English
NOTES

Read by Keith Szarabajka

A raw, gritty memoir-part true-life cop thriller, part unputdownable history of a storied time and place-that will grip you by the throat until the explosive end In 1988, Alphabet City burned with heroin, radicalism, and antipolice sentiment. Working as a plainclothes narcotics cop in the most high-voltage neighborhood in Manhattan, Detective Sergeant Mike Codella earned the nickname "Rambo" from the local dealers, as well as a $50,000 bounty on his head. The son of a cop who grew up in a mob neighborhood in Brooklyn, Codella understood the unwritten laws of the shadowy businesses that ruled the streets. He knew that the further east you got from the relative safety of Fifth Avenue, Washington Square Park, and NYU, the deeper you entered the sea of human misery, greed, addiction, violence, and all the things that come with an illegal retail drug trade run wild. With his partner, Gio, Codella made it his personal mission to put away Davey Blue Eyes-a stone-cold murderer and the head of Alphabet City's heroin supply chain. Despite the hell they endured-all the beatings and gunshots, the footchases, and close calls-Codella and Gio always saw Alphabet City the same way: worth saving. Alphaville, Codella's riveting, no-holds-barred memoir, resurrects the vicious streets that Davey Blue Eyes owned and tells the story of how Codella bagged the so-called Forty Thieves that surrounded Davey, slowly working his way to the head of the snake one scale at a time. With the blistering narrative spirit of The French Connection, the insights of a seasoned insider, and a relentless voice that reads like the city's own, Alphaville is at once the story of a dedicated New York cop and of New York City itself. Title Info. Note to the Listener. Dedication. Quote's. From A to D A: Avenue D. One. Avenue D. Two. Avenue D. Three. B. Avenue D. Four. Avenue D. Five. Track 12 Track 13 Track 14 Seven. C: Avenue D. Eight. Avenue D. Nine. Avenue D. Ten. Avenue D. Eleven. Avenue D. Twelve D: Thirteen Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. "A balls-out cop tale from the bad old days of New York City. Watch your back in Alphaville." "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." "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!" "Alphaville is the real deal." "Keith Szarabajka's performance is admirable: he balances the straight first-person narrative with rich vocal characterization while easily shifting into the more straightforward historical aspects of the book such as the history of heroin or city planning. He takes some effective liberties with the dialogue, ratcheting up the intensity and sometimes even the strength of an accent, which provides added authenticity and drama" "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." "Narrator Keith Szarabajka provides Codella's story with streetwise New York accents and Puerto Rican-accented English. In delivering the story's noir style, he excels at depicting the gang members, drug dealers, and other low-lifes the au

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