"For more than forty years, Richard "the Ice Man" Kuklinski led a double life, becoming one of the most notorious professional assassins in American history while hosting neighborhood barbecues in suburban New Jersey." "Richard Kuklinski, on the orders of Sammy "the Bull" Gravano, took part in the killing of Paul Castellano at Sparks Steakhouse. John Gotti hired him to help kill the neighbor who accidentally ran over his child. He also was intimately involved in the killing of Jimmy Hoffa. For an additional price, Kuklinski would make his victims suffer; he conducted this sadistic business with cold-hearted intensity and efficiency, never disappointing his customers. By his own estimate, he killed more than two hundred men, taking enormous pride in his cunning and the variety and ferocity of his technique."

"This trail of murder lasted forty years and took Kuklinski all over America and to the far corners of the earth, including Europe and South America. Along the way, he married, had three children, and put them through Catholic school. His family never suspected a thing." "Several years after police finally brought Kuklinski to justice in 1986, he agreed to sit for a series of interviews with a documentary filmmaker. The chilling results aired in three hugely successful HBO documentaries about Kuklinski's life. Philip Carlo spent more than 240 hours with Kuklinski, and hundreds more with his wife and his daughters, as well as with police and underworld sources, researching and ultimately writing this book. The result is an intimate and definitive portrait of a Mafia killer."--BOOK JACKET.