Cover of "I Heard You Paint Houses": Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa

"I Heard You Paint Houses": Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa

The first words Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke to Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran were, "I heard you paint houses." To paint a house is to kill a man. The paint is the blood that splatters on the walls and floors. In the course of nearly five years of recorded interviews Frank Sheeran confessed to Charles Brandt that he handled more than twenty-five hits for the mob, and for his friend Hoffa. Sheeran learned to kill in the U.S. Army, where he saw an astonishing 411 days of active combat duty in Italy during World War II. After returning home he became a hustler and hit man, working for legendary crime boss Russell Bufalino. Eventually he would rise to a position of such prominence that in a RICO suit then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani would name him as one of only two non-Italians on a list of 26 top mob figures. When Bufalino ordered Sheeran to kill Hoffa, he did the deed, knowing that if he had refused he would have been killed himself. Sheeran's important and fascinating story includes new information on other famous murders, and provides rare insight to a chapter in American history. Charles Brandt has written a page-turner that is destined to become a true crime classic.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 320 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked "I Heard You Paint Houses": Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked "I Heard You Paint Houses": Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. The Profession of Violence: The Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins Shares true crime, nonfiction, crime
  2. Deal With The Devil: The FBI's Secret Thirty-Year Relationship With A Mafia Killer Shares true crime, nonfiction, crime
  3. The World's Most Infamous Murders Shares true crime, nonfiction, crime
  4. Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster Shares true crime, nonfiction, crime

“People who read "I Heard You Paint Houses": Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa tend to reach for these next.”

  1. Mr. Capone
  2. Blood and Honor: Inside the Scarfo Mob--The Mafia's Most Violent Family
  3. The Butcher: Anatomy of a Mafia Psychopath
  4. Mafia Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the Gambino Crime Family

“If you want more of the same (true crime about mafia), start with these.”

  1. Surviving the Mob: A Street Soldier's Life Inside the Gambino Crime Family
  2. Murder in the Stacks: Penn State, Betsy Aardsma, and the Killer Who Got Away
  3. Doctor Dealer: The Rise and Fall of an All-American Boy and His Multimillion-Dollar Cocaine Empire
  4. Bloodletters and Badmen

“If it was the crime that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer
  2. The Family Story of Bonnie and Clyde
  3. Savage Grace
  4. Tender Murderers: Women Who Kill

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Whitey Bulger - The Biggest Rat
  2. Mob Boss: The Life of Little Al D’Arco, the Man Who Brought Down the Mafia
  3. Gotti's Rules: The Story of John Alite, Junior Gotti, and the Demise of the American Mafia
  4. The Last Gangster