True Crime: Michael Cannell on 2 NYPD 'tecs who were Mafia assets too

"Blood and the Badge: The Mafia, Two Killer Cops and a Scandal That Shocked the Nation" by Michael Cannell (Minotaur Books )

Through the 1970s and 1980s Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa served in the NYPD, rising through the ranks, each becoming decorated detectives. They are also responsible for what may qualify as the department's darkest chapter. For years the two cops operated not only as paid informants for the Lucchese organized crime family, but served as mob henchmen, committed a multitude of crimes and were involved in at least fifteen murders. And they came remarkably close to getting away with all of it. Michael Cannell, a former editor at the New York Times and author of the critically acclaimed A Brotherhood Betrayed, now has written the definitive account of the crooked cops' escapades and the trail of terror they left-which included the deaths and wrongful imprisonment of wholly innocent people-in BLOOD AND THE BADGE: The Mafia, Two Killer Cops, and a Scandal That Shocked the Nation (January 14, 2025; SMP).

MICHAEL CANNELL is the author of A Brotherhood Betrayed: The Man Behind the Rise and Fall of Murder, Inc, and three other works of non-fiction. He has worked as an editor at The New York Times and contributed to The New Yorker and many other publications. He lives in New York City.