The Ice Man

April 24, 2006
This stomach-turning account of the multiple atrocities committed over 43 years by Richard "The Ice Man" Kuklinski—as sadistic a killer as most readers would ever want to encounter in print—seems like more of an as-told-to than an independent journalistic narrative, though Carlo says that he verified Kuklinski's accounts where possible. But rather than critically assess Kuklinski's largely self-serving tales of his roles in such major mob killings as those of Jimmy Hoffa and Gambino boss Paul Castellano, Carlo (The Night Stalker
) seems to accept them. Instead of applying objective insight into how such a murderer—who researched methods that would prolong his victims' suffering—came to be, the author presents instead chapter after chapter of Kuklinski summarily killing criminals he was hired to eliminate or randomly gunning down someone on the street to test out a new weapon. By disregarding the questions raised by Mafia experts such as Jerry Capeci about Kuklinski's credibility, Carlo has fumbled an opportunity. Sloppy errors (e.g., Rudy Giuliani served as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, not the Eastern District) also detract from the book, which ends with a bizarre invitation to the reader to write to Kuklinski at the Trenton State Prison.

August 28, 2006
Prichard strives to navigate this marathon parade of torture and murder in an authoritative, almost aloof manner. But the cliched, repetitive and overwrought prose frequently undermines him. Carlo's apparent sympathy toward the Ice Man further subverts Prichard's crime-show host persona. In stomach-turning detail, Prichard brings to life Richard Kuklinsky's extraordinary 40-year career of murder. The gruesome, clinical accounts of countless killings-by every method imaginable-leaves listeners wincing and feeling depleted. Prichard's voice is worn and aged, with a slight nasal quality as if getting over a cold. For the most part, he handles the voluminous narrative without flagging. When rendering Kuklinsky and various Mafia figures and associates, the audio actor employs a similar tough-guy impersonation, which amounts to dropping his voice, bleeding out the emotion and barking swear words. This sometimes leads to confusion over who's speaking. Also included are two not especially revealing jailhouse interviews with the chillingly congenial Kuklinsky.

July 1, 2006
Richard Kuklinski, the Ice Man of the title, has told his story before in a variety of forums, including books and videos. Here Carlo tells Kuklinski's story more or less straight from the killer's mouth, with little verification or questioning. Given Kuklinski's grandiose claims, such as participation in the unsolved murder of Jimmy Hoffa, this produces a narrative of unrelieved horror. Kuklinski reveled not only in killing but also in the suffering of his victims, and here he emphasizes how he compartmentalized his life so that his family was shielded from the nastiness of his trade. Other than fulsome detail, not much new about Kuklinski is relayed. Carlo's presentation of Kuklinski uninterrupted does, however, make for nice comparative reading with the killer's wife's book, " Married to the Iceman" (1994). Good as an omnibus resource on Kuklinski, this is a fine entry in the burgeoning field of works tracing the decline of the traditional organized crime families and their once impenetrable structures.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)

June 15, 2006
Carlo ("The Night Stalker") has written another captivating true-crime book. This one tells the spine-chilling story of Richard Kuklinski, a.k.a. -the Ice Man - -because he liked to freeze his victims to throw off forensic investigators. Born into an abusive family, Kuklinski claimed to have killed for the first time at age 14. After a run-in with the Gambino family, he became a hit man for the mob, managing to live the double life of a professional assassin and devoted family man. The author spent over 200 hours interviewing the incarcerated Kuklinski and his family. If one is to believe Kuklinski, he killed upward of 200 individuals, including Jimmy Hoffa, Carmine Galante, and Roy DeMeo. It was only through the diligent work of New Jersey police officer Pat Kane, who spent six years building a case against Kuklinski, that the killing spree ended. This work is written like a novel; readers will become so engrossed in the details that they'll forget that this is a true story. Highly recommended for readers of true crime; perhaps the finished version of this book will provide the update that Kuklinski died on March 5, 2006, at age 70 of natural causes." -Michael Sawyer, Rangeview Lib. District, Thornton, CO"

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.