The Devil to Pay: A Mobster's Road to Perdition

By Sean Scott Hicks

Goodfellas meets the Irish mob in The Devil to Pay, the incredible true story of one man's unconventional upbringing in the criminal gangs of Boston and his eventual road to redemption.

Growing up in South Boston, Sean Scott Hicks was running jobs for the Irish mob before his voice changed. Mistreated by his drug-addled mother, Hicks found sanctuary with his adoptive family of felonious uncles--known to law enforcement officials as the Winter Hill Gang. These crooks knew where all the bodies were buried--because they'd done the burying--but they also looked out for young Sean. Even the notorious gangster known worldwide as Whitey Bulger was simply "Uncle Jim" to him.

After such an upbringing, a life of crime was a given. In this unprecedented memoir, Hicks talks about everything from his experience running illegal goods up and down the coast of Massachusetts to his theory about what really happened the night three hundred million dollars' worth of art went missing from Boston's Isabella Gardner Museum. Terms like money laundering and assault insufficiently describe his daily tasks, a brash existence that alternated with stints behind bars. This knuckles-close look at mobster life chronicles the greed and avarice, tenderness and brutality, and the reckoning all gangsters must eventually face.

Hicks tells a story of blood and vengeance but also--surprisingly--of hope. The Devil to Pay: A Mobster's Road to Perdition is an extraordinary memoir that illuminates the reality of what it's really like in the dark, dangerous, and insidious places of the world, and what it takes to bring a person there and back again.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0CKTYPPXD
• ISBN13: 9798212227636
• Release Date: March 2024
• Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
• Length: 246 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.2" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Horrible

A friend of mine got an advanced reader copy of this book and gave it to me to read. I am an avid true crime reader so I was excited to read it. What a waste of time. When I finished reading the book it was clear that the author is less than credible and I question whether he was involved in organized crime and the alleged crimes he claimed to be associated with. The reason I say this is because one of the alleged assaults Hicks claims he was involved in I remember the same thing almost word for word from the movie The Accountant with Ben Affleck. I did some research on Hicks and in 2010 he was peddling a story that he was a long time member of the Bloods gang. After reading that and also discovering that his age and timeline does not add up with the times and events of the Winter Hill Gang I concluded this book is fabricated and is just Hicks latest attempt to con people. Don't waste your time or money.