Alphaville

Alphabet City in 1988 was burned with heroin, radicalism, and anti-police sentiment. Working as a plainclothes narcotics cop in the most high-voltage neighbourhood in Manhattan, Detective Sergeant Mike Codella made it his personal mission to put away Davie Blue Eyes - a stone-cold murderer and the head of Alphabet City's heroin supply chain. In this gritty memoir, Codella resurrects the vicious streets that Davie Blue Eyes owned, and tells the story of how he and his partner Gio bagged the forty thieves that surrounded Davie, slowly working their way to the head of the snake one scale at a time. Shining a cool light into the parallel forces, struggles, and stories that transformed the neighbourhood, Codella makes it clear that through all the beatings and gunshots, the foot chases and close calls, he and Gio both saw Alphabet City the same way: worth saving. With the narrative spirit of "The French Connection", the straight-up voice of Ed Conlon's "Blue Blood", and the insights of "Ladies and Gentlemen, "The Bronx Is Burning", "Alphaville" is at once the story of an NYPD detective, and of New York City itself.

About the Author :
MICHAEL CODELLA was a New York City cop for twenty years. He worked and supervised in the DEA, Secret Service Task Force, Special Frauds Squad, Missing Person's Squad, Operation 8, and several other outstanding and prestigious units throughout the City. Mike retired from the NYPD in 2003 as a Detective Sergeant. He now divides his time between TV and film work, being a professional fight trainer, and running his Renzo Gracie Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Academy with his family.BRUCE BENNETT is a writer whose work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Sun; a guitar player who has performed and recorded with the A-Bones, Hasil Adkins, Action Swingers, Yo La Tengo, and Andre Williams; and the writer and director of two award-winning short films, both aired on the Independent Film Channel. A Manhattan native and twenty year resident of the Lower East Side -- including the period covered in ALPHAVILLE--Bennett now lives and works in Brooklyn.

Review :
"A rollicking recollection of what Alphabet City was like a generation ago." --"New York Times" "Codella describes [Alphabet City] so vividly, with such hardboiled language that you feel like you're in the squad car with him." --"New York Post" "Written in a hyper-noir style reminiscent of Richard Price and George Pelecanos, this memoir features all the stuff of an excellent police procedural complete with drug gang rivalries, beatings, killings, and endless dealer collars and convictions. Raw, bloody, and very real, Codella's book is a historical snapshot of what was one of Gotham's most dangerous neighborhoods and the men who brought order to its frightening mayhem." --"Publishers Weekly" "From dodging Internal Affairs and a hit ordered by a drug kingpin to making a huge dent in New York's drug trade, Codella's life makes for a real page-turner. This should be popular with true crime readers whether or not they agree with him that the ends justified the means. Highly recommended." --"Library Journal" "Codella secures justice of a sort in this taut true-crime tale... genuinely exciting." --"Kirkus" "Terrific... It's one of the best cop books I've ever read, and sits on my bookshelf beside such classics as "The French Connection," "Serpico" and "Prince of the City." Codella has written a hair-raising, suspenseful, pull-no-punches true-crime tale about the hunt for Davy Blue Eyes through the bloodstained streets and murderous housing projects of Alphabet City." -Denis Hamill, "The New York Daily News" "A blistering cop's-eye view of the Drug War during the heady years of the late-1980s. Codella and Bennett take the reader down alleyways and into shooting galleries, capturing the mood and patter of a time when a cop nicknamed Rambo and a gang of smack dealers called the Forty Thieves were caught in a dance to the death. You will feel as though you are pounding the pavement and dodging bullets. "Alphaville" is the real deal." - T.J. English, "New York Times" bestselling author of "Havana Nocturne" and "The Westies" ""Alphaville" is a quick, nitty gritty, page turning read that will leave you breathless. Through the eyes of former undercover cop Mike Codella we are given a bird's eye view into one of the most dangerous neighborhoods anywhere in the world- Manhattan's Lower East Side. Though the book is a true account, its characters are so colorful and vivid it reads more like a well-paced novel. I highly, highly recommend this read." --Philip Carlo, "New York"" Times" bestselling author of "Ice Man" "A balls out cop tale from the bad old days of New York City. Watch your back in Alphaville." --Tom Folsom, "New York Times" bestselling author of The Mad Ones"A narcotics cop's front-line exposure of the battles to eradicate one of America's most drug-infested landscapes. A penetrating primer on how street-savvy investigators struggle to overcome corruption, hitmen, frustrating internal rivalries and bureaucratic red tape in an often disheartening campaign to relieve the miseries generated by well-heeled, sadistic traffickers on a captive community." --Selwyn Raab, author of "Five Families" "Nerve-shreddingly real. Addictive, brilliant and compelling. A staggeringly well-written true-life drama, which had me breathless from the first page to the last. Stunning!" --R.J. Ellory, author of "A Quiet Belief in Angels" and "A Simple Act of Violence" "Codella describes [Alphabet City] so vividly, with such hardboiled language that you feel like you're in the squad car with him." --"New York Post" "Written in a hyper-noir style reminiscent of Richard Price and George Pelecanos, this memoir features all the stuff of an excellent police procedural complete with drug gang rivalries, beatings, killings, and endless dealer collars and convictions. Raw, bloody, and very real, Codella's book is a historical snapshot of what was one of Gotham's most dangerous neighborhoods and the men who brought order to its frightening mayhem." --"Publishers Weekly" "From dodging Internal Affairs and a hit ordered by a drug kingpin to making a huge dent in New York's drug trade, Codella's life makes for a real page-turner. This should be popular with true crime readers whether or not they agree with him that the ends justified the means. Highly recommended." --"Library Journal" "Codella secures justice of a sort in this taut true-crime tale... "Written in a hyper-noir style reminiscent of Richard Price and George Pelecanos, this memoir features all the stuff of an excellent police procedural complete with drug gang rivalries, beatings, killings, and endless dealer collars and convictions. Raw, bloody, and very real, Codella's book is a historical snapshot of what was one of Gotham's most dangerous neighborhoods and the men who brought order to its frightening mayhem." --"Publishers Weekly"  "From dodging Internal Affairs and a hit ordered by a drug kingpin to making a huge dent in New York’s drug trade, Codella’s life makes for a real page-turner. This should be popular with true crime readers whether or not they agree with him that the ends justified the means. Highly recommended." --"Library Journal" "Codella secures justice of a sort in this taut true-crime tale... genuinely exciting." --"Kirkus" “Terrific… It's one of the best cop books I've ever read, and sits on my bookshelf beside