About the Book
A raw, gritty memoir--part true-life cop thriller, part unputdownable history of a storied time and place--that will grip you by the throat until the explosive end
In 1988, Alphabet City burned with heroin, radicalism, and antipolice sentiment. Working as a plainclothes narcotics cop in the most high-voltage neighborhood in Manhattan, Detective Sergeant Mike Codella earned the nickname "Rambo" from the local dealers, as well as a $50,000 bounty on his head. The son of a cop who grew up in a mob neighborhood in Brooklyn, Codella understood the unwritten laws of the shadowy businesses that ruled the streets. He knew that the further east you got from the relative safety of Fifth Avenue, Washington Square Park, and NYU, the deeper you entered the sea of human misery, greed, addiction, violence, and all the things that come with an illegal retail drug trade run wild. With his partner, Gio, Codella made it his personal mission to put away Davey Blue Eyes--a stone-cold murderer and the head of Alphabet City's heroin supply chain. Despite the hell they endured--all the beatings and gunshots, the footchases, and close calls--Codella and Gio always saw Alphabet City the same way: worth saving.
Alphaville, Codella's riveting, no-holds-barred memoir, resurrects the vicious streets that Davey Blue Eyes owned and tells the story of how Codella bagged the so-called Forty Thieves that surrounded Davey, slowly working his way to the head of the snake one scale at a time. With the blistering narrative spirit of The French Connection, the insights of a seasoned insider, and a relentless voice that reads like the city's own, Alphaville is at once the story of a dedicated New York cop 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 Persons Squad, Operation 8, and several other outstanding and prestigious units throughout the city. He retired from the NYPD in 2003 as a detective sergeant. He now divides his time between television 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 erstwhile New York Sun, among other publications; a guitar player who has performed and recorded with the A-Bones, Hasil Adkins, Action Swingers, Yo La Tengo, and Andre Williams, to name a few; and the writer and director of two award-winning short films, both aired on the Independent Film Channel. A Manhattan native and resident of the Lower East Side for twenty years--including the period covered in Alphaville--he now lives and works in Brooklyn.
Keith Szarabajka has appeared in many films, including The Dark Knight, Missing, and A Perfect World, and on such television shows as The Equalizer, Angel, Cold Case, Golden Years, and Profit. Szarabajka has also appeared in several episodes of Selected Shorts for National Public Radio. He won the 2001 Audie Award for Unabridged Fiction for his reading of Tom Robbins's Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates and has won several Earphones Awards.
Review :
"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"
"Alphaville is the real deal."
-- "T. J. English, New York Times bestselling author of Havana Nocturne and The Westies"
"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"
"Codella secures justice of a sort in this taut true-crime tale...Genuinely exciting."
-- "Kirkus Reviews"
"Keith Szarabajka's performance is admirable: he balances the straight first-person narrative with rich vocal characterization while easily shifting into the more straightforward historical aspects of the book such as the history of heroin or city planning. He takes some effective liberties with the dialogue, ratcheting up the intensity and sometimes even the strength of an accent, which provides added authenticity and drama"
-- "Publishers Weekly audio review"
"Narrator Keith Szarabajka provides Codella's story with streetwise New York accents and Puerto Rican-accented English. In delivering the story's noir style, he excels at depicting the gang members, drug dealers, and other low-lifes the author specialized in putting out of business. Without Szarabajka's narration, one imagines that the trip into the danger and occasional comedy of such a terrible place would be far less entertaining. Codella doesn't paints himself as an angel--nor does he talk like one--but he seems like he wears a badge you'd want in your neighborhood."
-- "AudioFile"
"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"
"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"
