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Rat Bastards: The South Boston Irish Mobster Who Took the Rap When Everyone Else Ran | 
 enlarge | Author: John "red" Shea
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 453274
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 0061232890
Dewey Decimal Number: 364
EAN: 9780061232893
ASIN: 0061232890
Publication Date: January 1, 2007
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Product Description
John "Red" Shea, 40, was a top lieutenant in the South Boston Irish mob run, led by James "Whitey" Bulger. An ice–cold enforcer with a red–hot temper, Shea was a legend among his peers in the 1990s South Boston, as much as John Gotti, Bugsy Siegel, and Al Capone were in their time and place. When the actor and producer Mark Wahlberg, raised in nearby Dorchester, learned of a script based on Shea's life circulating in Hollywood, he immediately committed to playing the gangster on screen. A major feature film project is now in development. From the age of thirteen, when he started robbing delivery trucks, to the age of twenty–seven, when he began serving a twelve–year federal sentence for drug trafficking, Shea was a portrait in American crime – a bantam–weight, red–headed terror, brutal with his fists and deadly with a lead pipe, a baseball bat, or a knife. At fifteen he was selling marijuana . At seventeen he was handling Bulger's cocaine. At eighteen he was loan sharking and laundering Bulger's money. At twenty, initiated into Bulger's inner circle at the point of an Uzi, he was running a multimillion–dollar narcotics operation for his mentor. RAT BASTARDS was the first–ever, firsthand account of mob life that wasn't told by a rat. Red Shea did his crime, then did his time––and never informed, unlike Henry Hill of Wiseguy, Sammy "The Bull" Gravano of Underboss, and so many others. Holding fast to the code of his upbringing, he remained a man of honor.
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 Stand up guys winning score--Stand-up guys 10,Rats 0(years in Pen) September 4, 2008
Shea can say honestly that he is not a rat because he never turned "states evidence" and plead guilty through plea bargaining.He was a "soldier"in Whitey Bulger's Irish crime mob.His job was as a protector and volume drug dealer. There are no murders or "hits" described in the book,whether because Shea doesn't want to be a "rat",or because he never participated in any.The reader is left to speculate whether Shea was a contract killer or not. Certainly from the level of violence he maintained it would be a possibility.Despite it all he seems as if he has a Dr. Jekyll side,at times a warm,sensitive personality.
He found out too late that "rats" are everywhere in the criminal world,as a matter of fact that is whom "the life" attracts.A code of honor as professed by Shea is a liability.So maybe the criminals' best move is in the words of Forrest,is to"get there firstest with the mostest",that is be the first rat with the most info for the Feds.You can soak up the summer sun with a summer blond. The others can be reviewed on Amazon in regard to their prison memoirs, complete with accounts of homosexual assaults and prisongang riots.Whitey Bulger just outsmarted all of them and that's why they're so angry at him.The criminal needs to be aware that the government always uses "badguys" to get other badguys.Shea needed to realize this when he went into a life of crime.Rats are part of the crime world,a calculated risk so stop bellyaching when one pops your balloon.
Rather Mindless October 16, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
John "Red" Shea spends his life making sure he is a "man." To him, this means beating up anyone who doesn't conform to his macho teenage code learned on the mean streets of Southie. One would think Shea would have learned a few lessons about maturity after 12 years in federal prison. You don't get that impression after reading his memoir, which is one of several by members of Whitey Bulger's former gang. Shea takes pride in being the only one not to 'rat,' an act akin to him of the lowest human order. His tale will be glorified by Mark Wahlberg in an upcoming film, evidently. It will make a good movie. But as real life, it's just a waste. The book is a decent read, not as good as some of the others in this genre. It doesn't really take off until the middle when he finally reaches the stage where he becomes Whitey's "protege," as a drug dealer. The prison section is interesting, too. If you like tales of human depravity and bleakness, you'll eat this one up.
 Well what did you expect from a self-described criminal ? March 5, 2007
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I saw this book and was interested because of the movie The Departed. I saw it in the theatre, and then got the DVD when it came out. Because I am from the area, I knew The Departed was about Whitey Bulger, more than some movie remake of Internal Affairs.
Up until now I had resisted the other books about Whitey and the Irish mob in Southie. This one just looked more interesting, and hit me at the right time.
I have read the other reviews for the hardcover, especially those who are from Southie. It seems people either love it or hate it, and him. I am more lukewarm about the book. I don't have any inside knowledge to tell if he was telling it straight, or making it up.
I thought the writing was ok, not great, but not awful. I imagine his writer was trying to keep the tone and structure true to how Shea speaks. It was a quick read, and a bit engaging, though not a real page turner to me.
I thought that there was a real lack of self-reflection from Shea for the most part. He was just as brash in his story as he was in life. He says this is what I did, this is the surface reason why, deal with it. Very rarely does he dig beneath that.
Other than the prison stories he is very vague about what he did, or what his activities were for Whitey. As he says he followed Whitey's advice about never letting someone else have anything to hold over you. But even without that you shouldn't expect anything specific from him in the book because: 1.) Anything that didn't come out in his trial, he could probably still be prosecuted for; 2.) He says he is not a rat, and so he won't tell anything about anyone else, that isn't already known; 3.) he doesn't want to get those who are guilty in trouble with the law, or make them feel a need to come after him.
What you do get is the sense that he never really grew up. He does want to prove continually how tough he is, and after all the others ratted out, that he is not a rat, but better than the others. He comes from that odd group of males who think that they still should act like teenage jerks, even when fully grown. By choosing to be a perpetual child he also throws away any chance for a real happy life, when he won't commit to Penelope. He gives up a wife, a family, and a home. He is probably too scared of that type of work, and risk. Rather he wants to follow the movie image of the tough-guy gangster, and take the easy way out. Its an empty image that he has opted for, rather than a real life. Its actually sad.
Yes what he did in terms of selling drugs, and being a criminal is bad. He doesn't really care, and he never says he is sorry. He feels bad for the accidental innocent people he hurt, but he never considers the families of his marks/victims/customers, as innocents whom he hurt all the time.
I think the book says just as much about him indirectly as it does with his input. It was a quick, interesting read. I wouldn't buy it in hardcover, but think paper is ok, and maybe borrowing from the Library is the best.
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