A “STAND UP” GUY Growing up in Bensonhurst in the 1940s and 50s, on the surface at least Mike Miccio seems to have every advantage. The son of a wealthy wine chemist, who lives in a huge house, spends his summers on the rides at Coney Island, and plays stoopball and ring-a-levio with his friends. Behind the façade, however, Mike, along with his mother and siblings, suffers horrendous abuse at the hands of his alcoholic father. Finding escape on the lawless Brooklyn streets, Mike eventually hooks up with a notorious gang, the Rampers. With fellow members such as Sammy the Bull and other up-and-coming gangsters, Mike soldiers in bloody turf wars and runs lucrative scams. His street rep draws the attention of the local mafiosi, particularly Joe Colombo, capo of the Colombo crime family. But Mike’s meteoric rise in organized crime smashes into a concrete ceiling—a devastating psychotic break is diagnosed as manic depression. Now fighting debilitating mental illness and dodging retaliation from the very mobsters who once embraced him, Mike’s next twenty years are a living hell. Only a “miracle” cure and an act of forgiveness by the son of a man Mike tried to kill, will give Mike one final shot at redemption. “Gripping from the first page.” —Helen Fenyes, Accountant “The legend of Mikey Miccio was real. Stories of Mike’s street fighting and gang banging did not give justice to how feared and respected Mike was.” —Kevin DeBlasi, Esq. “This book is not just about the Mafia, it is about a man [who] dealt with mental illness.” —Jessica “New York’s finest found him hanging off the ledge of the Verrazzano Bridge.” —Joseph DeBlasi, author of Sex, Lies, and Family Betrayal, a Memoir of Manic Depression