IZZY: A LIFE INSIDE THE OLD PHILLY JEW MOB

From the time Fred Lavner was old enough to read the daily newspapers, he knew something was up with his Uncle Eddie.  First, the Philadelphia newspapers kept referring to him as “Izzy” instead of “Eddie.”  But of greater importance was the fact that the news about his uncle was always about him being arrested.  A lot!!  By the time Fred had become a teen his uncle had been arrested 144 times, a record which still stands in Pennsylvania.  Once he had become a journalism student at Temple University, Fred began chronicling the real story of his uncle’s life, and some 50 years later, after exhaustive research, hundreds of interviews and thousands of hours of poring over old newspaper clippings, microfilm, and police and FBI logbooks, the legend of IZZY has become a fascinating story and rips the cover off of the police and court corruption that plagued Philadelphia and persecuted Jewish mobsters for decades!

460 pages, hardcover