Michael D. Blutrich

Ok. I have to admit two things- I have a thing for mafia/true crime books. I also have to admit that even though they are the equivalent of a buffet as compared to a high quality restaurant, I still love them. What I mean by that is, going in and reading these books, you know it isn't going to be great writing and it is going to be pretty basic.

I needed to write that before writing my review.

As I was reading this, I kept thinking, besides someone like me, who loves these types of books, who is going to read this? Mafia lovers, yes, but fans of Scores? maybe? Howard Stern fans? Maybe as his name is dropped so many times in this book.

While this wasn't a great book, it was an ok book. I felt like I was sitting next to the author as he was telling me stories about his club. This is a club that even though I have never gone to a strip club, I knew about it as a native New Yorker. This is how famous this club is. He told his stories through the book, but the problem is his voice was never there. They are great stories, but there was a disconnect. I am sure if I were truly sitting across from him, these stories would come off differently, but in book form there just wasn't a connection.

The stories came off a bit disjointed, there wasn't emotion behind them, and they just kind of fell flat even though they were crazy stories involving the mob and killings and all sorts of wackiness. I wondered if there were a ghost writer, the book might have come off a bit differently.

I gave this some 2,5 stars.

I want to thank NetGalley for this book. I received it for free in exchange for an honest review.… (meer)

It's an interesting read, but it gets a little too whiny (especially at the end). This is particularly true if you look into the author on even a cursory basis. He really deserved what he got, and worse, and there's really no getting around that. The fact he cooperated in the hope of leniency doesn't really make him a convincing victim when they decide to sentence him based on his crimes anyway. The whole thing just kinda comes across as a pity party in the end. This is kind of unfortunate, since it was actually a pretty strong and compelling read until he beat the dead horse a bit too heavily. This is an author who clearly never heard of the concept of laying out the facts and letting the reader reach their own conclusion. That said, I did like the details about opening the club especially, the legal issues it navigated, and what methods they used to make it a success. It was heading on the path toward being a solid four star book, before it floundered a bit. It's well worth the read if the premise sounds interesting to you though.… (meer)

Scores is the story of Michael Blutrich, a successful New York attorney who opened one of the most famous "gentlemen's clubs" in the country. The real story, though, is how the Gambino crime family got it's hooks into the club, and how Blutrich was made an FBI informant to take down the mafia family.
I honestly could not stop reading this book. It was exciting, well written, and grabbed your attention right away. Blutrich's descriptions of his "adventure" made you feel afraid for him, yet somewhat disgusted by him, at the same time.
I won't get into the morality of a strip club. That's for someone else to decide. I just sat back and enjoyed the story.
This easily could have been a five-star review, except for one thing. Blutrich, in the beginning of the book, talks vaguely about his "Florida troubles". Throughout the book, as he goes deeper and deeper into his informant status, he mentions this many times, but never really gets into it. Finally, you determine that he is under indictment in Florida for some type of insurance fraud.
His agreement with the New York U.S. Attorney's and the FBI is that if he keeps informing on the Gambino's (and others), he will get a substantial sentence reduction. And informing he does, very effectively. And it looks like things are going to go his way.
BUT, the Florida U.S. Attorney's are not going for this agreement, as Blutrich goes on and on about. According to him, the prosecuting attorney and judge in Florida are unfairly against him. They go out of their way to inflict unnecessary harm on him, based mostly on jealousy. Blutrich ends up serving WAY more time than he thought, all because of this one U.S. Attorney and Judge. You are left feeling that he has really been screwed over by the system.
So I did a little digging, researching the book a little further. Turns out, his little insurance fraud case in Florida was actually a MUCH bigger deal than he let on. According to a 60 Minutes profile, what actually happened was that Blutrich opened Scores with money he stole from a large life insurance company in Florida. The money he stole left nearly 26,000 elderly policy holders bilked out of their life savings. The theft totalled $440 million dollars, one of the biggest white collar crimes in U.S. history. Aha! So maybe that's why the U.S. Attorney's in Florida were being so hard headed! Sure, he testified against the mob, and that's great, but in reality there was no nobel purpose, he did it only to save his own skin in Florida. He goes on and on about how unfairly he was treated, how he was promised almost no prison time yet ended up serving 13 years. What he doesn't tell you in the book was that his codefendant in the Florida case was treated much more harshly, ending up being sentenced to 845 years! So Blutrich really did get a big break.
Blutrich's complaining and crying at the end of the book really kind of spoil what would have been an outstanding story.… (meer)