Michael T. Cannell's "Blood and the Badge"

Michael Cannell is the author of five non-fiction books, most recently Blood and the Badge: The Mafia, Two Killer Cops, and a Scandal That Shocked the Nation. His previous books are A Brotherhood Betrayed: The Man Behind the Rise and Fall of Murder, Inc., Incendiary: The Psychiatrist, the Mad Bomber and the Invention of Criminal Profiling, The Limit: Life and Death on the 1961 Grand Prix Circuit, and I.M. Pei: Mandarin of Modernism.

Cannell has worked as a reporter for Time and an editor for The New York Times. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated, and many other publications.

Here the author dreamcasts an adaptation of Blood and the Badge:

Hollywood and the Mafia formed a mutual admiration pact ninety- three years ago when Edward G. Robinson played a character based loosely on Al Capone in the black-and-white movie Little Caesar. The subsequent connections and cross-pollinations are many. In the early 1930s Bugsy Siegel took up residence in a Beverly Hills mansion where he threw debauched parties. Guests included George Raft, Gary Cooper and Jean Harlow. A few years later the Murder, Inc. hitman Gangi Cohen fled Brooklyn for Hollywood where, in an odd twist on art imitating life, he played tough-guy roles under a pseudonym. In the 1970s Joe Colombo extracted concessions from Francis Ford Coppola while making The Godfather.

Not surprisingly, I had the mob-and-movie connection in mind while writing Blood and the Badge: The Mafia, Two Killer Cops and a Scandal That Shocked the Nation, the true story of two decorated NYPD detectives who secretly worked for the Lucchese Crime family in the early 1990s.

If, by some miracle, I was granted the authority to cast the detectives, I would choose John Goodman to play Louie Eppolito, a stout, loud figure who was born into a mob family and rebelled by joining the police department — only to be draw back into the family’s illicit affairs. He later played small roles in a dozen movies.

Like many enduring partnerships, Eppolito and his sidekick, Stephen Caracappa, were polar opposites. If Eppolito was boastful and excitable, Caracappa was rail thin and reserved to the point of silence. With that in mind, let’s bring Adrien Brody in for a screen test.

The pair plied their dark trade in a South Brooklyn made to order for Martin Scorsese, complete with wise guys swinging deals in social clubs and bodies abandoned in the trunks of stolen cars. Some of which you can glimpse in this trailer.

Visit Michael T. Cannell's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Limit.

The Page 99 Test: The Limit.

My Book, The Movie: Incendiary.

My Book, The Movie: A Brotherhood Betrayed.

Writers Read: Michael Cannell.

--Marshal Zeringue