John Pearson's The Profession of Violence created the myth of the Kray twins, and remains a classic of True Crime, the best book ever written on East London criminals and a book that started a mini publishing industry. Pearson is an authority on the London crime scene, which is why he was surprised while attending Ronnie Kray's funeral to see a man to whom all the other villains deferred, but who he didn't recognise. Investigation revealed that this man, "the Englishman", never mentioned in any of the previous books on organised crime because everyone was too scared to speak his name, was as legendary a figure on the streets of New York as on the streets of London.

Pearson persuaded the mysterious criminal leader to talk to him - and the result was a story even more extraordinary than that of the Kray twins. Here Pearson reveals the true story of the Englishman who became the adopted son of Joey Pagano, the head of one of the major New York crime families. Here the Englishman tells the story that no-one else dared to tell.