Breakshot: A Life in the 21st Century American Mafia is the memoir of Kenny "Kenji" Gallo, one of the most unlikely and controversial gangsters in the history of the American underworld. Born to a Japanese-American family in ritzy Orange County, California, Kenny was a bookish, hyperactive suburban kid who lived a double life as a car-bombing, gun-toting international drug trafficker. "One of the top cocaine smugglers on the West Coast" in the words of journalist Luke Ford, Gallo led his own narcotics crew, which was aligned with Pablo Escobar's Medellín drug cartel, owned his own nightclub, produced porn movies, and was arrested for the murder of his own best friend—all before he could legally drink.

 
When the police cracked down on his drug-trafficking empire, Gallo abandoned the cocaine trade for life in the American Mafia as a jet-setting playboy gangster, marrying porn star Tabitha Stevens, and making millions in prostitution, credit fraud, "pump-and-dump" stock fraud, gambling, extortion, and the porn business. As the protégé of Mafia legends like John "Sonny" Franzese, Jerry Zimmerman, and Vincent "Jimmy" Caci, Gallo quickly earned the reputation as one the smartest and most capable young mobsters in America. 
 

After over two daredevil decades as a violent gangster, Gallo voluntarily made a deal with the F.B.I. to act as a wired-up, undercover informant against New York's Colombo and Lucchese Mafia Families in exchange for a fresh start in life. Given the codename "Breakshot" by the FBI, Gallo risked his life to send some of the most dangerous criminals in America to jail—in the process participating in one botched Mafia hit, narrowly escaping a Mafia attempt on his own life, and earning two contracts on his head. Breakshot includes Gallo's redemption as a legitimate businessman and an enthusiastic crime fighter who works to put Mafia bosses, capos, and soldiers in jail and to solve the decades-old, cold- case murders of his friends and enemies.

From Publisher's Weekly (Starred Review):

Crammed with the kind of characters and detail that make pages turn and moviemakers salivate, self-described "mobster, drug lord and porn kingpin" Gallo's story of life as a criminal and mafia associate is tantalizing material. Straying far from his roots - an Orange County, CA childhood with parents in publishing - Gallo made so much money selling drugs that  he was owner of a Palm Springs night club months before he could legally drink. Impressing various mafia family members with his success and arrogance, Gallo moved into the big leagues. Gallo's ability to capture the absurdity of a situation gives the book a fast, no-nonsense pace: for instance, mob boss "Jackie", "one of the Colombo Family's toughest informers," also did voice over work for Sizzler's TV ads. Ultimately, after a quarter-century in the business, a disillusioned Gallo would turn FBI informant, changing the Mafia landscape by helping gather the evidence that brought New York's Colombo family to its knees, ("As far as the New York Mafia was concerned, I drove off the edge of the Earth"). Honest, critical, occasionally remorseful and always entrancing, this criminal memoir will keep readers on the edge of their seats.