★ Black Mass has has been adapted into a Warner Bros. film directed by Scott Cooper and starring Johnny Depp as Whitey Bulger, Benedict Cumberbatch as Billy Bulger and Joel Edgerton as FBI agent John Connolly. Learn more

Two boys—John Connolly and James “Whitey” Bulger—grew up together on the streets of South Boston. Decades later, in the mid-1970s, they would meet again. By then, Connolly was a major figure in the FBI’s Boston office and Whitey had become godfather of the Irish mob. Connolly had an idea, a scheme that might bring Whitey into the FBI fold and John Connolly into the Bureau’s big leagues. But Whitey had other plans. Black Mass is the story of what happened between them—a dark deal to trade secrets and take down Boston’s Italian Mafia in exchange for “immunity”—that spiraled out of control, leading to murders, drug dealing and racketeering indictments. Ultimately, in what would become the biggest informant scandal in the history of the FBI, Whitey would find himself at the top of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List.

Told in gripping narrative style by the Boston Globe reporters who covered the case from the beginning, Black Mass is a riveting epic crime story that is also a book about Irish America, about the pull of place, and about the ties that bind.