User:Aca2001

Thomas C. Renner, (1929 - 1990)was an investigative journalist at Long Island newspaper NEWSDAY for over three decades, co-writing numerous organized crime memiors. In the early 1970s he approached Vincent Charles Teresa, a New England Mafia insider who had just entered the Federal Witness Protection Program, about collaborating on Teresa's story. . The result became MY LIFE IN THE MAFIA, released by Doubleday & Company in 1973. The book combined two distinct writing styles into one smooth narrative; Renner provided a second person voiced structure most memiors lack, providing well-written context for Teresa's long passages of first person reminices, which captured the flavor of Teresa's voice.

The book was one of the first in its field and shed much light on the inner world of organized crime without romanticization. Teresa talked often of the treachery and betrayal of crime family associates, and their over-riding greed.

Renner continued as a newspaperman, but repeated his literary success, co-authoring Mafia-themed memiors right until his untimely death in 1990 at age sixty-one from heart disease. His last book, "Body Mike: an Unsparing Expose By the Mafia Insider Who Turned on the Mob" was released posthumusly.

Mr. Renner lived in Smithtown, New York, on Long Island and was married to Nancy Renner(nee Nancy Lo Duca). They had four daughters, Jacqueline Murray, Dawn Pellechi, Sandra Renner and Elaine Renner.

Books by Thomas C. Renner (Partial)

Mafia Princess by Antoinette Giancana & Thomas C. Renner William Morrow 1984 Mafia Enforcer by Cecil Kirby & Thomas C. Renner (1987, Hardcover) : Cecil Kirby, Thomas C. Renner (Hardcover,Random House, Inc 1987) Wall Street Swindler: An Insider's Story of Mob Operators in the Stock Market by Michael Hellerman & Thomas C. Renner'' Body Mike: an Unsparing Expose By the Mafia Insider Who Turned on the Mob, Villard 1991''
 * ''My Life In The Mafia by Vincent Teresa & Thomas C. Renner, Doubleday & Co 1973