Last of the Gladiators

writer: James M. LaRossa Jr. and Jonathan Vankin
artist: Giorgio Pontrelli
cover: Butch Guice
FC | Hardcover | 136 pages | Memoir/Crime | $24.99 | Teen+

James LaRossa was truly a larger-than-life figure — an attorney who was at the center of some of the most important criminal cases of the 20th century. He was also the father of four children: Susan, Nancy, Thomas — and James M. LaRossa Jr., who would spend the last five years of his father’s life learning and recording the amazing history presented here.

Based on LaRossa Jr.’s acclaimed memoir of the same title, Last of the Gladiators tells the story of how he found his own identity and place in the world while growing up as the son of one of the most outsized and outrageously successful personalities in the history of New York City — a father whom LaRossa Jr. always called his “true north.”

Written by LaRossa Jr. and Jonathan Vankin and illustrated by Giorgio Pontrelli, Last of the Gladiators is filled with true tales of the New York mob and features some of the most colorful characters of the era (including Paul Castellano, John Gotti, Don King, and Frank Sinatra) but is, at its heart, a love story between a father and a son — one that ultimately reveals what it takes to become, and what it means to be, a real man.