The Devil to Pay

A Mobster’s Road to Perdition

By: Sean Scott Hicks

Narrated by: Keith Szarabajka

Goodfellas meets the Irish mob in The Devil to Pay, the incredible true story of one man‘s unconventional upbringing in the criminal gangs of Boston and his eventual road to redemption.

Growing up in South Boston, Sean Scott Hicks was running jobs for the Irish mob before his voice changed. Mistreated by his drug-addled mother, Hicks found sanctuary with his adoptive family of felonious uncles—known to law enforcement officials as the Winter Hill Gang. These crooks knew where all the bodies were buried—because they’d done the burying—but they also looked out for young Sean. Even the notorious gangster known worldwide as Whitey Bulger was simply “Uncle Jim” to him.

After such an upbringing, a life of crime was a given. In this unprecedented memoir, Hicks talks about everything from his experience running illegal goods up and down the coast of Massachusetts to his theory about what really happened the night three hundred million dollars’ worth of art went missing from Boston’s Isabella Gardner Museum. Terms like money laundering and assault insufficiently describe his daily tasks, a brash existence that alternated with stints behind bars. This knuckles-close look at mobster life chronicles the greed and avarice, tenderness and brutality, and the reckoning all gangsters must eventually face.

Hicks tells a story of blood and vengeance but also—surprisingly—of hope. The Devil to Pay: A Mobster’s Road to Perdition is an extraordinary memoir that illuminates the reality of what it’s really like in the dark, dangerous, and insidious places of the world, and what it takes to bring a person there and back again.

©2024 Sean Scott Hicks (P)2024 Blackstone Publishing

Bringing it all together at the end of the book.

This is a great story, I haven’t had time to put the book down. I have a couple questions that aren’t answered in the book, like what happened to the 6 ki’s he hid in the garbage can.

Quite a wild book

It was a good listen and was hooked from the start. I would recommend this book to a friend.

Great Sstory about Life

Amazing story of never giving up on yourself. It’s fascinating that he was able to rise from such a dark dark place. Great read

Amazing

Once you start you will not put it down. Sean’s story is beyond wild and he comes off as a stand up guy. Must read.

I’m from the area just wasn’t believable

He is too young to be involved with some of the names he mentioned. Also no body has ever heard of him If these stories were true his name would ring out.