Giovanni's Ring: My Life Inside the Real Sopranos, is the story of “Giovanni Rocco,” a New Jersey police officer, known undercover as “Giovanni Gatto,” who was the mysterious agent at the epicenter of Operation Charlie Horse, a federal undercover operation that ultimately brought down ten members and associates of New Jersey’s DeCavalcante Mafia family, the criminal organization known as “the real Sopranos.”
Giovanni spent nearly three years working his way into the DeCavalcante hierarchy. He was so convincing in his role that capo Charlie “the Hat” Stango eventually assigned him the task of killing Luigi “the Dog” Oliveri, a troublesome made member of the crime family. That lethal assignment brought the undercover operation to an end in March 2015, and the resulting string of high-profile arrests eviscerated the criminal organization.
Giovanni’s Ring is not simply a chronicle of Giovanni Rocco’s adventures in the murky and dangerous Mafia world he inhabited, but also a fascinating window into the psychological struggles that such a life inevitably entails.