T. J. English

T. J. English (born 6 October 1957) is an Irish American author and journalist known primarily for his non-fiction books about organized crime, criminal justice and the American underworld.

T. J. English was born in Tacoma, Washington and grew up in an Irish Catholic family of ten children. His father was a steelworker and his mother a social worker for Catholic Charities. After graduating from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles in 1980, English worked as a high school teacher in East Lost Angeles. In 1981, he moved to New York City to pursue a career as a writer, working in a series of odd jobs including bartender, janitor, and most notably, taxi driver for three years, while working as a freelance journalist. Of driving a taxi English has said, "I think of it as a metaphor for what I do as a writer."

His first book, The Westies: Inside The Hell's Kitchen Irish Mob (1990), is a best-selling account of an Irish American gang in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York City. The Westies operated primarily in the 1970s and 1980s, though the roots of the gang go all the way back to the Prohibition Era.

In 1995, English published Born to Kill, about a Vietnamese gang based in New York City's Chinatown. The book was nominated for an Edgar Award in the category of Best Fact Crime.

Paddy Whacked, published in 2005, is a sweeping history of the Irish American gangster from the time of the Irish potato famine to the present day.Paddy Whacked was adapted as a two-hour documentary broadcast on the History Channel in 2006.

Havana Nocturne (published in the U.K. as The Havana Mob), presents the story of a U.S. mobster infiltration of Cuba in the 1950s. Published in 2008, the book rose to No. 7 on the New York Times best seller list and was also nominated for an Edgar Award.

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