Books like Carlito's Way by Edwin Torres

The Godfather is a crime novel by Mario Puzo that follows the rise of the fictional Corleone Mafia family in New York City and Long Beach between 1945 and 1955.

An undercover reporter follows a celebrity into rehab to uncover juicy gossip about her personal life.

In Spanish Harlem, Willy Bodega rules the neighborhood by offering help—college tuition, start‑up money—in exchange for loyalty and drug sales. When a promising young man, Chino, seeks Bodega’s favor, he is plunged into a violent underworld of switches, betrayal and murder.

"In the mean streets of Chicago, a young man is unwilling to follow his parents into a life of squalor and poverty and hungers to become a big shot. Tony Guarino has grown up in the hard world of the bar and the poolroom, where every gangster is a hero and every cop an enemy. Only the tough make it. At the age of just eighteen, Tony commits his first serious crime. He shoots dead the gang boss and ruthless slayer Al Spingola. In an era when gunplay is still rare, Tony's actions unnerve the other gang leaders, and Tony is catapulted into notoriety and fame. This is just the beginning of his path to becoming the most powerful and feared man in the Chicago underworld"--Provided by publisher.

"One evening while drugged out of his mind and picking over garbage in the backstreets of San Juan, a fifteen-year-old homeless boy is singing boleros in a mesmerizing voice that transfixes anyone who listens. Hearing the silken melodies coming from the alley behind her nightclub, drag queen Martha Divine is convinced that the boy's uncanny beauty and irresistible voice will be her ticket to fame and fortune. And so is born the legendary performer known as Sirena Selena.". "Brought by Martha to audition for one of the luxury hotels in the Dominican Republic, Selena casts his/her spell over Hugo Graubel, one of the hotel's rich investors. Graubel is a powerful man in the Republic, married with children, but hiding his true sexual nature. Sirena, determined to escape the poverty and abuse s/he suffered as a child, engages Graubel in a long seduction in this mordant, intensely lyrical tragicomedy."--BOOK JACKET.