MOB LAWYER By Frank Ragano and Selwyn Raab Charles Scribner's Sons, $22 Reviewed by Fred W. Wright Jr. Above all else, we should feel sorry for Frank Ragano. Poor Frank. At 71, he has angina, he has an irregular heart beat, he has the IRS on his back, and nearly all of his Mafia friends have gone and died on him. He also has a book, a nearly-tell-all book about his 30-year career as mob lawyer to some of the top Mafia brass in the country, principally the late Florida Mafia boss Santo Trafficante Jr., who made Tampa his home base. And now Trafficante's daughters _ and even his old barber _ are saying it is all lies. The media hype around this book, written with the editorial aid of Selwyn Raab, a former crime reporter for the New York Times and NBC News, has centered on Ragano's claims that he was intimately involved with the murderers of the late Teamsters' boss, Jimmy Hoffa, whose body has never been found, and that his friend and boss Trafficante conspired in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Sprinkled in and around these moments are vignettes of how the Mafia worked its legal and illegal businesses, rubbing shoulders and swapping cash with the high and mighty of U.S. business and politics. There are scenes of live sex shows in pre-Castro Cuba and four-letter-word shouting matches between Mafia comrades, with Ragano refereeing. There are numerous accounts of legal maneuverings and courtroom victories. There are moments of low comedy as the Mafia scams the CIA out of hit money presumably to assassinate Fidel Castro, and there are a few moments of intense drama when Ragano recounts the lethal presence of some of the 20th century's most vicious mob killers. But throughout the book, there is also the theme that poor Frank Ragano couldn't really help himself, that he was simply a naive product of Depression-era Tampa, growing up poor and ambitious, an Italian-American graduate of Stetson Law School and decorated World War II veteran who found himself wooed and seduced by the quick cash of mob clients and the glamorous lifestyle of big money. In fact, Ragano shows himself having just a little too much fun and success during his three decades as attorney for Trafficante, Hoffa and New Orleans Mafia chief Carlos Marcello. There are too many chapters about six-figure retainers, always in cash, and ribald parties in Las Vegas, Havana, Miami and New York. Ragano recounts, perhaps without fully realizing it, his own seduction of Nancy Young, the University of Tampa student who would become his mistress, bear him two children during a years-long adulterous affair and become his second wife. Young's own fall from an innocent college student to the wife of the mob's top lawyer and intimate friend of Trafficante is given in detail, as if Ragano wants to show how good a father and husband he is. What he really shows is how corruption breeds corruption. Crime reporter Raab's editorial guidance on the book does give it coherence. Raab writes short bridging chapters, printed in bold type, between Ragano's own first-person remembrances _ all based on memory and some 300 pages of notes that he kept throughout his years as Mafia lawyer. (A Mafia lawyer who kept notes on all his meetings and cases? Who can you trust anymore?) Ragano's own narrative is full of conversations and explicit dialogue that took place decades ago. It's a typical example of literary license _ recounting verbatim conversations that no one recorded, not even the FBI. Such journalistic devices may make for easier reading, but they also raise questions as to the truth of the account: If you can doubt one fact in a piece of reporting, journalism professors love to say, then you may have to doubt all facts. For Florida readers, Mob Lawyer offers the additional diversion of an occasional local name, place or date. Ragano was a major player in Tampa, St. Petersburg and Miami throughout his lawyering years. After his first conviction on tax evasion _ the IRS puts more mob bosses behind bars than an army of FBI guys _ he became a pariah with the Mafia, even Trafficante, and ended up defending some other celebrated Tampa defendants, notably Anthony D'Arcangelo, accused of murdering two Tampa Fire Department officers in the '80s, and Mary Haire, accused of murdering Ford dealership owner Ernie Haire. The book bogs down a bit about two-thirds the way through, when the reader gets into the details of Ragano's bouts with the IRS. He seems genuinely hurt when his Mafia friends stereotypically shun him after his tax conviction and then he, in turn, snubs a dying Trafficante in later years. But overall, Mob Lawyer intrigues because there is just enough reality (and 28 photographs) to hold the reader's attention. Poor Frank Ragano was the intimate friend and counsel to some of the biggest killers and career criminals the United States has ever known. Even when he dodges a question, or holds back a key name, his story is one few people could tell _ or would want to live. Fred W. Wright Jr. is a St. Petersburg writer whose last crime was a speeding ticket in a school zone. Frank Ragano will sign copies of Mob Lawyer on Thursday from 7-9 p.m. at Inkwood Books, 216 S Armenia, Tampa. A mob lawyer tells all _ almost