When Mike Stanton was researching what would become "The Prince of Providence," his riveting book about mayor-turned-felon Buddy Cianci, he learned that Cianci's father used to take him to the fights at the old Rhode Island Auditorium. One of the headliners in those days, the 1940s, was Rocky Marciano, the heavyweight from Brockton, Mass.

"I was drawn to that colorful world of vice and virtue that embodied Buddy’s life — in Rocky’s case, the inspirational triumphs in the ring fused with the corruption that engulfed boxing and typified Providence, the Mafia capital of New England," Stanton said in an email interview last week. "Buddy and Rocky were both larger than life, and operated in corrupt environments."