Channel 5 reporter Charlie Wojciechowski, who spent more than 12 weeks listening to wise guys try to explain their behavior in last summer’s Family Secrets trial, says: “These are not geniuses—they would talk in code that, at times, they didn’t understand themselves.” Which is why it will take some books to eventually sort this all out. Chicago Tribune reporter Jeff Coen, who covered the trial, has signed up with Chicago Review Press to write If I Give Up My Brothers: The Family Secrets Mob Trial, to be published in early 2009. Coen says his book will provide many details that he couldn’t explore in the paper.

Other reporters who covered the trial expect at least one juror to write a book, as well as Frank Calabrese Jr., or his brother Kurt, whose father, Frank Sr., was a reputed mobster. Former detective James Jack, who already has a true crime story, Three Boys Missing, in bookstores, says he is “half done” with his manuscript about the Chicago Outfit, but he doesn’t have a publisher yet. His take, he says, is from the law enforcement perspective. Think: Jimmy Jack vs. the Mob.

Then again, Sopranos creator David Chase has some free time, too, we hear.