It is a shocking and sensational story: the mafia and the huge syndicates it controls have infiltrated the government in Italy, the US, the highest levels of the Catholic Church, and in modern times, are even implicated in the murder of an American president and a pope. At lower levels of criminality the mafia is omnipresent - from prostitution, gambling and boot-legging during the Prohibition era in the 1920s, to the present day control of drug trafficking in Europe and the States. The annals of the mafia are bloodstained and littered with corpses, both of the mobsters themselves and the law-abiding citizens and legislators who have tried to resist their intimidation.
Joe Pieri takes us through the shady history of Sicilian organised crime, which has spread from its local roots to every corner of the western world. It is a tangled story of rackets, fueds, business affairs and political chicanery, and one peopled with a sinister and colourful cast of characters.
Read an extract . . .
Joe Pieri is the author of several successful books including Tales of the Savoy, Isle of the Displaced and The Big Men. Other books published by Mercat are The Scots-Italians: Recollections of an Immigrant, River of Memory and Wheel of Fortune, of which he was the co-author.
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