The Last Godfathers: Inside the Mafia's Most Infamous Family

i absolutely loved this book! so much good info on the sicilian mafia and how they escaped capture for so long. i highly recommend this book

This is a very well researched and detailed book that describes the history of the mafia family of the town of Corleone in Sicily. It details its early history from the late 19th Century as a bunch of criminal opportunists who make money in stand-over rackets, extortion and theft. It is strictly only a town Mafia family until well into the 1950s The old godfather Navarra is gunned down and the psychopathic capo Leggio takes over with the aid of his two cohorts Rina and Provenzano, these three form the apex of a criminal triangle that reaches out from Corleone and within 40 years is the dominant Mafia family in Sicily and is even regarded with respect and a wary eye by the Columbian drug cartels. This book details how this happened and it's a fascinating and detailed read but the violence and death in the book can overwhelm the reader at times. The Corleone Mafia got to this position through its sheer ferocity, violence, ruthlessness, criminal intelligence and superb use of its political contacts. By the 1990s its holdings were worth hundred of millions of pounds in houses, hotels, commercial business, stocks, bank deposits and construction among others. The efforts of the Italian state to fight back are detailed over the years side by side with the growth of the Sicilian Mafia, eventually the Government wins this brutal fought at a terrible cost in lives. This book is a great read for the true crime Mafia buff!