Krishna
The writer of The Godfather has written another book regarding the Mafia in the USA. It is a brilliantly written story and shows that Mario is at the top of the game.
There is no Corleanes here but Clericuzios, but nevertheless the book holds your interest until the very last page. Brilliantly written, it exposes the triple worlds of gambling, mafia and movie making as nothing else does and the powerful figures controlling these worlds look and act real. You have a deep satisfaction of having read a lovely and tense story when you finish it.
Don Domencio Clericuzo converts his family from actual mafia to mafia financing adroitly and redeploys his sons Giorgio, Vincent and Petie into legitimate branches (with his army still retained as a safeguard because he is not a fool) as well as redeploying some close friends and his nephew Pippi. His son in law was killed in a gang warfare earlier and she gave birth to a son who is the ‘future’ along with another grandchild.
Boz Skannet is waiting at the Academy Awards function, dressed to the nines. He throws “acid” (really water) on the face of Athena, the most famous actress, in front of the world’s cameras.
Meanwhile the Casino owner dies, leaving everything he owned to Pippi, who now has wealth equivalent to the Don clan. A problem for them.
The story shifts to Hollywood where a famous star Anthea escaped from her abusive husband and became a star. When her husband showed up at one of the shoots and threw water on her face claiming to be throwing acid, she knew it is a dry run for the real thing, and decided to abruptly leave showbiz, causing headaches and the prospect of losses for the executives.
Now Mario writing that the writers in the movie business are the scapegoats and ‘easy to screw’ out of their fair share of profits is amusing, given that he not only wrote the Godfather series but also wrote the dialogue for that in the firm.
Meanwhile they show how Don Clericuzo established the greatest mafia empire in Bronx and how he shovelled his money to increasingly legal businesses and cultivated contacts. He became the problem solver for other Don’s and his respect and money grew exponentially.
Pippa had the charm, cunning, intelligence and ruthlessness to flourish but made a mistake. He married for love – an exotic dancer and WASP at that. When he finds a large swindle by one of his own people, he goes to the Don who asks him to ‘take care of the business after recovering as much money as possible’ which is a clear death sentence.
His total insensitivity to his wife and then his arrest for murder shocks his wife and she divorces him finally. He has a confrontation with her when she says she will move to California. He stays with his son Cross and leaves the daughter with his wife. Cross turns out to be a great understudy and Pippa decided to teach him everything about the casino and the mob both.
Cross is handsome and also ruthless.
Sister Claudia in the meanwhile becomes a famous screenwriter with a lot of success in Hollywood. When she connects with Anthea who was under contract to a club media boss, she uses the influence of Cross to get her released. Claudia and Athena are close but Athena does not budge from her decision to flee before her husband makes good his threat to disfigure her face with acid.
She decided to flee, putting a multi million dollar movie in jeopardy. In desperation, Claudia gets Cross to meet Athena, and he decides that this is his ticket to escape the second fiddle to Mafia boss Don and son Dante. He agrees to buy the movie rights and he has a plan to eliminate Skannet so that Athena will be secure and stay in the movie. He has to get permission from the Don, which is the tricky part.
He manages to kill the man but earns the displeasure of the Don.
Meanwhile media moghul Eli is dying and agrees to amend the deal made with the writer yyy to a less exploitative deal. The descriptions of the eccentric and odd characters in the triple world of acting, moviemaking and underworld is what makes this novel so interesting to read.
Even though Eli promises Vail a gross percentage, he dies before he can make it a reality and Banz, who has taken over, reneges on the deal. However, he makes Claudia a studio producer under his banner, opening the road to riches for her.
When Vail really commits suicide (using Nitrogen) the studio is now trapped but they cheat Cross – just paying him back a lumpsum which reduces his clout in Don’s eyes. Pippi gets murdered shortly thereafter.
Cross investigates and finds that the family is involved. When he goes to meet his Aunt Rose Marie who is in an institution, he gets an ‘invite’ to go see Don. Don explains how the Santandio clan, which was a threat, was eliminated. They struck first. Rose Marie fell in love with Jimmy and Jimmy’s brothers murdered Don’s son Silvio after he visited them to make peace between the two families.
Santandio clan swore that they were not behind the murder but Don asked Pippi to take revenge and Pippi with Georgio and others strikes after going as a guest to the wedding and kills the entire clan. Rose Marie is pregnant and goes mad. Her son is Dante, who is brought up as a Clericuzio clan member. He is behind the killing of Pippi as Cross suspected. Don tries to argue that they could not have killed Pippi as he is just one member of the family, as Cross is. Cross is not convinced.
Once they realize Dante as the perpetrator, they decide to neutralize him and his police buddy and then make it a Communion (where the bodies disappear and no real evidence that they are dead or who killed them). They know that the Don will not be deceived but it cannot be helped.
Meanwhile Dante is enlisting the cop to get Cross killed and it is a game of outwitting at this stage. Cross enlists his trusted assassin Leo who kills the cop while Cross agrees to take care of Dante by himself.
What happens at the climatic scene and the aftermath constitute the rest of the book. The tension keeps until the very end. Nicely done.
8/10
– – Krishna