Omerta

Omerta

Summary

Omertà, the Sicilian code of silence, has been the cornerstone of the Mafia's sense of honour for centuries. Born in the Sicilian hills, omertà carried the Mafia through a hundred years of change, but now at the century's end it is becoming a relic from a bygone age. Honour may be silent - but money talks.

New York - a mob boss is assassinated. His nephew Astorre Viola and the head of the city's FBI both launch investigations into the murder. But this time silence spreads like a contagion: the silence of rival gangs, the silence of crooked bankers, even the silence of the courts. The world of the Mafia is riven with greed, and Viola knows that now is the time to claim his destiny...

Reviews

  • Hugely effective fiction ... [Puzo] keeps his pack with readers to unfailingly deliver the goods
    Literary Review

About the author

Mario Puzo

Mario Puzo was born in New York and, following military service in World War II, attended New York's New School for Social Research and Columbia University. His best-selling novel The Godfather was preceded by two critically acclaimed novels, The Dark Arena (1955) and The Fortunate Pilgrim (1965). In 1978 he published Fools Die, followed by The Sicilian (1984), The Fourth K (1991), and the second instalment in his Mafia trilogy, The Last Don (1996), which became an international bestseller. Mario Puzo also wrote many screenplays, including Earthquake, Superman, and all three Godfather films, for which he received two Academy Awards. He died in July 1999 at his home in Long Island, New York, at the age of seventy-eight.
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