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by Vito Bruschini
A web of love, betrayal, and murder is at the heart of this riveting story of the Mafia's beginnings.
In this remarkable novel based on a true story, author Vito Bruschini brilliantly evokes the charismatic figure of Prince Ferdinando Licata, a wealthy Sicilian landowner who uses his personal power and charm to placate Sicilian peasants and fight off Mussolini's fascists. As tensions rise in Italy during the 1930s, with increasingly violent consequences, Licata attracts many friends and far more enemies. Eventually implicated in a grisly murder, the prince flees to America, where he ends up navigating a turf war between Irish and Italian gangs of the Lower East Side.
Violence explodes in unexpected ways as Licata gains dominance over New York, with the help of a loyal townsman with blood ties to the prince who is forced to abandon his fiancée in Sicily. The two men return to their native land at the height of World War II in an outrageously bold maneuver engineered by Licata and mobster Lucky Luciano. Both the prince and his kinsman assist US naval intelligence during the invasion of Sicily and, once they are back on their native soil, they proceed to settle unfinished business with their enemies and unravel old secrets in a stunning and sinister finale.
Through a spellbinding story and unforgettable characters, Bruschini depicts in visceral detail the dark intertwining roots of loyalty and betrayal, poverty and privilege, secrets and revelations that contributed to the rise of the Mafia in Sicily.
"The author spends so much time on the minutiae of peripheral characters, as well as some awkward and extraneous sex scenes, that the reader never truly gets to know Licata. By the end, too many plot points are left unexplained." - Publishers Weekly
"This novel by an Italian journalist is a bit of a fairy tale but compelling from start to finish ... While this lively story may be only The Godfather redux, it still mines fertile soil. Readers will flock to it." - Library Journal
"[An] expansive historical epic ... A complex, informed and intelligent saga mating Rich Man, Poor Man and The Godfather." - Kirkus
"A novel filled with pleasures and enjoyment for all lovers of suspense." - En Negro Sobre Blanco (Spain)
"A superb, passionate, spellbinding novel, which plunges us into the origins of the Mafia... All the ingredients one needs to be absolutely swept away." - Page (France)
"Red-hot action, but treated with epic mastery." - La Repubblica (Italy)
"Now there's no need to long for our own Mario Puzo." - Il Messaggero (Italy)
"Constructed with panache by a formidable writer." - Il Giornale (Italy)
"A voyage back and forth from Sicily to America that is made to be adapted for the cinema." - Io Donna (Italy)
This information about The Prince was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Vito Bruschini is a renowned Italian journalist who heads the news agency Globalpress. He lives in Rome, Italy.
Pony Confidential
by Christina Lynch
In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.
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