Excerpt from Omerta by Mario Puzo, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

In just a few days Astorre established his leadership in a gang of young village boys. It was a wonder to the Don that he could do so, for Sicilian children were full of pride and feared no one. Many of these ten-year-old cherubs were already familiar with the 1upara, the ever-present Sicilian shotgun.

Don Aprile, Astorre, and Caterina spent long summer nights eating and drinking al fresco in the luxuriant garden, the orange and lemon trees saturating the air with their citrus perfume. Sometimes old boyhood friends of the Don were invited to dinner and a game of cards. Astorre helped Caterina serve them drinks.

Caterina and the Don never showed public signs of affection, but all was understood in the village, so no man dared to present any gallantries to Caterina and all showed her all the respect the female head of the house was due. No time in his life was more pleasant to the Don.

It was just three days before the end of the visit that the unimaginable happened: The Don was kidnapped while walking the streets of the village.

In the neighboring province of Cinesi, one of the most remote and undeveloped in Sicily, the head of the village cosca, the local Mafioso, was a ferocious, fearless bandit by the name of Fissolini. Absolute in his local power, he really had no communication with the rest of the Mafia coscas on the island. He knew nothing of the Don Aprile's enormous power, nor did he think it could penetrate his own remote and secure world. He decided to kidnap the Don and hold him for ransom. The only rule he knew he was breaking was that he was encroaching onto the territory of the neighboring cosca, but the American seemed a rich enough prize to warrant the risk.

The cosca is the basic unit of what is called the Mafia and is usually composed of blood relatives. Law-abiding citizens such as lawyers or doctors attach themselves to a cosca for protection of their interests. Each cosca is an organization in and of itself but may ally itself to a stronger and more powerful one. It is this interlinking that is commonly called the Mafia. But there is no overall chief or commander.


A cosca usually majors in a particular racket in its particular territory. There is the cosca that controls the price of water and prevents the central government from building dams to lower the price. In that way it destroys the government's monopoly. Another cosca will control the food and produce markets. The most powerful ones in Sicily at this time were the Clericuzio cosca of Palermo, which controlled the new construction in all of Sicily, and the Corleonisi cosca of Corleone, which controlled the politicians in Rome and engineered the transportation of drugs all over the world. Then there were the piddling coscas who demanded tribute from romantic youths to sing to the balconies of their beloveds. All coscas regulated crime. They would not tolerate lazy good-for-nothings burglarizing innocent citizens who paid their cosca dues. Those who stabbed for wallets or raped women were summarily punished by death. Also, there was no tolerance of adultery within the coscas. Both men and women were executed. That was understood.

Fissolini's cosca made a poor living. It controlled the sale of holy icons, was paid to protect a farmer's livestock, and organized the kidnapping of careless wealthy men.

And so it was that Don Aprile and little Astorre, strolling along the streets of their village, were picked up in two vintage American army trucks by the ignorant Fissolini and his band of men.

The ten men in peasant clothes were armed with rifles. They plucked Don Aprile off the ground and threw him into the first truck. Astorre, without hesitation, jumped into the open bed of the truck to stay with the Don. The bandits tried to throw him out, but he clung to the wooden posts. The trucks traveled an hour to the base of the mountains around Montelepre. Then everyone switched to horseback and donkey and climbed the rocky terraces toward the horizon. Throughout the trip, the boy observed everything with large green eyes but never spoke a word.

Excerpted from Omerta by Mario Puzo Copyright© 2000 by Mario Puzo. Excerpted by permission of Random House, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.