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.McMafia: Crime Without Frontiers

by: Misha Glenny

April 03, 2008
This a frightening but fascinating book, which brings together the keen-eyed journalism Glenny displayed in the 1990s, with a tale of the kind of organised crime that touches us all, whether we know it or not.

Glenny tours the world, and wisely does not try his hand at thriller-writing as he does so. The stories, and their contexts, are fascinating enough to be simply laid out before us. In each case, the most compelling parts are the history and analysis of how that kind of crime took off, in that place and that time. While there are undercurrents that are common throughout, what stands out starkly are the location and era-specific details of the conditions that allow major crime to flourish. I would have liked to have seen something ... Read More:
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.Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia

by: John Dickie

March 08, 2007
by far the most interesting book I have read in ages, everything you wanted to know about the Mafia. And as everyone says, 'LEMONS!'?!?
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.Excellent Cadavers: Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic

by: Alexander Stille

June 06, 1996
I like reading about dedicated experts in a particular field. In this case, Judges Falcone and Borsellino, and others, taking on the mafia. It really is an interesting, shocking and moving story.
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.Flat Earth News: An Award-winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media

by: Nick Davies

February 07, 2008
I'd always had a feeling that I was being misled by the mainstream media, but never really knew how it came about. This book went a long way to answering that question, and I now understand how the media is manipulated by a variety of sources so that what gets presented is very rarely the news as it happened.

My only criticism of the book is its coverage of the propaganda war in Iraq. It's undoubtedly all true, and relevant to the book, but I found that the middle of the book onwards was almost totally devoted to it, and it just turned me off a bit. It felt at times like the real message of the book was a criticism of Blair and Bush and that the stuff about the press was merely to illustrate that point, rather than the other way round.
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.Defiance: The Story of One Man Who Stood Up to the Sicilian Mafia

by: Tom Behan

November 20, 2007
Once you start to read this book you can not put it down. Its quite clear from this book the negative situation that occurs from being part of a family that is governed by the Mafia and every thing that that holds and the control that it has. You can only admire a mother who fought for more than twenty years to clear her sons name and put the record straight on the organisations he was a member of. My heart goes out to Peppinos family and thier fight, which still goes on. Tom Behan a fantastic writer, a must read.
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.The Dark Heart of Italy

by: Tobias Jones

March 15, 2007
This book is a collection of second-hand stereotypes about Italy and Italians. I watched the author on a TV program struggling to put a few words together in Italian and asked myself how he could have gathered any insighgts on the Italian political/sociological situation with such a poor knowledge of the local language. Overall: a surprisingly shallow book and a serious source of embarassement for British journalism.

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.Naples '44: An Intelligence Officer in the Italian Labyrinth

by: Norman Lewis

July 31, 2002
Norman Lewis's son is a friend of mine and has been for twenty years. For twenty years I've drunk beer, watched football, told jokes and (in the dim & distant past) chased girls with the son. I even met the father once. It was not until I read the back of a Norman Lewis book last year & saw the picture, that I put two and two together. "Yep, that's my Dad". Astonishing!

I read that book,A Dragon Apparent, and enjoyed it, but not really enough to run out & buy others. I dont read much travel writing in general but it was undeniably well written, interesting & felt it was doing me good. On a whim I bought this one, Naples 44, last week and it is a real step up. Dressed up as a diary of a place in time (there's a clue in the title as to where & when!), each entry is a beautifully ... Read More:
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.The Paper Moon (Montalbano 9)

by: Andrea Camilleri

June 06, 2008
Inspector Montalbano wakes this time not by his inner alarm clock but from one he now sets each night to wake him prompt each morning. His usual slapstick routine of starting the day had fallen by the wayside, irrelevant random thoughts had been plaguing his mind, with a touch of forgetfulness, tiredness and that feeling of age had suddenly creep upon him.

Within ten minutes of being at the station Montalbano is confronted by Signorina. Michela Pardo who cannot locate her brother Angelo, he may have been forty-two but had been missing for some forty eight hours and would always call when away. After a few questions and being won over by Michela's deep, violet lake eyes he was willing to check out her brother's apartment. Montalbano stumbles into a gruesome situation on Angelo's terrace, a man shot at point ... Read More:
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.Gomorra: Viaggio Nell'impero Economico E Nel Sogno Di Dominio Della Camorra (Strade Blu)

by: Roberto Saviano

2006-10
Inspector Montalbano wakes this time not by his inner alarm clock but from one he now sets each night to wake him prompt each morning. His usual slapstick routine of starting the day had fallen by the wayside, irrelevant random thoughts had been plaguing his mind, with a touch of forgetfulness, tiredness and that feeling of age had suddenly creep upon him.

Within ten minutes of being at the station Montalbano is confronted by Signorina. Michela Pardo who cannot locate her brother Angelo, he may have been forty-two but had been missing for some forty eight hours and would always call when away. After a few questions and being won over by Michela's deep, violet lake eyes he was willing to check out her brother's apartment. Montalbano stumbles into a gruesome situation on Angelo's terrace, a man shot at point ... Read More:
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.CRIMINI: The Bitter Lemon Book of Italian Crime Fiction

by: Giancarlo De Cataldo

January 10, 2008
This is an excellent introduction to contemporary Italian crime fiction containing a range of writers at the top of their form who have here produced short stories which are at once highly varied in approach and extremely powerful. The translator, Andrew Brown, has done a terrific job and I recommend this book wholeheartedly.
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