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Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 3.0 / 5.0
Needs Savage Editing - Maybe A Re-Write What could have been an excellent investigative book turns out to be a difficult to read book. The first chapter is riddled with metaphors and is written in such a florid style one begins to wonder if it is a different author. Maybe an author who was confused on whether he should be writing poetry or prose rather than hard fact. Subsequent chapters are infused with far too many names and places for any reader to grasp. Once in a while there is a flash of light when the author concentrates on one... more info
Buy it if you want to read about the dark side of man The book offers a native eye on mafia "entrepreneurship" in South Italy and Europe. If you are interested to know how organized and disorganized crime operates, a possible outcome for a community that has been abandoned by government care and to what extend can people go, this is definitely your read.
What was enjoyable for me is that the book is written mostly in a journalistic fashion with not a lot of "creative editing" to make it more story-like. I guess the reality was graphic enough.
In... more info
Good story poorly told I assume the film is more gripping than the book because this is a truly awful (American) English translation. Large parts of the book are lists and elongated family trees, and the narrative just doesn't seem to go anywhere. There are many better true crime books out there and as far as getting a taste of Italian "life" try the books by Tim Parks, or the "Miracle of Castel de Sangro" by Joe McGinnis a superb mix of football and crime.
Not a page turned, but not bad either I became interested in this book after reading that the author is now in hiding from the mafia he wrote about. I was expecting the book to be similar to Naomi Klein's hard hitting NO LOGO, but what I got was more a cross between that and Will Self. That is, he gives a lot of solid information but often digresses into poetic ramblings (for instance on the nature of life and death). I don't mind this in fiction, but when I'm reading for facts I find it slightly distracting. But that is only based on my... more info
