The Godfather's Revenge

The Godfather’s Revenge

“Some of us have been living with the
Godfather
mythology for thirty-seven years now. The late Mario Puzo’s 1969 bestseller shocked the nation with its explosive mix of sex, violence, and profound cynicism. The new novel,
The Godfather’s Revenge
…[is] a big, ambitious book…deftly handled and deeply ironic. Winegardner packs a great deal of mob lore into the novel…plenty of action…[and] smart talk.
The Godfather’s Revenge
is popular fiction at its best and arguably offers more depth and realism than Puzo’s original.”

—
The Washington Post

“Re-creating Puzo’s embroidered Mafia universe can be entertaining, and Winegardner has rich (in every sense of the word) material to work with.”

—
The New York Times

“Keeps the action moving, the plentiful sex and violence scenes have that
Police Gazette
swagger, and in the end it may be even more fun, thanks to its deliberate excess and sly asides. Like Puzo, Winegardner paints real-life characters in far darker colors than their public images.”

—
New York Daily News

“A corker. [Winegardner’s] created a plot that cleverly encircles and amplifies the existing tale.”

—
The Seattle Times

“Faux Kennedy brothers, elaborate detailings of byzantine Cosa Nostra politics, steamy pulp-fiction prose, a hot murder mystery, and [an]…epic cast make this
Godfather
installment a worthy addition to the chronicle of
la famiglia
Corleone. Winegardner breathlessly reanimates these archetypes even more effectively than he did in
The Godfather Returns.
[His] deft plot-spinning is rivaled only by his sure grasp of Goodfella mise-en-scène, the profanity-laced witticisms, the fashion fetishizing, the cool, long, dark sixties Chevy Biscaynes. Minor characters, from upstart Eddie Paradise to the musically monickered Ottilio Cuneo and Osvaldo Atobello, add varnish to inch-thick operatic mobster atmosphere. Bloody and bombastic—a top-notch addition to the saga.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

Further Praise for the Novels
of Mark Winegardner

“The real deal.”

—Stephen King

“Shows a hard-eyed love of human drama—sad, ridiculous, and lovely.”

—
The Washington Post Book World

“Grand in scope.”

—
The Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Profoundly impressive…an expansive talent.”

—Antonya Nelson

“A meaty, engrossing novel.”

—
Chicago Tribune

“Both an intimate and a sweeping scale. But [Winegardner’s] main achievement is a narrative voice…that’s distinctly his own.”

—
Los Angeles Times

“An ambitious novel…. Like Jonathan Franzen in
The Twenty-Seventh City,
or E. L. Doctorow in
City of God,
Winegardner takes on the American metropolis…in plain, straightforward prose.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Playful and vivid…a crafty mix of the real and imaginary.”

—Stewart O’Nan

“A grand piece of historical fiction recalling E. L. Doctorow and, more recently, Don DeLillo. Winegardner is a lively writer who holds the reader’s interest throughout his long epic. A remarkable and entertaining book.”

—
Booklist

FICTION

The Godfather Returns
/ 2004

That’s True of Everybody
/ 2002

Crooked River Burning
/ 2001

The Veracruz Blues
/ 1996

NONFICTION

Prophet of the Sandlots
/ 1990

Elvis Presley Boulevard
/ 1988

AS EDITOR

3 x 33
/ 2005

We Are What We Ate
/ 1998

The 26th Man
/ 1991

SIGNET
Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Previously published in a G. P. Putnam’s Sons edition.

Copyright © The Estate of Mario Puzo, 2006
All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-1-1012-1129-8

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

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Men must either be flattered or crushed, for they will revenge themselves for slight wrongs, while grave ones they cannot. The injury, therefore, that you do a man should be such that you need not fear for revenge.

—M
ACHIAVELLI
,
The Prince