Description
The Sicilian Mafia: A True Crime Travel Guide is the first book of its kind in any language: the ultimate Italian gangland experience. Since 2006, author Carl Russo has photographed Mafia hot-spots in Sicily: where the murders happened, where the godfathers lived, where their victims are buried. From the sunbaked fishing villages of the Mediterranean to the darkest alleys of Palermo, western Sicily, this part of Italy provides the exotic backdrop for over 100 meticulously researched tales of murder and mayhem, packed with photos of the actual locations.
The book’s historical sweep covers 150 years of revolutions, world wars, politics and popular culture—all inextricably bound to Cosa Nostra. They include the childhood home of gangster Lucky Luciano, the hideouts of the fearsome bosses of Corleone, the tombs of the “Robin Hood” bandit Giuliano and the legendary dons, Calogero Vizzini and Giuseppe Genco Russo, the roots of the American and Canadian mafias, Mussolini, the Allied landing, pistol-packing priests, the Room of Death, the political assassinations, the playgrounds of the new Mafia, the anti-Mafia movement…. All of these Cosa Nostra sites and associations are depicted in sharp prose and revealing images, introducing many stories to English readers for the first time.
Street directions are included for the adventurous traveler. Whether you’re planning a trip to Sicily or sticking to the comfort of your armchair, this provocative book will take you closer to the Sicilian Mafia than you dared to think possible.
“Carl Russo’s The Sicilian Mafia: A True Crime Travel Guide is a seminal piece of work that manages to bridge the gap between John Dickie’s Cosa Nostra and Lonely Planet Sicily. Only exhaustive research and the scalpel-like observations of an Italian-American could create such a unique hybrid. The insights into The Mob are at once fascinating and lurid, made all the more appealing by the in-your-face reality of the many iconic images of the raw underbelly of Sicily. If you’ve followed the infamous tourist trails of the fictional novels, then how much more will you want to pick up the gauntlet thrown down by this odyssey into the true Mafia underworld? They say fact is stranger than fiction—take this journey with Carl and learn that it is also more perilous.” — Crozier Green, author of The Fratellanza Contract and Gladio Resurrection
“Carl Russo takes his readers deep into the heart of the Sicilian Mafia. Not only do they get the skinny on mobsters—their murders and their riches—but they get the actual photos of the Mafia hotspots. A must see/read!” — David Amoruso, Gangsters Inc., the Web’s largest crime forum
Carl Russo is a San Francisco writer who has covered film for various publications, including the Oakland Tribune, indieWIRE.com and KUSF-FM. He fell in love with Sicily on his first trip to the island in 1999 and has returned nearly every year since. In 2010, he started writing a blog, Mafia Exposed, which became the basis for this book.
Cardinal Publishers Group is the official book distributor for Strategic Media Books. 9781939521057
