Vendetta: The Mafia, Judge Falcone, and the Quest for Justice

To fight the legendary Cosa Nostra syndicate, Judge Giovanni Falcone professed, "you have to learn to live and think like the Mafiosi." Rising from the same crime-infested docks of northern Sicily, Falcone and Salvatore "The Beast" Riina counterbalance one another in Follain's history of the judge's assassination. In this suspense-filled volume, London Times journalist Follain (Mussolini's Island) recalls in impressive detail the Mafiosi's 1992 plans to murder Judge Falcone as well as ex-prosecutor and close friend Paolo Borsellino two months later. Conversations among key family members are reconstructed; particulars of the ambush and coordinated bombings are detailed. But the moments which best capture the stakes and depth of the situation are those concerning Falcone and his personal motivations, his deeply-rooted attachments and unwavering work ethic. Follain's effective depiction of Falcone's psyche %E2%80%93 the prosecutor had perhaps "a heavy, and typically Sicilian, dose of fatalism in his character" %E2%80%93 helps readers to empathize further with the judge's life and brutal fate. With b/w photos. (Feb.)