The Last Don
- Book Review,
by Mario Puzo
Amazon.com
Mario Puzo, author of The Godfather, knows a thing or two about the Mafia and about the movie business; here he brings them together. In the prologue, a Mafia don oversees the double christening of two infant boys, Dante and Cross, into the Clericuzio family. Later, when Cross is tapped to take over as the "Hammer" of the Clericuzios, their prime hit man, he proves not cold-blooded enough for the role. Dante takes his place, and Cross moves from Las Vegas to Hollywood, which proves to be an even worse den of iniquity. When he falls for a movie star Athena Aquitaine, he exhibits the "fatal flaw" the old don always warned against: loving a beautiful woman. A taut novel of sex and money, of love and power.
From Publishers Weekly
Age withers some writers. Others it ripens toward an Olympian wisdom. So it is with Puzo, who at age 76 returns after a quarter century to the terrain of his greatest success, The Godfather, to tell a second masterful tale of Mafia life. Puzo's vision is broader here, and more dispassionate. Times have changed since the day of the Corleones. America has fragmented, and Puzo's new family, the Clericuzios, the shadowy power behind the Mafia, is feeling modernity's centrifugal force. Though still based in New York, the Family has also scattered to Vegas and, as the novel progresses, to Hollywood. Puzo's protagonist is Cross De Lena, nephew of Don Domenico Clericuzio, his Bruglione in Vegas, who by investing in film may fulfill the Don's wish to legitimize the Family. But in Puzo's world, the search for power and wealth demands brutality; dream factories, whether of Vegas or Hollywood, are awash in vengeance, betrayal and blood. Puzo's take on the film world is scathing, yet there are no caricatures here; his men and women can be seduced by virtue as well as by vice and will throw away a lifetime in pursuit of love. Violence slashes through the narrative, but the real cruelty that laces the plot lies in each character's byzantine manipulations of others; the story line would delight a Medici. Nearly above the fray stand two old men, the Don and a film czar. Knowing what the world is, they neither condemn it nor bless it but acknowledge its wickedness and drink of its passion and beauty. As, in this mesmerizing tale, Puzo himself does, surveying the play of humanity in its mad glory. Major ad/promo; BOMC main selection; simultaneous Random House AudioBook; film rights sold to CBS; foreign rights sold in England, France, Italy, Sweden, Finland, Brazil and Japan. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Twenty-five years after the publication of The Godfather, Puzo returns to the literary landscape that launched his career and led to several wildly successful movies. Don Domenico Clericuzio has managed to outlast competing Mafia families while leading the Clericuzio clan to prominence. Pippi, the Don's nephew, along with son Cross, heads the family's Las Vegas operations, where he seeks to extend the Clericuzio tentacles into such legitimate pursuits as legalized gambling, motion pictures, and the construction industry. When Pippi is murdered, Cross seeks vengeance but finds the trail leading ever closer to home. This long abridgment?four cassettes instead of the usual two?does the novel justice by retaining much of Puzo's original material. Joe Montegna's reading is appropriately low-key. Recommended for most popular collections.?Mark Annichiarico, "Library Journal"Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The New York Times Book Review, Vincent Patrick
Mr. Puzo wraps up his intricate plot with the same ingenuity he exhibits throughout this satisfying novel.
From Booklist
Puzo's latest novel is a version of the Wars of the Roses within a Mafia context. That fifteenth-century English dynastic struggle for the throne saw cousin pitted against cousin, and Puzo has fashioned the same kind of internecine struggle here. The story opens in 1965, with Don Clericuzio, head of the most powerful Mafia family in the country, deciding to make his enterprises legit. He is looking ahead to his grandchildren's lives, wanting them to enjoy his largesse without the danger inherent in life in the criminal underworld. Zoom--we're transported to the present day and involved in how the don's plans for his family's future are playing out. Hollywood and Las Vegas provide venues for one grandson's attempts, at the expense of another grandson, to undermine the master plan, but all's well that ends well in this surefire best-seller. Brad Hooper
From Kirkus Reviews
Puzo's seventh novel, a monstrously gripping quasisequel to 1969's The Godfather, flavors itself with none of the Corleones so dear to fans of that earlier potboiler but does simmer the same Sicilian marinara, using a more literate recipe. From its Long Island compound, the Clericuzio family, ruled by the twistedly wise Great White Shark Domenico Clericuzio, dominates the nation's Mafia but longs to go legit. For over 30 years, old Domenico has urged the Clericuzios toward fading namelessly into the nation's fabric, into restaurants, construction companies, and legalized gambling. He has given up drugs as operationally too unwieldy, and now seeks nationwide legalized gambling. Peace has reigned since Domenico's young nephew, Pippi De Lena, wiped out the brutal Santadio family in one bloody evening. But Sicilian vengeance knows no time limit, and one shadowy figure remains of mixed Santadio-Clericuzio blood who now seeks payment and rulership of the Clericuzios. Puzo divides his novel mainly into scenes set on Long Island, in Las Vegas, and Hollywood. Pippi runs Xanadu, the crown jewel of Las Vegas casinos, aided by his son Croccifixio, known as Cross. When Cross finds himself stunned by the beauty of Hollywood's leading actress, Athena Aquitane, he decides to help quell her fear of her acid-slinging ex-husband. Athena departs LoddStone Studios, where she's filming the $100M epic Messalina, and goes into hiding until the threat is removed. To get his foot into the legit film industry, Cross buys the unfinished picture from Loddstone, and quickly, permanently resolves Athena's marital problems. After his father Pippi is murdered, Cross sets out to avenge him. But Cross's instincts tell him that old Domenico may be behind his own nephew's murder. Cross, caught between Scylla and Charybdis, may have to go against his own blood if he is to have revenge. Fabulously well-plotted; drunk on luxury. (Film rights to CBS; Book-of-the-Month main selection) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Book Description
"PUZO IS IN TOP FORM." *TimeThe Last Don is Mario Puzo at his finest, thrilling us with his greatest Mafia novel since The Godfather *a masterful saga of the last great American crime family and its powerful reach into Hollywood and Las Vegas."THE MOST ENTERTAINING READ SINCE THE GODFATHER." *The New York Times Book ReviewThe Last Don is Domenico Clericuzio, a wise and ruthless old man who is determined to see his heirs established in legitimate society but whose vision is threatened when secrets from the family's past spark a vicious war between two blood cousins."SKILLFULLY CRAFTED . . . IT GIVES US HOLLYWOOD, LAS VEGAS, AND THE MOB IN ONE SWEET DISH." *Los Angeles Times Book ReviewThe Last Don is a mesmerizing tale that takes us inside the equally corrupt worlds of the mob, the movie industry, and the casinos *where beautiful actresses and ruthless hitmen are ruled by lust and violence, where sleazy producers and greedy studio heads are drunk on power, where crooked cops and desperate gamblers play dangerous games of betrayal, and where one man controls them all. . . ."Head-long entertainment, bubbling over with corruption, betrayal, assassinations, Richter-scale romance, and, of course, family values." *Time"Puzo returns after a quarter century to the terrain of his greatest success, The Godfather, to tell a second masterful tale of Mafia life." *Variety"A compelling tale peopled by memorable characters. . . . Puzo is a master storyteller with an uncanny facility for details that force the reader to keep the pages turning." *USA Today
Download Description
"PUZO IS IN TOP FORM."
*Time
The Last Don is Mario Puzo at his finest, thrilling us with his greatest Mafia novel since The Godfather *a masterful saga of the last great American crime family and its powerful reach into Hollywood and Las Vegas.
"THE MOST ENTERTAINING READ SINCE THE GODFATHER."
*The New York Times Book Review
The Last Don is Domenico Clericuzio, a wise and ruthless old man who is determined to see his heirs established in legitimate society but whose vision is threatened when secrets from the family's past spark a vicious war between two blood cousins.
"SKILLFULLY CRAFTED . . . IT GIVES US HOLLYWOOD, LAS VEGAS, AND THE MOB IN ONE SWEET DISH."
*Los Angeles Times Book Review
The Last Don is a mesmerizing tale that takes us inside the equally corrupt worlds of the mob, the movie industry, and the casinos *where beautiful actresses and ruthless hitmen are ruled by lust and violence, where sleazy producers and greedy studio heads are drunk on power, where crooked cops and desperate gamblers play dangerous games of betrayal, and where one man controls them all. . . .
"Head-long entertainment, bubbling over with corruption, betrayal, assassinations, Richter-scale romance, and, of course, family values."
*Time
"Puzo returns after a quarter century to the terrain of his greatest success, The Godfather, to tell a second masterful tale of Mafia life."
*Variety
"A compelling tale peopled by memorable characters. . . . Puzo is a master storyteller with an uncanny facility for details that force the reader to keep the pages turning."
*USA Today
From the Paperback edition.
From the Inside Flap
"PUZO IS IN TOP FORM."
*Time
The Last Don is Mario Puzo at his finest, thrilling us with his greatest Mafia novel since The Godfather *a masterful saga of the last great American crime family and its powerful reach into Hollywood and Las Vegas.
"THE MOST ENTERTAINING READ SINCE THE GODFATHER."
*The New York Times Book Review
The Last Don is Domenico Clericuzio, a wise and ruthless old man who is determined to see his heirs established in legitimate society but whose vision is threatened when secrets from the family's past spark a vicious war between two blood cousins.
"SKILLFULLY CRAFTED . . . IT GIVES US HOLLYWOOD, LAS VEGAS, AND THE MOB IN ONE SWEET DISH."
*Los Angeles Times Book Review
The Last Don is a mesmerizing tale that takes us inside the equally corrupt worlds of the mob, the movie industry, and the casinos *where beautiful actresses and ruthless hitmen are ruled by lust and violence, where sleazy producers and greedy studio heads are drunk on power, where crooked cops and desperate gamblers play dangerous games of betrayal, and where one man controls them all. . . .
"Head-long entertainment, bubbling over with corruption, betrayal, assassinations, Richter-scale romance, and, of course, family values."
*Time
"Puzo returns after a quarter century to the terrain of his greatest success, The Godfather, to tell a second masterful tale of Mafia life."
*Variety
"A compelling tale peopled by memorable characters. . . . Puzo is a master storyteller with an uncanny facility for details that force the reader to keep the pages turning."
*USA Today
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