The Prince
A Novel
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- R$ 62,90
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- R$ 62,90
Descrição da editora
Based on a true story, The Prince is a “complex, informed, and intelligent saga” (Kirkus Reviews) about the web of love, betrayal, and murder that forged the most powerful criminal organization in history—the Mafia.
In this remarkable novel, author Vito Bruschini brilliantly evokes the charismatic figure of Prince Ferdinando Licata, a wealthy Sicilian landowner who uses his personal power and charm to placate Sicilian peasants and fight off Mussolini’s fascists. As tensions rise in Italy during the 1930s, with increasingly violent consequences, Licata attracts many friends and even more enemies. Eventually implicated in a grisly murder, the prince flees to America, where he ends up navigating a turf war between Irish and Italian gangs of the Lower East Side.
Violence explodes in unexpected ways as Licata gains dominance over New York, with the help of a loyal townsman with blood ties to the prince who is forced to abandon his fiancée in Sicily. The two men return to their native land at the height of World War II in an outrageously bold maneuver engineered by Licata and mobster Lucky Luciano. Both the prince and his kinsman assist US naval intelligence during the invasion of Sicily and, once they are back on their native soil, they proceed to settle unfinished business with their enemies and unravel old secrets in a stunning and sinister finale.
Through a spellbinding story and unforgettable characters, Bruschini depicts in visceral detail the dark intertwining roots of loyalty and betrayal, poverty and privilege, secrets and revelations that contributed to the rise of the Mafia in Sicily and America.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bruschini makes his U.S. debut with a brutal Mafia epic that spans the years from 1921 to 1943 and details the rise of fascism under Mussolini. When Prince Ferdinando Licata, a prominent landowner in the Sicilian town of Salemi, is implicated in a murder in 1939, he's forced to leave Italy for America. He establishes himself in New York City, where he gets caught up in a battle between rival Irish and Italian gangs in the Bronx. At the height of WWII, he returns to Sicily, where he gets into worse trouble. Scenes of shocking violence serve only to highlight the otherwise dry narrative and its shallow, frequently clich d characterizations. The author spends so much time on the minutiae of peripheral characters, as well as some awkward and extraneous sex scenes, that the reader never truly gets to know Licata. By the end, too many plot points are left unexplained.
