Omerta, the third novel in Mario Puzo's Mafia trilogy, is
infinitely better than the third Godfather film, and most movies
in fact. Besides colorful characters and snappy dialogue, it's
got a knotty, gratifying, just-complex-enough plot and plenty of
movie-like scenes.
The newly retired Mafioso Don Raymonde Aprile attends his
grandson's confirmation at St. Patrick's in New York, handing
each kid a gold coin. Long shot: "Brilliant sunshine etched
the image of that great cathedral into the streets around
it." Medium shot: "The girls in frail cobwebby white
lace dresses, the boys [with] traditional red neckties knitted at
their throats to ward off the Devil." Close-up: "The
first bullet hit the Don square in the forehead. The second
bullet tore out his throat."
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More crucial than the tersely described violence is the emotional
setting: a traditional, loving clan menaced by traditional
vendettas. With Don Aprile hit, the family's fate lies in the
strong hands of his adopted nephew from Sicily, Astorre. The Don
kept his own kids sheltered from the Mafia: one son is an army
officer; another is a TV exec; his daughter Nicole (the most
developed character of the three) is an ace lawyer who liked to
debate the Don on the death penalty. "Mercy is a vice, a
pretension to powers we do not have ... an unpardonable offense
to the victim," the Don maintained. Astorre, a macaroni
importer and affable amateur singer, was secretly trained to carry
on the Don's work. Now his job is to show no mercy.
But who did the hit? Was it Kurt Cilke, the morally tormented FBI
man who recently jailed most of the Mafia bosses? Or Timmona
Portella, the Mob boss Cilke still wants to collar? How about
Marriano Rubio, the womanizing, epicurean Peruvian diplomat who
wants Nicole in bed -- did he also want her papa's head?
If you didn't know Puzo wrote Omerta, it would be no mystery. His
marks are all over it: lean prose, a romance with the Old
Country, a taste for olives in barrels, a jaunty cynicism
("You cannot send six billionaires to prison," says
Cilke's boss. "Not in a democracy"), an affection for
characters with flawed hearts, like Rudolfo the $1,500-an-hour
sexual massage therapist, or his short-tempered client Aspinella,
the one-eyed NYPD detective. The simultaneous courtship of cheery
Mafia tramp Rosie by identical hit-man twins Frankie and Stace
Sturzo makes you fall in love with them all -- and feel a genuine
pang when blood proves thicker than eros.
This fitting capstone to Puzo's career is optioned for a film, and
Michael Imperioli of TV's The Sopranos narrates the audiocassette
version of the novel. But why wait for the movie? Omerta is a
big, old-fashioned movie in its own right.
-- Tim Appelo