The Godfather's Revenge.

• Author: Walker, Mark E.
• Position: Book review

The Godfather's Revenge By Mark Winegardner

Unless you have been living under a rock, you know that novelist and Florida State University creative writing professor Mark Winegardner was chosen by the estate of Mario Puzo, creator of the fictional Corleone family, which was further immortalized by Francis Ford Coppola in the film trilogy, to pen the sequel to The Godfather.

In 2004, Winegardner published The Godfather Returns, which became an instant best-seller and won critical acclaim. Now, Winegardner returns with the third and final chapter in this literary saga, The Godfather's Revenge.

The Godfather's Revenge is set in the 1960s, after the first two films, and before the third movie and picks up where The Godfather Returns left off. The brother-slaying, tormented, estranged-from-his-family, legitimacy-seeking Michael Corleone is back as boss of his crime family, and it isn't his diabetes that keeps him up at night. In a scene that would make Shakespeare proud, the sexually-ambiguous victim of fratricide, the ghost of Fredo, is back to warn Michael.

And Michael should have heeded the warning, because Nick Geraci, Michael's former top-earner who is Parkinson-ridden and separated from his family due to Michael's betrayal, literally crawls out from a hole in the ground to exact his revenge. Geraci, however, has his competitors.

U.S. Attorney Daniel Shea, a Bobby Kennedy wannabe, declares a war on organized crime despite the fact that his womanizing brother, President James Shea, owes his presidency to Michael Corleone. Daniel Shea's crusade results in an explosive collision between organized crime and national politics, which leads to the emergence of Carlo Tramonti, boss of New Orleans, who challenges Michael's political finagling before the crime families.

This is Winegardner's recipe for a fast-paced, bloody-yet-thoughtful ride from a bomb shelter beneath Lake Erie to the streets of the Big Easy to the swamps of Florida--with New York as the natural backdrop for the machinations...