Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic - Softcover

Stille, Alexander

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0679768637 ISBN 13: 9780679768630

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1996

Synopsis

In 1992 Italy was convulsed by two brazen Mafia assassinations of high-ranking officials. The latest "excellent cadavers" were Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, the Sicilian magistrates who had been the Cosa Nostra's most implacable enemies. Yet in the aftermath of the murders, hundreds of "men of honor" were arrested and the government that ad protected them for nearly half a century was at last driven from office. This is the story that Stille tells with such insight and immediacy in Excellent Cadavers. Combining a profound understanding of his doomed heroes with and unprecedented look into the Mafia's stringent codes and murderous rivalries, he gives us a book that has the power of a great work of history and the suspense of a true thriller.


"Riveting...a well-paced and highly informative account stocked with well-drawn characters."--Philadelphia Inquirer


"Masterful...[Stille] delivers a stiletto-sharp portrait of the bloodthirsty Sicilian mafia."--Business Week

About this title

About the Author

Alexander Stille is the author of The Future of the Past, Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic, and Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families Under Fascism, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, and other publications.

From the Back Cover

In 1992 Italy was convulsed by two brazen Mafia assassinations of high-ranking officials. The latest "excellent cadavers" were Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, the Sicilian magistrates who had been the Cosa Nostra's most implacable enemies. Yet in the aftermath of the murders, hundreds of "men of honor" were arrested and the government that ad protected them for nearly half a century was at last driven from office. This is the story that Stille tells with such insight and immediacy in Excellent Cadavers. Combining a profound understanding of his doomed heroes with and unprecedented look into the Mafia's stringent codes and murderous rivalries, he gives us a book that has the power of a great work of history and the suspense of a true thriller.

"Riveting...a well-paced and highly informative account stocked with well-drawn characters."--Philadelphia Inquirer

"Masterful...[Stille] delivers a stiletto-sharp portrait of the bloodthirsty Sicilian mafia."--Business Week

Reviews

An excellent account of two Sicilian prosecutors whose investigation of the Mafia led to the top levels of the Italian government and eventually, to their own murders.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0679768637
• ISBN 13: 9780679768630
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 480