The Last Don

To the Clericuzio family, life is like a box of hand grenades. Mario Puzo is back with a vengeancein his first Mafia novel since The Godfather, a thrilling saga of the last great American crime family and its reach into the Hollywood and Las Vegas. Twenty-seven yars ago, Mario Puzo published a popular classic. Now, after writing bestselling novels about Las Vegas, Sicily, and Washington, Puzo has at last returned to the subject he knows best - the inner workings of the Mafia. The Last Don is the most ambitious novel of Mario Puzo's legendary career, the product of five years of work and a lifetime of research into the mores of the mob, Vegas, and Hollywood. The Last Don is Domenico Clericuzio, a ferocious old man who is determined to secure his family's in an era of legalized gambling, motion picture investments. The Don is close to achieving his vision when secrets buried in his family's past threaten to undermine his plan and spark a war between two blood cousins. Only a two-time Academy Award winner with an insider's knowledge of Hollywood could write such a sizzling and scathing portrait of the movie business and show how a film really gets made. Only a writter who has gambled in the private rooms of the best casinos could reveal the secrets of business in Las Vegas. And only a writter who understands the hearts of the thieves could describe Mafia life with such sparkling authenticity. The Last Don proves once again that Mario Puzo knows where the bodies are buried. Mario Puzo has born in New York and, following military service in World War ii, attended New York's New School for Social Research and Columbia University. His best-known novel, The GOdfather, was preceded by two critically acclaimed novels, The Dark Arena and The Fortunate Pilgrim. In 1978 , he published Fools Die, followed by The Sicilian (1984) and The Fourth K (1991). Mario Puzo has also written several screenplays, including Earthquake, Superman, and all three Godfather movies, for which he received two Academy Awards.