Vendetta: The Mafia, Judge Falcone and the Hunt for Justice

by John Follain

Overview

On 23 May 1992 the Mafia assassinated its 'Number One Enemy', the legendary prosecutor Judge Falcone, with a motorway bomb that also killed his wife Francesca and three bodyguards. Fifty-seven days later, the Mafia killed Falcone's friend and colleague, Judge Paolo Borsellino, with a car bomb outside his mother's home that also killed five bodyguards.

These two murders changed forever how Italy viewed the Mafia. VENDETTA tells the inside story of the assassination plots and the investigation that followed. Follain reveals Borsellino's desperate race against time to find out who killed his friend while knowing he was next on the list and reveals the daring undercover police mission which unmasked the killers.

Based on new and exclusive interviews and the testimony of investigators, Mafia supergrasses, survivors, relatives and friends, VENDETTA recounts the events hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute as the Mafiosi plan and carry out the murders, and as the police hunt them down.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781444714142
Publisher:	Hodder
Publication date:	11/13/2012
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

John Follain was born in 1966. He studied at Oxford before joining Reuters, for which he worked as a correspondent in Rome and Paris. He has covered Italy for The Sunday Times since 1998. His previous books include DEATH IN PERUGIA, THE LAST GODFATHERS, which was translated into 10 languages, MUSSOLINI'S ISLAND and the international bestseller ZOYA'S STORY. He was voted runner-up for the 2006 Paul Foot Award for Campaigning Journalism, and nominated for the 2008 Magazine Journalism Awards for his interview with the Knox family.

Editorial Reviews

this exemplary account ... Follain tells the story with an almost thrillerish sense of pace and tension, but never loses sight of how the Falcone case dramatically affected the wider workings of both the mafia and the police.—The Sunday Times

A compelling narrative... From the 'walking corpses' to 'distinguished cadavers', bomb plots and dissolving dead bodies in acid baths, Follain's work is testimony not only to the determination and bravery of the forces of law and order but also of the arrogance and contempt shown by the Mafia.—Press Association

A cool, lucid, always vivid reconstruction... A gripping chronicle... A book which reads like a novel but is in fact a true story.—La Repubblica, Rome

On the basis of new and exclusive interviews and the testimony of investigators, supergrasses, survivors, relatives and friends, John Follain tells - minute-by-minute - the story of events which marked (Italy) for ever... An unprecedented portrait of how the Sicilian Mafia operates, describing in detail how it plotted and carried out the assassinations.—ADNKronos news agency, Rome

John Follain, who interviewed Judge Falcone seven months before his death... relates the assassinations and the incredible race against time of Judge Borsellino, who died 57 days after Falcone, to discover who killed his friend and colleague.—La Gazzetta del Sud, Bari

The inside story of the assassination plots and investigations that followed Judge Falcone's killing.—John Humphrys, Today, BBCRadio 4

'A book which causes deep anger because you see Italy once again lose its best men, like Falcone and Borsellino, who were exposed to slander even before they were hit by mafia explosives'.—Roberto Olla, TG1 news, Rome

From the Publisher