BLOOD WASHES BLOOD (The Love and Hate of the Sicilian Mafia)

Author: Frank Viviano
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Publication Date: 2002-03-26
Features: Against the sweeping backdrop of western Sicily, in a riveting seven-year quest, Frank Viviano pieces together his own harrowing ancestral history of betrayal and redemption. His story is haunted, from its violent opening to its stunning climax, by an ancient Sicilian proverb, Lusangula valusangu, "Blood washes blood": the torrent of unforgiving vengeance that flows from an unforgivable offense. Viviano's great-great-grandfather was a legendary bandit who traveled the countryside of Sicily by night in the robes of a friar and was known as "the Monk." His brutal murder has remained shrouded in mystery for four generations. Until now. Populated by an extraordinary cast of nineteenth-century Robin Hood brigands and twentieth-century underworld bosses, here is a true-life Godfather, in which past and present finally merge into a single story with a shattering climax that ultimately changes the way the author views his immigrant family's complex legacy -- and himself.