Nation: Not So Quietly Flows the Don

The Mafia memoirs of Joe Bonanno are seized by the law

Omerta. The Sicilian code of silence. Nothing is more central to the Mafia mentality. Nothing, that is, except perhaps the tragic flaw of most men of power: pride.

Joe Bonanno may indeed be the proudest of America's Mafiosi: Sicilian-born, son of a don, bootlegger at 21, gunrunner for Al Capone at 24, a New York don himself at 26 and a ruthless aspirant to the title of capo di tutti capi, boss of all bosses. So at age 74, supposedly sunning out his...

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