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From the legendary author of THE GODFATHER comes a novel of the original Italian crime family

Fifteenth-century Italy. The Renaissance is in full swing, heralding a new golden age for Europe. But where there is gold – and power – there are those who are willing to do anything to get their hands on them.

Enter the Borgias. Headed by Rodrigo Borgia, better known as Pope Alexander VI, this tight-knit family is fighting to keep its iron grip on Italy – but theirs is a lethal game, and the cost of failure is surely death.

Scheming and plotting for their own ends are his children: Giovanni, the much-favoured golden boy; his younger brother Cesare, jealous and vicious; and Lucrezia, cunning, calculating and passionate. The Borgias face immense opposition from all quarters of Italy, but their deadliest foes may be far closer to home.
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A tale of brutality and betrayal that crowns Mario Puzo's remarkable career
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'We are a family,' Alexander told his children. 'And the loyalty of the family must come before everything and everyone else. We must learn from each other, protect each other, and be bound first and foremost to each other. For if we honour that commitment, we will never be vanquished – but if we falter in that loyalty, we will all be condemned...'

Keeps readers turning pages all the way to an explosive showdown * Daily Mail *
Headlong entertainment, bubbling over with corruption, betrayal, assassinations, Richter-scale romance, and, of course, family values * Time *
Hugely effective fiction...[Puzo] keeps his pact with readers to unfailingly deliver the goods * Literary Review *
Puzo is a master storyteller with an uncanny facility for details that force the reader to keep the pages turning. Call it a literary meat-hook * USA Today *
Puzo’s genius was to create a world so thick with personality and behaviour . . . that reading his books becomes a seriously guilty pleasure * New York Post *
Dazzling, passionate, a masterwork that ranks with Puzo's best * Nicholas Pileggi *
Pure Puzo * New York Daily News *

Mario Puzo was born in New York. He is the author of the bestselling novel The Godfather and many other acclaimed novels. Puzo also wrote many screenplays, including those for the three Godfather movies, for which he won two academy awards. He died at his home in Long Island, New York, at the age of seventy-eight.