"Riveting...a well-paced and highly informative account stocked with well-drawn characters."
--The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Masterful...Stille delivers a stiletto-sharp portrait of the bloodthirsty Sicilian mafia."
--Business Week
Publisher Web Site, December, 2003
Summary
In 1992 Italy was convulsed by two brazen Mafia assassinations of high-ranking officials. The latest "excellent
cadavers" were Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, the Sicilian magistrates who had been the Cosa Nostra's
most implacable enemies. Yet in the aftermath of the murders, hundreds of "men of honor" were arrested
and the government that had protected them for nearly half a century was at last driven from office. This is the
story that Stille tells with such insight and immediacy in Excellent Cadavers. Combining a profound understanding
of his doomed heroes with an unprecedented look into the Mafia's stringent codes and murderous rivalries, he gives
us a book that has the power of a great work of history and the suspense of a true thriller.
