” The Godfather ” by Mario Puzo is a crime epic novel originally published in the late 1960’s .

The novel opens up with a false trial dealing with sexual assault . The father of the girl who was assaulted promises to go to the local crime Don , Vito Corleone , to get justice . A washed up singer loses control of his marriage and decides he needs the advice of his godfather to get his life back together . These two men and more decide to go to the wedding of Don Corleone’s daughter to ask their favors because apparently a Sicillian cannot say no on their daughter’s wedding day . Favor after favor is granted by the wise Don and everything seems to go fine up until The Don takes his eldest son ( Sonny ) with him to a meeting with a representative of another crime family in New York . The rival family wants to work out a deal involving political protection for their drug deals , Vito turns the deal down but Sonny shows some opposition to his fathers position . Sonny’s outburst leads to Vito and the middle brother (Freddie ) being shot . Vito survives but is unable to continue as the Don , so Sonny takes over and convinces the youngest brother ( Michael ) to join him . Michael eventually assassinated the man whom ordered the hit on his father and this sets off a war between all five of the main mafia families in New York . Believe it or not , this is still pretty much the beginning of the novel .

Just a fair warning , this novel is indeed very graphic and violent . That probably goes without saying for a crime novel but felt it should be said anyways . Let me say that this is a true epic tragedy with a 50’s and 60’s mafia backdrop . It is like a more modern Shakespeare play . Mario Puzo is truly a great character writer , we feel intimate with every important ( and some of the minor ) characters in this story . He takes some breaks from the main story to tell other short stories about each characters past and it helps make this a deeper story than your typical mafia exploitation type novel . Overall , I’d highly recommend it to any crime novel enthusiast as well as tragedy/drama fans . Hell , I’d even pay full price and I don’t pay full price for anything .