The Sicilian by Mario Puzo

This book was suggested to me by a drunken bengali PhD I met in tum-tum one day.
The author of 'The Godfather' presents us a little story of Micheal Corleone's stay in Sicily when he was hiding for murder of a policeman back in America. Micheal is expected to help out a bandit, who has been able to slip away from the hands of the government for past 7 years, to escape to America. Turi, the young lad has made enemies at Rome and Sicily with the Friends of Friends. Turi's parents are old friends of the Godfather and he has promised their son a safe passage to America. Micheal has to bring Turi along with him. How did Turi, a loving peasant became a rebel? How did he manage to bend the most powerful people in Rome to his will and later against him? Who is really with him and who is against him? Will he be able to escape the land of treacherous people?
In this book you will see the beloved son of our Godfather, seem insignificant to the self proclaimed Champion of Sicily. You fall in love with the bandit who is similar to Robin Hood, gives his victims time to make peace with God before killing them. He is gentle with friends and ferocious with the treacherous.
Turi Guiliano grew up a poor son of a poor peasant, born in America but raised a Sicilian. His friend Aspanu Pisciotta is his shadow, the more ferocious of the two. Until one fateful Turi is shot while smuggling and he kills a carabinieri and is an outlaw. He and Aspanu go on to live in the mountains initially supported by his family and his Godfather Professor Hector Adonis but then they proceed to terrorize all the carabinieri in the area release prisoners and build their own band. They loot,kidnap the rich and distribute it among the poor. People love him, say prayers for him,hide him, help him. Then it happens Don Croce tricks him and the massacre of Portella della Ginestra. He hunts down the traitor and kills him, he kills the Friends of Friends. But the noop has started to tighten. His final aim is Don Croce. All these years the enemies kept at bay by the documents of support these people had given him when they needed him to crub the socialist wave which could have been a doom for the Dons in Sicily and present government in Rome. As he moves to Trapani, in the abode of Don Domenico Clemenza, Peter Clemenza's elder brother, where Micheal waits for him. But he is assassinated by none other than his brother Aspanu on instructions from Don Croce. Michael later learns that his father had predicted the outcome and done nothing, and is saddened. He blames himself partly because he told Aspanu that the documents were safe in America. You are nearly as heartbroken as Micheal to learn about the death of The Sicilian(Micheal is in awe of this young man and evious of him who at the tender age of 20 had already started winning the hard life battles). Till the end you expect him to spring back to life, like it was another one of his jokes he played on the Friends of Friends or Rome. Later in the book when Aspanu is poisoned and the professor puts the note in his pocket 'So die all who betray Guiliano' you are over joyed.
Puzo nicely introduces the lifestyle of the Sicilians, their lifestyle, their homes, their customes, their stubbornness, their strength, their weakness, the treacherous, the loyal, the loyalties changing sides, new loyalties emerging, love, hate, revenge and other things. The story has 3 time lines, the present, the rise of Don Croce and the rise of Turi and still you feel at ease the way Puzo has written the novel. Also the scenes are very picturesquely depicted, you can imagine the scenes very clearly, either it be the freedom enjoyed by Turi and Aspanu in their first week at Monte d'Ora, or the monastery, or the assassination of Terranova (one of the major chiefs of Turi's gang) and other stuff. The change is gradual and each time line you are able to pick were you left.
Puzo doesn't fool you with romantic endings, the powerful wins and survives, the careless dies, either betrayed or by his own foolishness. The more experiences and calm Don Croce survives whereas the hero of the novel dies just because he instigated the Don in the final moments of his stay in Sicily. The novel may not be as good as godfather because of the more alien ways of Sicilians and Italy and Rome and the government there at that time, but still is a good read.

There are numerous quotes but that would require me reading the whole book again and would be updated later.