Omerta

Rating:
Summary: A Great Read
Review: This book doesn't really have great character development, the plot is not the best in the world, but it is a great read.

This is one of those books that you crack open on Sunday 10:00AM, and wrap it right before the Simpsons start. It'll chew up your whole day because you won't be able to put it down, but it'll be worth it.

It's basically about an adopted son who takes the place of a murdered Don, and takes it upon himself to get revenge against the murderers and save the Don's business. Granted, the plot is vary formuliac, but it still grips the reader like very few books.

This book is not a literary masterpiece, but that really is a blessing in disguise. Puzo does a great job by not detracting from the plot. He doesn't concentrate on settings or development, but instead puts all his effort in to telling a great story.

It's a great way to spend a free day, and a fitting way to end Puzo's career.

Rating:
Summary: Review of: Omerta by Mario Puzo
Review: I think that Omerta is a very fine piece of writing by Mario Puzo. Although I was slighty dissapointed by it as it did not live up to or contain the quality of his passed writings that we have grown fond of. It severly lacked the detail and precision of the character and the development and backround of the characters as well. Still the Godfather remains to be his most superior work but Omerta is still well worth the read!

Rating:
Summary: A good early draft
Review: It is very clear to me that Mario Puzo either hadn't finished this book when he passed away or, at the very most, it was a first draft. With due respect to him, his editors should have taken a heavier pen to this draft, which was full of awkward writing and undeveloped points. (The fact that this work is so much briefer than Mr. Puzo's earlier works lends credence to the conclusion that it needed to be fleshed out.)

That being said, this was not a horrible book, but it was not what one would expect from someone as talented as Mr. Puzo. The characters were, for the most part, two-dimensional and some of the relationships not fully clarified.

Don Aprile, who has survived the FBI incursions into the Mafia, is gunned down by unkown assailants. He has annointed the nephew that he raised as his "heir apparent" to the remaning family businesses, as he carefully has sheltered his children from the less savory aspects of his life. The story line was interesting but a little hard to follow (I didn't think that the underlying attempted transaction made sense). This is definitely not the best novel written by Mr. Puzo.

Rating:
Summary: A Quick and Dissapointing Read
Review: I was thrilled to learn that we would get to read one last book by the great Mario Puzo. Unfortunately by the time I was done I almost wished that The Last Don had remained as the book that capped Puzo's career. Omerta reads more like an outline for a movie than a novel and the characters, while interesting, are painfully underdeveloped. It would be unfair to compare this book with The Godfather, so I won't bother, but even taken on it's own merits, Omerta can only be decribed as a dissapointment. It is a great story with great potential that is not met. Wait for the paperback.

Rating:
Summary: Terrible book!
Review: I would give the book 0 stars if that was an option. The characters are a joke and the plot is too thin. I feel as if I was ripped-off in buying the book!

Rating:
Summary: A Sad Failure
Review: This book is trash. As a long-time fan of The Godfather, I am only sad that this travesty was published. I cannot believe that Puzo himself wrote it. Cardboard characters, transparent cliche plot: A waste of time. Forget it!

Rating:
Summary: An Offer You Might Be Able to Refuse
Review: "Omerta" is the third and final book in Mario Puzo's Mafia trilogy. (The first two were the brilliant "The Godfather" and the above-average "The Last Don.") Puzo died shortly after completing "Omerta," so this is the last we will ever read from this great American author. When I first got "Omerta," I eyed the rather slim size (only 316 pages) and the fairly large type and was worried. My immediate thought was that Puzo died before he could actually finish the book!

Once I started reading it, though, I was reassured. The book might be short, but it is good, and it is classic Puzo. The story tells the rise to power of Astorre Viola, foster son and heir of the great Don Raymonde Aprile. The Don has left Astorre in charge of his financial empire, which becomes the target of an evil alliance between a drug kingpin and rival Mafioso.

Astorre must not only defend the Aprile fortune, but his own life, as well as those of the Don's children. He is beset on all sides, just only by the mob and their contract killers, but also by the FBI, and the NYPD. His chances of success might seem slim, but underestimating Astorre is always a mistake--usually a fatal one.

I found the plot to be an interesting one, but it is not fully developed enough to be as gripping and exciting as it could be. It definitely seems incomplete in areas. For example, the book refers to Astorre's years in Sicily, but we only catch glimpses of those formative events. Also many of the characters (especially the Don's children) seem only partly drawn, never fully formed.

Might Puzo have intended to write more, to flesh out these characters and their lives? We can't know, but I suspect he did. The book would certainly be much better had he been able to.

"Omerta" is clearly the least successful book in Puzo's Mafia trilogy. It can't come close to equaling the brilliance of "The Godfather" or even "The Last Don." That doesn't mean it's a bad book. I actually enjoyed reading it very much. But when judged by the standard that Puzo set in the past, "Omerta" has to rank as a disappointment.

Rating:
Summary: Good UNLESS compared to the classic earlier work.
Review: The problem with this book is solely derived from the the fact that its bloodlines are so strong. If the Godfather did not exist, Omerta would be consided a classic. However, this is what one must expect in trying to follow the greatest American novel.

Like others critiques, I found it sometimes incomplete and therefore unsatisfying. Not as bad as an "outline", as one other critic described, but as the book progressed, I wanted much much more. While the writing was fine, and the dialogue great, I sought more texture, more development (length like we get from T. Clancy would have been welcomed).

I would have been much much happier with the detail which made its predecessor the classic it was.

Rating:
Summary: 5 Stars
Review: Nothing can match THE GODFATHER, but I liked OMERTA. It's Puzo doing what he does best: making you, emotionally, such a part of a gangster organization, that you actually sympathize with them. They are corrupt, but within that corruption, have a code they live by. And that is, perversely, admirable in a way. Talk about cultural relativism! Anyway, this was probably the best thriller-read I've had since Craig Furrnas' THE SHAPE. Puzo was one of my favorite novelists (he was a gent himself, which made it that much easier to like his writing), and I was truly saddened when he died. Even if you're waffling about buying this book, I recommend you do, because, sadly, there ain't gonna be no more Puzo books after this one.

Rating:
Summary: The Last Novel of The Don of Mafia Writing
Review: I like novels like this one. It has all the elements that one could hope for in a novel. It has depth; is easy to follow; and can be done in a couple of sittings. I did not think The Last Don was as good as The Godfather, and I expected Omerta to be worse than The Last Don. Yet, this new tale of Mafia Suspense rivals The Godfather in twists, turns, and can't-put-it-down suspense. The language is VERY easy to read. I had no problem progressing even after a hard day at work. You don't really have to think about much; it is all there for you. The story is excellent. The plot seems like it took a long time to write out, and it is worthy of an author like Puzo. The progression of the Character development is the only problem that the book runs across. A few of the characters are not explained well, and this is mostly because there are just so many characters in the book. After reading the book, I cannot safely say that I know the motives surrounding any of the characters. I think this is kind of a good thing, though; it leaves much of the character/motives to be interpeted and inferred by the reader's own mind. If the characters were explained better, I am certain that the book would be too simplistic. I would definetly reccommend this book to anyone, as it is an easy romp of a read. And don't be suprised if you get a little bit of a Scicilian accent by the end of the novel.