It follows the life story of Astorre Viola, a young man programmed to be a true Sicilian. There are sub-plots galore involving his step-father/uncle Don Raymonde Aprile and his three cousins as well as a gaggle of Sicilan and American Mafia Dons and soldiers, a couple bent cops, a conflicted FBI agent, a high level prostitute with a heart of gold (grin), a South American drug lord, a couple assassins-for-hire and their broker, etc.

This was the last book Puzo wrote before he died and, in my opinion, was not up to his previous efforts. This quote from Wikipedia says it better than I can, "Jules Siegel, who had worked closely with Puzo at Magazine Management Company, speculated that Omertà may have been completed by 'some talentless hack.' Siegel also acknowledges the temptation to 'rationalize avoiding what is probably the correct analysis -- that [Puzo:] wrote it and it is terrible.'"

Maybe he was trying to emulate Hemingway with short sentences and a bare bones plot. I'm afraid it didn't work. As Hemingway would have put it in one of his six word stories, "Boy matures. Mentor dies. Revenge accomplished."

I finished it only to be disappointed at the ending. I'm going to remember Puzo as the author of "The Godfather", not this disappointing effort.