The Octopus: The Rise and Rise of the Sicilian Mafia

by Joe Pieri

This book reveals a shocking and sensational the mafia and the huge syndicates it controls have infiltrated the government in Italy, the US, the highest levels of the Catholic Church, and in modern times, are even implicated in the murder of an American president and the pope. At lower levels of criminality the mafia is omnipresent - from prostitution, gambling and boot-legging during the Prohibition era in the 1920's, to the present day control of drug trafficking in Europe and America. The annals of the mafia are bloodstained and littered with corpses, both of the mobsters themselves and the law-abiding citizens and legislators who have tried to resist their intimidation. Peopled with compelling characters, Pieri rattles through the tangle of rackets, fueds, business affairs and political chicanery that satisfies our fascination with the criminal underworld.

229 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 30, 2007

About the author

Joe, born Giuseppe, Pieri was a Scots Italian who owned The Savoy Café in Cowcaddens, Glasgow. He arrived in Glasgow from Tuscany with his parents in 1919.

During World War II, Pieri was interned on Île Sainte-Hélène in Montreal, Canada. After the war, he became one of the most prominent figures in Glasgow's Scottish-Italian community, running ran several city-centre fish and chip shops.