Power on Earth: Michele Sindona's Explosive Story

by Nick Tosches

The inside story of international financial wizard Michele Sindona, whose lucrative career ended with his conviction on fraud, misappropriation of bank funds, and perjury charges in the U.S. and murder charges in Italy

Genres: Crime, Nonfiction, True Crime, History, Biography, Italy

290 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1986

About the author

Nick Tosches was an American journalist, novelist, biographer, and poet. His 1982 biography of Jerry Lee Lewis, Hellfire, was praised by Rolling Stone magazine as "the best rock and roll biography ever written."

Reviews

[Jonathan Roth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting piece of international history just full up with power, money, corruption, death and lies -- I know, I know, pretty much the whole list of everybody's favorite sins and their ultimate "wages" save for sex, vanity, gluttony and I can't think of what else! And despite the ongoing and seemingly never-ending evolution of the banking and/or business scandal as an art form here in the United States, I'd still have to say that Sindona was a true operatic virtuoso talent (a Satanic diva, if you will) in the context of the Euro Outrages of the 1970's. I give it a four overall, but for you Italophiles out there, well you can just bump that straight on up to a five:-) Best consumed with a decent glass of Barolo in your hand and perhaps La Traviata playing on your iPod.

[Maureen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A totally cool, oddly cynical, hair-raising action movie kind of a book about the Vatican Bank, and whatever else splattered forth from the author's twisted mind. Did I love it? Yes, because it was so totally outside of anything else I had read at the time, and I will always be interested in anything Nick Tosches writes.

[Kit Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Keeping track of all the player's names--and the various Italian institutions they worked for/stole money from--was a little difficult to keep track of, but this was still entertaining as hell, and the point-by-point "how to" lesson on how to launder money was utterly fascinating. Also totally dug the very unflattering cameo of Goodfellas protagonist Henry Hill.

[Jerstyn Morehay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nick Tosches is on his best writing behavior in his most ambitious journalistic piece, an account of the life of gubernatorial businessman, Vatican banker, and alleged Mafia financier Michele Sindona. Charting his meteoric rise and fall across several decades, from his native Sicily to the seats of financial power in New York City, to prosecution for international criminal conspiracy and multiple lifetimes of jail sentences imposed in the United States and Italy, the shadow world of international finance offers no solutions to its many riddles, only more questions. The chapter on money laundering may be the best thing Tosches ever wrote, and the parts of the book that were excised before publishing for legal reasons, Tosches hinted, later found their way into his crime fiction.

[Martin Popoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Floored at the research this must have taken. A heavy financials-laden bok by my fave author. I also read a drier one on same subject by an Italian, in English translation. Fascinating, but more so because of Tosches' fevering writing.

[David Rasner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent source of materail for current banking problems and how easy it is to fool our government. A must read for banking info.