“Myth was how the ’Ndrangheta assumed a moral purpose when it was self-evidently immoral, how it colored itself romantic and divine when it was base and profane, and how it convinced others it was their righteous champion even as it robbed and murdered them. Myth was how those inside the organization were persuaded they were following a higher code and those outside it found themselves stumped by even the simplest questions, such as who was who. It was all an enormous lie. But it was a lie that explained how, almost without anyone noticing, a small group of families from the wild hills of Italy’s south had become the twenty-first century’s most formidable mafia.”