Mafioso: The bloody and compelling history of the Mafia - from its birth in Italy to its invasion of America and present-day global infiltration - told by an Australian undercover insider

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE MARK AND EVETTE MORAN NIB LITERARY AWARD 2022

The Mafia remains a subject of fascination around the world, depicted in books, films and TV series. But in his role as an undercover drug squad cop, Colin McLaren (bestselling author of JFK: The Smoking Gun) actually became a mafioso. After McLaren's extraordinary three years undercover in the Mafia, gathering the evidence to shut down a cell of 20 criminals, and following death threats, he travelled to Italy - into the lion's den - on an extraordinary mission in search of the very roots of the Mafia, seeking to understand its treacherous hold on criminal activity and the popular imagination.

This is the story of how the earliest Mafia aided politicians to invade Sicily, and how the mints and banks of Italy were looted and billions stolen. How ocean liners were used to smuggle Mafia into New York City, to establish the infamous Five Families. Aided by corruption, the earliest Godfathers conquered their territories on both sides of the Atlantic, reaching out like a slimy octopus. Since then, behind the distraction of global terrorism they have employed a labyrinth of commercial real estate, drug trafficking and investments to build their modern-day empire, estimated to be worth 400 billion Euros annually.

Mafioso also details the scourge of Mafia in Australia, as McLaren finds himself in the centre of it all, undercover, trying to solve a 1990s rampage of crime.

Author Bio

Colin McLaren was one of Australia's finest detectives; he travelled the world on high-end investigations during the 1980s and 1990s. He faced down the underbelly of Australian crime and his work has been the subject of many police genre documentaries and television series. A film of his own life, based on his hugely successful first book Infiltration, the true story of his efforts as an undercover cop, was made in 2011. Colin writes constantly and is a regular advisor to TV and film productions. His book on John F. Kennedy's death, JFK: The Smoking Gun, was an Australian bestseller. He is an Emmy judge and highly respected in the US as well as Australia for his investigative journalism. His style of writing is to burrow down in archives and hidden sources to find the indisputable facts to tell the undeniable truth.