John Dickie is Professor of Italian Studies at University College London and an internationally recognised expert on many aspects of Italian history. In 2005 he was awarded the title Commendatore dell'Ordine della Stella della Solidarieta Italiana. He is the author of five books, including DELIZIA! which won the special commendation Andre Simon Food and Drink Book Awards, and in France was voted food book of the year in RTL/Lire magazine's prestigious poll. COSA NOSTRA, his history of the Sicilian mafia, has been translated into twenty-one languages, has sold over 750,000 copies, and won the Crime Writers' Association Award for Non-Fiction.
Yet Dickie thinks there are more reasons for optimism today than at any point in the past ... it's a point well made. * Financial Times * BLOOD BROTHERHOODS is almost certainly the most ambitious true-crime assignment ever. The result is a stunning success: a sprawling, powerful historical narrative that is the definitive story of Sicily's Mafia, the Camorra of Naples, and Calabria's 'Ndrangheta. * The <i>Adelaide Advertiser</i> * Magisterial ... absorbing. * </i>Scotsman</i> * By shining a light so powerfully into the darkest recesses of mafia mythology and history, Dickie's new book will certainly provide a concrete tool in the anti-mafia struggle to which many Italians and Calabrians in Australia and Italy are passionately committed. * <i>Australian Literary Review</i> * 'Fine social history and hair-raising true crime'. * <i>Independent</i> * 'Exciting and well-written... like a 19th-century Sopranos'. * <i>Shortlist</i> * His narrative bowls along, powered by the sort of muscular prose one associates with great detective fiction. An exhilarating history. * <i>Financial Times</i> * REVIEWS FOR MAFIA BROTHERHOODS: * . * 'I've been so unsettled by John Dickie's Mafia Republic - his angry and moving new history of the power of the Italian criminal fraternities since the Second World War.' -- Samira Ahmed * Big Issue * Chilling and eye-opening. -- Bill Emmott * The Times * John Dickie combines narrative skills in his description of skulduggery with excellent pen portraits of striking individuals...no one anywhere writes with such authority on Italy's criminal gangs. * Times Literary Supplement *