If you are a fan of the popular tv series, or just like good books with romance, intrigue, and mystery, I highly advise you to obtain a copy of this wonderful book based on the tv show Falcon Crest, if you find one. You won't regret it, I assure you. I think they should start re-publishing it right now.

This is simply a great book

Having never been interested in books set amongst the backdrop of corporate banking, I bought this book one day when I was overseas and desparate to read something in English! At the time I paid a lot for the book and hoped that it would be well worth its price.

And it was. This book grabbed me from the very first instant. The craft with which Waller weaves an intricate web of espionage while at the same time portraying every action taken as above board because it is a Swiss action, is admirably and skillfully done. I don't want to give too much of the plot away, but the deceit, double dealing and portrayal of nasty players in a nasty world, is done brilliantly. In this world father will turn against son, uncle against niece, and no-one is above being bribed.

If you are at all interested in espionage, banks and money or even if you aren't, I'd recommend this book as an excellent read. You won't be disappointed.

It's not often that I read a book that's as bad as this one. I can't even explain why I didn't give up a fifth of the way through it....P>By the title, it's sort of obvious that it's going to be about the mafia. The write-up on the back of the book implies that things are going on between the mafia and various underground criminal organisations (for example, the Chinese Triad societies, Japanese Yakusa and ganglords), all set in exotic locations. Mafia Wars doesn't exactly deliver on this promise, except for gratuitous cuts to places that aren't completely relevant to the very-thin plot and vague references to organisations that never materialise. For instance: there is a link with an Asian-based drug cartel and someone gets blown away. Is some master criminal organisation behind this? Who knows? Who cares?

The "family" is peopled by a collection of flawed and unlikeable characters. I found that I didn't care what happened to any of them. The main reason these people are so unlikeable is because they don't seem to act in character. For instance, the "hero" (at least, I think that's what he's meant to be), Charlie, decides that he wants out of the family so that he can devote his life to philanthropical causes, due to meeting a Hopi Indian woman with whom he has fallen in love. Uh...right. My other gripe is that various plotlines were half-introduced and never completed. For example, Vince the Evil Mafia Man has supposedly killed his first wife for failing to conceive and his second wife is desperate to fall pregnant -- we also have Vince's nephews (at least, I think they were, I lost track of the family relationships because I just lost interest), who could possibly have been fathered by Vince -- so when Vince's wife conceives after having an affair, will Vince be vindicated and proved to be the virile stud that he perceives himself to be? We never find out.

The writing style is rather atrocious and is filled with some of the most horrendous similes I have ever read, as exemplified by: "The hand that held the printed list suddenly clutched it so violently that the paper creased in a dozen angry folds like a washrag used to sponge blood from packets of $100 bills." What is this supposed to mean? I read it three times and still couldn't make sense of it.

Mafia Wars isn't clever, it isn't witty, it isn't particularly well written or plotted and it's almost impossible to identify with any of the characters. We only have Leslie Waller's word for it that the characters are different people. The only distinction that I could see was Good Guys and Bad Guys. I wouldn't bother with this book; it was dreadful.