Halls of the Dark Muse

I first started reading Mario Puzo when I was in high school and became a fast fan of his work. Part of it was driven by my interest within the Mafia which developed during high school after my discovery that the Mafia is part of my own family history, but beyond that I became captivated by his writing.

I find Puzo to be an engaging and talented writer. Fools Die was a marvelous book, one of my all time favorites of Puzo's. A captivating reed and extremely well executed that had me hooked from start to finish.

The Last Don was also quite a brilliant work and comes in closely behind Fools Die. Another work of great skill and depth.

One of the things which does provide through Puzo's work is the complexity and depth of his characters, the interesting and intricate plots, as well as his skillful prose work which grabs the reader by the throat and doesn't let go.

Well I recently started reading Omerta, which was published the year after Puzo died, and I instantly could tell something was drastically wrong.

At first I was conflicted with myself, as it had been a long time since the I have read Puzo, could my memory have failed me? Or could my future reading ventures have changed my perception of good writing?

I could not convince myself that my memory and my taste could have been so drastically deluded and wrong.

But Omerta was nothing like what I remember from Puzo's past works. Omerta comes off as shallow, the characters are not as well carved out and brought into full flesh and blood. The plot it fairly simplistic and lacks a certain believability. It just was not flushed out with the usual skill, talent, depth, expected. It reads like a cheap thriller.

I had began to have growing suspicions that Puzo never actually completely the manuscript and in fact it was completely be someone else after his death. I researched his subject but could not find much information to support the idea. I only found one review written by someone who seemed to hold the same opinion as I did.

I am left quite disappointed and baffled by the unfortunate result of this last book by Puzo.