"Cosa Nostra vividly reconstructs the stories of the men and women who have lived and died in the mafia's shadow. It explains how the mafia began, how it responds to threats and challenges and how it maintains its grip on the society where it was born. Cosa Nostra takes us inside the thought-processes of the mafia's leaders and foot soldiers, its friends and its foes. Its cast of characters includes Antonino Giammona, the first man with a claim to the title 'boss of bosses'; Emanuele Notarbartolo, the honest and courageous banker who in 1893 became the mafia's first 'eminent corpse'; New York cop Joe Petrosino who underestimated the Sicilian mafia and paid for this with his life, and Bernardo 'the Tractor' Provenzano, the current boss of bosses who has been in hiding in Sicily since 1963."--BOOK JACKET.