Business or Blood ─ Mafia Boss Vito Rizzuto's Last War

Bestselling crime writers Peter Edwards and Antonio Nicaso reveal the final years of Canada's top mafia boss, Vito Rizzuto, and his bloody war to avenge his family and control the North American drug trade.
Until Vito Rizzuto went to prison in 2006 for his role in a decades-old Brooklyn triple murder, he ruled the Port of Montreal, the northern gateway to the major American drug markets. A master diplomat, he won the respect of rival mafia clans, bikers and street gangs, and criminal business thrived on his turf. His family prospered and his empire grew--until one of North America's true Teflon dons finally lost his veneer. As he watched helplessly from his Colorado prison, the murders of his son and father made international headlines; the killings of his lieutenants and friends filled the pages of Canadian news; and the influence of the 'Ndrangheta, the Calabrian Mafia, spread across Montreal faster than the blood of Rizzuto's crime family. In 2012, Vito Rizzuto emerged from prison, a 66-year-old man who could carefully rebuild his criminal empire or seek bloody revenge and damn the consequences. From the events leading to his imprisonment to his shocking death in December 2013,Business or Blood is the final chapter of Vito's story.


From the Hardcover edition.

PETER EDWARDS has written for the Toronto Star for over 25 years, specializing in organized crime and justice issues. He is the author of 12 non-fiction books, includingThe Bandido Massacre: A True Story of Bikers, Brotherhood and Betrayal; One Dead Indian: The Premier, the Police and the Ipperwash Crisis; A Mother's Story: The Fight to Free My Son David (with Joyce Milgaard); andUnrepentant: The Strange and (Sometimes) Terrible Life of Lorne Campbell, Satan's Choice and Hells Angels Biker. Edwards has been awarded an eagle feather from the Union of Ontario Indians and a gold medal from the Centre for Human Rights.

ANTONIO NICASO is a bestselling author of 27 books on organized crime, a regular consultant to governments and law-enforcement agencies, a keynote speaker at symposia around the world, and a lecturer at several universities. He teaches postgraduate courses on the history of organized crime at School of Languages of Middlebury College at Mills (California). In Italy, Nicaso has co-authored 9 bestselling books, includingLa Malapianta (The Bad Seed, Mondadori), which sold more than 110,000 copies in its first year of publication.


From the Hardcover edition.