The Corsican
by William Heffernan
The bestselling saga of crime and international intrigue that lifted the gangster novel to astonishing new heightsDragged from the dank, rat-infested prison cell where he has spent the past few months, Buonaparte Sartene is given a choice: Join the French Resistance or rot in jail for the next seven years. The adopted son of a Corsican Mafia family, Sartene is a thief with a capacity for violence and a knack for subterfuge—valuable tools in the fight against the Nazis. But it is his other great gift—the ability to strike a deal—that changes Sartene's fortunes for good and propels this blistering, expansive thriller from the frozen forests of occupied France to the steamy jungles of Southeast Asia. In exchange for risking his life against the Germans, Sartene demands not just a pardon, but also the right to settle his family in the French colony of his choice when the war is over. Laos in the late 1940s is a land of delirious...