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Features the mafia or organized crime - Extreme Reader 2025

Reading suggestions for anyone to enjoy that also work for the Extreme Reader 2025 challenge!

30 items

  • A fresh, smart, and fast-paced revenge thriller about a college basketball player who discovers shocking truths about his family in the wake of his father's murder.
    BookNew York, NY : Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2019] — F NIEH-D
  • A gangster comedy set in a restaurant in New York's Little Italy. The hero is Tommy Pagano, a chef who becomes involved in an FBI sting against the Mafia. A first novel by a cook, currently chef of The Supper Club in New York City.
    BookNew York : Bloomsbury, 2000. — F BOURD-A
  • Two criminal empires together control all of New England. Until a beautiful modern-day Helen of Troy comes between the Irish and the Italians, launching a war that will see them kill each other, destroy an alliance, and set a city on fire.
    BookNew York, NY : William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2022] — F WINSL-D
  • Set in northern Argentina, this grim crime novel centers on law-abiding Tomás Cruz, son of an infamous underworld thug, who can't escape his family's legacy of criminality.
    BookNew York, NY : Soho Crime, Soho Press, Inc., 2022. — F FERRA-N
  • Teen celebrity socialite Margo leads a double life as a cat burglar with a crew of four kickboxing drag queens, but when a big job goes belly-up, each one of them must rely on their special skills to survive the night.
    BookNew York : Feiwel and Friends, 2019. — YF ROEHR-C
  • Child prodigy Cadel Piggot, an antisocial computer hacker, discovers his true identity when he enrolls as a first-year student at an advanced crime academy.
    BookOrlando : Harcourt, Inc., 2007. — YF JINKS-C
  • A captivating debut novel about the tangled fates of two best friends and daughters of the Italian mafia, and a coming-of-age story of twentieth-century Brooklyn itself.
    BookNew York : G. P. Putnam's Sons, [2021] — F KRUPI-N
  • Two-time Pulitzer winner Whitehead (The Underground Railroad; The Nickel Boys) has fun and shows off his literary dexterity with this rollicking crime novel set in 1960s Harlem.
    BookNew York : Doubleday, [2021] — F WHITE-C
  • Hunting Whitey

    the Inside Story of the Capture & Killing of America's Most Wanted Crime Boss

    Sherman, Casey, 1969-
    For the first time, Boston reporters Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge draw on exclusive interviews and exhaustive investigative reportage to tell the complete story of Whitey Bulger, one of the most notorious crime bosses in American…
    BookNew York, NY : William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2020] — 364.1092 SH552H 2020
  • Ever since the tragic death of his parents, Porsche's life has been a balancing act between attending college and bartending to support his younger brother and pay off his deadbeat uncle's gambling debt. When he witnesses a gang of thugs…
    Book[Los Angeles] : Seven Seas Entertainment, [2024] — F DAEMI
  • Set in the 1950s, this thriller by Edgar Award-winning author Lori Roy reimagines the life of Marilyn Monroe, tying her fate to a dreamy teenager whose boyfriend runs afoul of the mob.
    BookSeattle : Thomas & Mercer, [2024] — F ROY-L
  • The Last Honest Man

    the CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, and the Kennedys--and One Senator's Fight to Save Democracy

    Risen, James,
    This is the tale of Idaho senator Frank Church, who challenged intelligence abuses following the Watergate scandal. In the process, he uncovered assassination plots by the CIA, links between the Kennedys and the Mafia, and the surveillance…
    BookNew York : Little, Brown and Company, 2023. — 973.92 CHURCH 2023
  • By turn surreal, tragic, and darkly funny, the 12 stories in this collection hold up a mirror to the unique landscape of Southern California's Inland Empire.
    BookBerkeley, California : Counterpoint, 2021. — F GOLDB-T
  • Scottoline brings nineteenth-century Sicily alive in this historical thriller with fairy-tale themes, revenge quests, and compelling heroes reminiscent of William Goldman's The Princess Bride.
    BookNew York : G. P. Putnam's Sons, [2023] — F SCOTT-L
  • When her dreams of rising through the police ranks like her late father crash around her, 26-year-old Emma Djan is unsure what will become of her life in Accra. Through a sympathetic former colleague, Emma gets an interview with a private…
    BookNew York, NY : Soho Crime, [2020] — MYS QUART-K
  • A wholesome rom-com featuring a handsome but oblivious mob boss and his young, simplehearted but moody second-in-command.
    BookEl Segundo, CA : Square Enix Manga & Books, 2024- — GN MOBST
  • Tokyo, 1979. Yoriko Shindo, a workhorse of a woman who has been an outcast her whole life, is kidnapped and dragged to the lair of the Naiki-kai, a branch of the yakuza. After she savagely fends off a throng of henchmen in an attempt to…
    BookNew York, NY : Soho Crime, 2024. — F OTANI-A
  • Born to an American mother and a late Afghan war hero-turned-magnate, Daniel Sajadi has spent his life navigating a complex identity. After years in Los Angeles, he is returning home to Kabul for the first time as the head of a US foreign…
    BookNew York, NY : Soho Press, Inc., [2020] — F AIMAQ-J
  • When a mysterious illness starts to affect the magical community, it's up to Ava, who can start fires with her mind, and her team to stop its spread...or else one of them might be next.
    BookNew York : Henry Holt & Company, 2017. — YF MCBRI-L
  • Queenie

    Godmother of Harlem

    Colomba, Elizabeth,
    Queenie follows the life of Stephanie Saint-Clair-the infamous criminal who made herself a legend in Harlem in the 1930s. Born on a plantation in the French colony of Martinique, Saint-Clair left the island in 1912 and found success in New…
    BookNew York : Abrams ComicArts Megascope, 2023. — GN 364.1066 C715Q 2021