Mario Puzo was born in New York. He is the author of the bestselling novel The Godfather and many other acclaimed novels. Puzo also wrote many screenplays, including those for the three Godfather movies, for which he won two academy awards. He died at his home in Long Island, New York, at the age of seventy-eight.

"Hugely effective fiction ... [Puzo] keeps his pack with readers to unfailingly deliver the goods" Literary Review "Here is all the classic material of Mafia mythology ... spins a spell all its own" The Times "Puzo's genius was to create a world so thick with personality and acknowledged rules of behaviour, along with its crime and violence, that reading his books becomes a seriously guilty pleasure" New York Post