title: Godfather of Night: A Greek Mafia Father, a Drug Runner Son, and an Unexpected Shot at Redemption
author:  Kevin Pappas 
description: Reformed gangster Pappas offers a potent, fast-paced memoir: I didn't become a gangster out of greed, money, or to drive fancy cars. I got into it to make a point: To prove my manhood to a father who denied me. That father was Lukie Pappas, head of the biggest Greek crime family in the Southeast. At age 17 the author learned he was Lukie's illegitimate son. He changed his name from Kevin Cunningham to Kevin Lucas Pappas, but still received only a cold denial from Lukie. Angered by the rejection, Pappas began his own criminal life of swindles, drug trafficking, money laundering and racketeering. As a kingpin in Atlanta, he found the cocaine competition turning ugly: At age 24, he landed in the violent Atlanta federal prison. While serving two consecutive life sentences, Pappas agreed to an FBI offer: freedom in exchange for infiltrating his father's group as an informant: I walked out of prison full of anger and animosity toward my so-called father. Pappas is adapting this high-octane book into a documentary, scheduled for 2010 release. 8 pages of b&amp;w photos. <i>(Aug. 11)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  A NOTE FROM ANTHONY PUZO, SON OF MARIO PUZO
  
  
  Fifty years ago this month, the idea for _The Godfather_ was born. Tired of
  being broke and in debt, my father vowed to write a bestseller. When his two
  previous novels received terrific reviews but didn’t make a penny, he realized
  it was time to grow up and sell out. Or, as his family, friends, and creditors
  admonished him, time to put up or shut up.
  
  
  His publisher wanted a book about the Mafia, but there was just one problem.
  My father often said that he was embarrassed that he had never met an honest-
  to-God gangster. (Yet, a famous hoodlum said, “Puzo knew our life cold. He had
  the whole atmosphere, the way we talked. Either he was getting help or he was
  some kind of genius.”) But he had many stories as a boy growing up in Hell’s
  Kitchen. And he had read many volumes of books on the subject. Fortified by
  the transcripts he requested from the Library of Congress (the Valachi
  hearings had concluded), he felt confident he could writ