Mafia Women

Book excerpt: Women in the Mafia are taking a leading role. They kill for revenge, buy arms, run extortion rackets, recycle drug money. Some want to be bosses themselves. Claire Longrigg has tracked these women down and they have talked to her at length. In this brave and vivid book she describes the traditional - and changing - role of women in the Cosa Nostra, both in Italy and the USA. She writes too, of how women have used their knowledge of the Mafia to escape from it, by turning informer to win freedom from violent marriages and to give their children a future. This movement has started a social revolution. The Mafia can no longer depend on women to be silent martyrs- in the future they will either be partners - or they will bring the organisation down.