"You can live in America and unless you work in very specific industries, you can be entirely unaware that the mafia exists," Alexander Stille observes. "You cannot do that if you live in a city like Palermo. You live in Palermo, and you only have running water one day out of two. By law, water is supposed to be public and the government is supposed to provide it, but if it doesn't, you have to get your water where you can. So until recently, one third of the water supply in Palermo was supplied by known Mafia figures."

Stille's new book, Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic (Pantheon, $27.50), discusses the Mafia's near-stranglehold on southern Italy, and how it has been severely diminished in the last decade, especially due to the contributions of two men, Sicilian magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. These two men spearheaded prosecution of organized crime in the 1980s, and their assassination in 1992 led to a public outcry that not only intensified the war against organized crime in Italy, but also led to the eventual downfall of the Christian Democratic coalition that had governed Italy since the beginning of the Cold War.

The book moves through its events with the ease of a well-paced thriller, while managing to convey a great deal of information about the sociopolitical environment in which the mafia operated like a combination of Tammany Hall, a feudal fiefdom, and a vicious gang. Excellent Cadavers has been well-received in the States, and Stille hopes that its upcoming release in Italy will help keep public attention on the need to vigorously attack the Mafia. "Contrary to what many people believe, the mafia is not invincible," he notes. "The Mafia is an organization of about 5000 thugs, and they're not even necessarily that bright. They simply hold the power of life and death over people. They can be investigated, prosecuted, and convicted. Falcone and Borsellino proved that. When they were given proper government support, they achieved remarkable results. If the political will to deal with the Mafia is there, the results will follow. The tricky problem is having a government in place that understands the problem, is prepared to say no to votes that come from a certain direction, and is interested in continuing the work of the last three years."