No verão de 1943, os Aliados estavam prontos para invadir a Sicília. No entanto, o preço seria alto em sangue e tempo, a menos que o povo da ilha se revoltasse contra seus opressores nazistas. Mas apenas a máfia poderia comandar uma revolta, e o supremo da Máfia Antonia Luca odiava tudo o que era americano. Alguém realmente muito persuasivo era necessário para mudar de ideia. E eles não foram mais persuasivos que o homem conhecido como Lucky Luciano.

More legend than fact, this is a story about mafia leader Lucky Luciano's involvement in paving the way for the U.S. invasion of Italy during World War II. Not exactly a gripping and heart-stopping story, but an interesting enough story. ( )

Kurzweiliges Buch vor dem Hintergund der alliierten Invasion auf Sizilien. ( )

Luciano's Luck by Jack Higgins is very short, only two audio tape cassettes. It was a pleasant surprise. Since I had already read some reviews about the fiction in this historical fiction story, I did a little bit of research on this short chapter of history prior to listening to the cassettes. The story starts with General Eisenhower’s part in this and the author give some background information about Sicily. Jack Higgins says that Sicily had its own version of government and felt no allegiance to Italy. In fact each town in Sicily had its own capo and obedience was paid only to that capo not to those in other towns.

Basically the plan was to take Lucky Luciano aka Salvatore Lucina out of prison, commute his sentence and smuggle him to Sicily to rally the Sicilians and back the Allied Invasion. There were some secondary story which are probably the fictional part of the story.

I really enjoyed the male narrator’s voice which was a bit like Burt Lancaster’s. Both he, Tony Amendola and Judith Marx made it an exciting story to listen to. It was very entertaining and dramatic and Jack Higgins added some Sicilian cultural information. He said that when a woman was ready to deliver, a “witch” or streghe was sought out. There was some explicit sex but it was short. He also alludes to Sicilian customs that may have been carried over into the Mafia.

The best reason for listening to this story is that it can cause you to hunger for more details of history and more information on Sicilian culture.

If you have to chance to listen to this story, I highly recommend it. ( )

With handful of facts with shovel loads of fictionalisation this book covers mafia leader Lucky Luciano's involvement in paving the way for the U.S. invasion of Italy during World War II.

In the scheme of Jack Higgins books it's pretty good, in the scheme of literature in general it's at the lower end of the scale. Re-use of partial characters names and backgrounds from previous books distract from the story and overall it's a plodding tale lacking in excitement.

It passes the time well enough, but you wouldn't really be too excited to read it purely for the sake of reading. ( )