Book excerpt: In pre-Katrina New Orleans, a detective spars with a mafia hitman to find the governor’s daughter in “the best Mafia novel since The Godfather” (Booklist, starred review). When Catherine Ducane disappears in New Orleans, the cops react fast—she is the Governor’s daughter, after all. But the case quickly grows very strange. Her bodyguard turns up horribly mutilated, and when the kidnapper calls, he doesn’t want money: he wants time alone with a minor government functionary. By the time the pieces fall into place, it’s already too late . . . A Quiet Vendetta is both the epic story of one mobster’s life—following him from Cuba to Chicago—and a powerful thriller of rage, love, and loss.