Just finished reading the book last night.

I beleive the weakness lies in the underdevelopment of the characters and relationships we WANTED to learn more about - being Michael/Tom/Kay/Connie/Fontane.

What we GOT was the introduction of NEW characters, which we are aware of where the "fit" into the story - but we do not really "CARE" about.

I liked the parody of the JFK/Sinatra Shea/Fontane relationship. This was a bit TOO obvious - and whilst reading the book, I actually thought Corleones would "go after" the president. Dissapointed.

I liked the "twins" storyline - to an extent though. Too many pages were devoted to this - and i didn't "care" much about this development.

The Geraci plot was dead-set stupid. Underdeveloped, ilogical, a waste of space. Michael needed an "enemy" in this book - not a two bit pezzonovante traitor. The dialogue between these two characters was very poor - and portrayed Geraci as an idiot, and not a possible Corelone NY family Don.

The Fontane/Fratello/Fredo Corelone storyline reaked of the Sinatra/Dean Martin/Sammy David Jr relationship. Once again, maybe too obvious? Did the author just copy this straight from the history books?

Finally, I want to add that one thing that lacked in this book (and was very important in GF and GF1/2) was family. Where were the family dinners? celebrations? get togethers? festas? This sense of family (which is VERY VERY italian) was non-existant in this book.

The enjoyment i received from this book, was to hear a story about characters I love. The dissapointment, was that the story was not that great.

To all GF fans - read the book. It's not THAT bad. Just don't expect a thriller.