As good as The Godfather -- or better?

Hello,
THE GODFATHER has been my favorite novel for 30 years (ever since I first read it), but I'm itching to read something just as good or better. However, despite reading a book a month, I still haven't found a decent contender. Probably IN COLD BLOOD by Truman Capote (a very different book) is the closest, but hundreds of others I've read just don't match Puzo's masterpiece.
My question to you is: can you recommend a title worthy of standing on the same bookshelf as THE GODFATHER?
Thanks,
Pete

Welcome Pete, hope to see many good posts from you!

I've never read a Mafia-type novel that came close to GF, but there are plenty of great crime novels. I'd recommend two by the late George V. Higgins: "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" and "The Diggers Game," the absolute tops IMO.

If you want nonfiction on organized crime, you'll probably find the pickings pretty slim. Organized crime figures don't leave their collected papers and letters to university libraries for people like us to study, so the "research" in the nonfiction books on organized crime is pretty slim and the writing sloppy and sensationalized. Luckily, three major mobsters had excellent biographers. Look for "King of the Godfathers" (Joe Massino) by Anthony M. Destefano; "Little Man - Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life" by Robert Lacey; and "Capone" (same title) by two authors: John Kobler and Laurance Bergreen.

You can go over to our thread on Mafia books to get others' opinions. It starts here:

http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=200578#Post200578