The Fourth K

Who read this book? I cannot find it

I've read it.
Its very good, all about politics & terrorism!
Quite apt in this day & age...
Try Amazon.com I'm sure they will have it.

I picked it up last week in a second hand shop for $1

A bargain no less

I just borrowed the book. It'll be my 3rd puzo novel. Any comments on it? ANtyhing i should know before i get started?

. . . in the fourth k puzo takes us inside the office of the president instead of inside the workings of don corleone's mafia empire like he did in the godfather. it makes sense that in his exploration of power puzo would write a novel about the presidency . . .

. . . my observations so far (i've only just started reading the fourth k) are that the fourth k is written in a style that is very white and very proper. it feels clean. puzo's white house is not the mafia, it's respectable government. maybe the fourth k gets dirtier as it goes on. we'll see . . .

. . . as usual puzo delivers: when the terrorists plot to kill the pope they do so savagely and brutally . . .

I read it over 12 years ago. It's a good read.

Loved it. Awesome. Ensares you instantly with Yabril and Romeo and the Papal assasination and Puzo's mad literary style (the Christs of Violence!)

Yabril. Sorta like a Bin Laden before Bin Laden (kinda sorta) Helen DuPrey, the oracle in fact its been far too long since ive read it, which is good cuz i can enjoy it all over again.

Hows this, Ive got every other Puzo paper-back in the 2000 reprints, still in pretty good nick. The only copy of "The Fourth K" i have is like 20 years old or something. Its ridiculous. And mouldy..

... i'm wondering if puzo even wrote the fourth k ...

... i'm finding it dry and somewhat disjointed. in some ways it's a disaster novel. don't forget, puzo wrote the script for the classic charlton heston movie earthquake. in the fourth k you've got a plane hijacking, an atomic bomb explosion destroying part of new york city, not to mention the destruction of the middle east country of dak (is there such a place?). it's weird how puzo just mentions these things then moves back to the political dialogue. lots of policitians talking. the destruction of dak itself wasn't really covered at all ...

... one interesting thing: a lot of the issues that arised a decade later out of the 9-11 attacks on manhattan are discussed in great detail in the fourth k, in particular the use of a very unorthodox interrogation technique on a couple of militant suspects and the president's determination to destroy dak in the face of great oppostion, including impeachment proceedings ...

... however the writing doesn't even feel like puzo to me. it's dry and broadly written and it seems like it was written by a policitian, not a mafia writer. the only part that feels to me like puzo actually might have wrote it is the hollywood stuff. that's where he loosens up ...

... if by writing the fourth k puzo was trying to prove he's an ultra-intelligent intellectual then he has done so. it's an interesting exercise in puzo's understanding of the american political system. nonetheless, it's somewhat disappointing in that it reads like a lesson in how the american political machine works ...

... the godfather is unparalleled and, while fools die is a very entertaining read, the last don is closest to the godfather ...

... maybe next i'll try the sicilian. i hear it's quite good ...

Yeah dude, totally Puzo. 100%. its funny how people percieve the same things
differently. I figure it as classic Puzo (well, maybe not classic, since he's
not writing about the mafia, but its definitely at least decent Puzo).
Sure its a little schlocky, but so what? Puzo can be a little schlocky if he wanted.

In my own experience, i've found the stories feel to differ based on the genre.
GodFather, Omerta, Last Don, they all have their respective families and their
patriarchs, the awe-inspiring GodFathers. I feel warm and cosy reading Puzo like
this, its what we love. So when Puzo gets all left-wing and decides to write a
politically charged story about a Kennedy, woman president and a Bin Laden type,
it just feels different. There's that classic Puzo device where the seperate
plotlines and characters begin to converge and crescendo, and he still gives nearly
every character at least a few lines of backstory. But instead of an all powerful
don and his family to root for and the little italianita's Puzo would insert, we
have a President Kennedy (traces of the don's here, with his advisors), the support
characters and their plot-lines (again, though in very different social spheres and terms
then the casts of the Family stories) dealing with a stern character as
Yabril (one of my favorite Puzo characters) in a completely different scope.

I picked up the Dark Arena a while back figuring i love GF so id have to like this,
right? Anyway, i just couldnt get in to that book, no matter how many times i tried
to pick it up. I force read a few chapters but i couldnt hook in. I know some people
really like it though.

The GF thing kinda ruined "The Sicilian" for me aswell; i thought the Sicilian in
question was a reference to Michael Corleone, instead of Turi Guiliano. Not that his isnt an interesting story,
but i was so geared up for a Puzo gangster story that i couldnt get into the Sicilian
in a big way. Nor the Borgia family saga he did. But The Fourth K? I like for some
reason.

Last Don? Awesome. Omerta? Awesome (although i still see Astorre a kind of a pussy)

... just finished reading the fourth k, puzo's tribute to the white house the kennedys ...

... oh, the k stands for kennedy, not the fourth thousand. yes, the terrorist yabril is a fascinating puzo character. some typically smart puzo wisdom in that his helen du pray character says that defeating your enemies is a matter of patience, not force. maybe not that profound, but very true ...

... funny, satirical sequence when the president takes a special lie detector test and is shown to actually believe his own lies ...

... cool book that covers a lot of ground ...

This is one of my favorites. This book is a great exploration of power, political corruption and the manipulation of the masses. I remember one character was one of President Kennedy's adviser. This guy is like a Rumsfield or Cheney. When Kennedy declares a war on terror after his daughter is murdered by a by a terrorist, Puzo anticipates a leadership determined to cherry pick, distort and lie about facts to fit policy. Puzo understood power all too well and what it does to people.